How the data predicted sensational scoring by Brazilian star Vinícius Júnior
The Brazilian star made a series of quick, precise dribbles with his right foot, allowing him to outmaneuver his defender and blaze an angled shot past the goalie.
At the 31-minute mark of Brazil’s World Cup opening match Saturday against Morocco, forward Vinícius Júnior received a clever pass from his teammate just inside the scoring box. The Brazilian star made a series of quick, precise dribbles with his right foot. Outmaneuvering his defender, he moved into a prime scoring position and fired a blazing, angled shot past the goalie. The ball sailed into the far right corner of the net, tying the game at 1-1.
See the graphic below for the sequence of events that led to the goal.
Brennan Klein, a researcher in Northeastern University’s Network Science Institute, could only shake his head and smile when talking about this goal. Not only had he tabbed Júnior as one of a handful of players to watch in the tournament, but he’d also described Júnior’s propensity to score in this exact way in NGN Offside’s preview story about 12 players to watch at the World Cup.
“It was textbook what you expect him to do,” Klein told Northeastern Global News Monday morning.
Júnior — along with Argentina’s Lionel Messi and France’s Michael Olise — were the three players Klein keyed on as an “overall threat” to score and assist on goals. Specifically, these three players have a high “on-ball value,” a metric that quantifies whether and by how much a player’s action increases or decreases their team’s probability of scoring on a given possession.
Read more World Cup analysis on NGN Offside →
Klein identified this same pattern of goal-scoring from looking at data from Júnior’s matches this past season playing for Real Madrid, when he scored 16 goals. Starting on the left wing, Júnior cuts in toward the middle of the box and shoots toward the far corner.
It was a spectacular goal, and one that also underscores the power of the data Klein and his team are digging into throughout the World Cup.
