In earlier posts, drafts of different designs were implemented manually. In this section we provide you with a glimpse of what to be expected in the final designs. These intermediate designs are there to show some progress in the implementation of the entire visualization process. Figure 1 below was plotted using p5.js, to have an idea of the distribution of left footed (in blue) and right footed (in green) footballers in the European leagues mentioned in earlier posts.
In total, 3254 football players were under study. Figure 1 shows, the majority of the players are right footed (green dots), while a handful of them are left footed. Players from countries like Canada, New Zealand, Australia are shown to be right footed, as well as the majority of players from European, South American and African countries. At the final implementation of this design, Figure 1 is supposed to be interactive. Which means one can be able to zoom in and out and also move the side bar, which is located at the bottom left, from left to right to see different statistics.
Figure 2 is another design that is implemented at this stage. It is the combination of a line plot with a bar chart on a time axis that indicates the duration of the game as was discussed in earlier posts. The smart passes in all premier league games are compared with the shots produced in all premier league games over the duration of a soccer match. A smart pass is defined as 'a creative and penetrative pass that attempts to break the opposition's defensive lines to gain a significant advantage in attack', according to the Wyscout glossary.
Figure 2 shows that at least to some extent the number of smart passes in a game does seem to go hand in hand with the number of shots that can be produced in the period in which the smart pass is given.
An extra feature we plan to add to this visualization is to include not only smart passes but also the 'trivial passes' and to see whether the smart passes really do result in more chances, hence shots created, than trivial passes. Or can teams also get more shots towards the goal while they simply manage to give more trivial passes in a moment in-game?