The importance of possession

In 10 matches, how many would you expect the team with more possession to win?


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Ronan

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How many times in 10 matches would you expect the team with more than 50% possession to win? And why?
 
Good question. I chose 7, as an estimate - it could be 6 or 8, but I doubt it would be any lower/higher than that.

I don't think possession itself makes a massive difference in a match, especially if you are keeping it but not threatening their goal. However, in general (this is why I chose 7, not 9 or 10), teams which have the most possession in a match are the favourites, because they have the confidence and composure to keep the ball - so it's more about what being able to keep possession shows about a team's mentality, rather than the possession itself which wins matches, in my opinion. As I said, though, there are exceptions, and the popularity of counter-attacking nowadays makes it a hard question to answer.
 
Good question. I chose 7, as an estimate - it could be 6 or 8, but I doubt it would be any lower/higher than that.

I don't think possession itself makes a massive difference in a match, especially if you are keeping it but not threatening their goal. However, in general (this is why I chose 7, not 9 or 10), teams which have the most possession in a match are the favourites, because they have the confidence and composure to keep the ball - so it's more about what being able to keep possession shows about a team's mentality, rather than the possession itself which wins matches, in my opinion. As I said, though, there are exceptions, and the popularity of counter-attacking nowadays makes it a hard question to answer.
Interesting, I too predicted around 6. I ask this as I've actually carried out some research into the importance of possession as part of my extended project, and was wondering what people expected.
 
Interesting, I too predicted around 6. I ask this as I've actually carried out some research into the importance of possession as part of my extended project, and was wondering what people expected.

Somewhere between 5 and 6. Because it's not just about possession, but effective possession imo, ie keeping the ball in dangerous areas and actively creating chances. Interested in what your study will show.
 
I chose 6. Generally a team with 60%+ possession in any given game will win maybe 80% of the time, but that's a rare occurrence. If we just take this weekend's games as an example, the higher possession team won the game in 3/6 occurrences, suggesting no correlation, but of those wins, two of the winning teams had possession percentages of over 60% (Liverpool and United), suggesting a correlation between LOTS of possession and winning games. In other words, having more possession isn't that important; having LOTS more possession is.
 
I chose 6 as well. I do think the competition makes a difference though. Could maybe explore the data for different competitions if you have time as well, would be very interesting? For example ball retention is said to be very important at international level, but in the champions league, we've seen many examples of great counter attacking winning the game, the most obvious being Bayern vs Barca last season.
 
I chose 6 as well. I do think the competition makes a difference though. Could maybe explore the data for different competitions if you have time as well, would be very interesting? For example ball retention is said to be very important at international level, but in the champions league, we've seen many examples of great counter attacking winning the game, the most obvious being Bayern vs Barca last season.
Agreed. Some leagues are very-much based on counter-attacking, such as the Bundesliga and Serie A whilst others have teams who are more willing to hold onto the ball for a long time - La Liga, for example.
 
Somewhere between 5 and 6. Because it's not just about possession, but effective possession imo, ie keeping the ball in dangerous areas and actively creating chances. Interested in what your study will show.
I have already done the research phase - just using a poll for the evaluation part :). My sample of 200 games from the PL last season showed that when a team had more than 51% possession they averaged 46% Wins, 28% Draws, and 26% Losses. And also interestingly when having over 61% possession (39 out of the 200 games) the results were 63% Wins, 17% Draws, 20% Losses.
 
i reckon with possesion over 65 % u would win 8 or 9 out of ten which is why i always create a final 3rd poss tactic on fm13
 
got a new thread here and explains a bit on how possesion in key areas win u games, and 65 % of possesion would be domination so if the team lost it would be 1 time in a life time *(maybe 2) act of heroic defending and a lucky against the run of play set piece (most likley or counter attack with speedy non finisher forward ie agbonlahor) so i think 8 or 9 out of 10 posseson matters (but only in key areas)
 
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