How do strikers compare across different areas & roles? A data-driven approach.

Areas: Hold Up Play, Movement, Finishing, Creating, Defending
Roles: False 9, Poacher, Target Man, Second Striker, Wide Forward

A few notes to begin with:

First off, we looked at which forwards excel at holding up play for their teammates. One important thing we could not factor in yet is the quality of the ball played into that forward by his teammates.

Movement was arguably the most difficult to quantify as off-the-ball data is the hardest to find. One of the attributes we used was offsides. Although we understand that it could be viewed negatively, we used it as a measure of how many times a player runs in behind the defense.

Finishing: a striker’s ability to finish off chances is arguably the most important aspect of their play.

Creation: becoming a more important part of a striker’s skillset as strikers increasingly begin to drop deeper looking to create more.

Defending: pressuring opponents and defending well to force mistakes has become a vital aspect of forward play as teams continue to shift towards pressing from the front.

Now, the roles.

False 9: Used as pseudo number 10 in the modern game, they’re tasked with creating and facilitating play, involving themselves in buildup play, while still maintaining a goal threat.

Poacher: mainly focused on getting into the box, getting in good positions, and scoring goals.

Target Man: focused on holding up the ball for his teammates using his physicality and ball control. Still looked at as a goal threat for his team.

Second Striker: playing off of another striker, his focus is on linking the midfield to the attack, creating chances, getting into the box, and scoring.

Wide Forward: usually playing off the flanks, they differ from traditional wingers in that their focus is mainly on drifting inwards from wide positions to provide a goal-scoring threat. Ideally, we would’ve liked to include runs from flanks to center.

Next up, we’d like to highlight some players. First, Lionel Messi, an elite creator and goal-scorer.

Cristiano Ronaldo: Not as explosive as he once was, he is still an elite scorer and is capable of playing anywhere across the front line.

Kylian Mbappe: It’s easy to forget that he is still only 21 years old. This season the Frenchmen has shown an aptitude for a number of different roles. The future continues to look brighter and brighter for Kylian.

Robert Lewandowski: after a scorching start to the season, Lewandowski has not looked back. One of the best goal-scorers of the modern era.

Sadio Mane: In many ways, Mane is the prototypical wide forward for the modern game.

If you’ve reached the end, thank you for getting this far. It isn’t perfect so thoughts & ideas on how to improve it would be appreciated.

Shoutout to @barca_natics for the help. Stay tuned for tomorrow as we release a few more player highlights!