The correlation of the penetrative pass on offensive third with the possession of the ball in high level soccer

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The aim of this research was to investigate whether in the Greek Super League, ball possession is related to the penetrative passes made in the offensive third and whether the penetrative passes made in this area are correlated with goal scoring.METHODS: The forward successful pass, which penetrates the final defensive line, was defined as a penetrative pass. Data were taken from all the matches (240) of the Greek Super League 2018-2019 and the sample consisted of the 16 teams participating in the competition. Data on the percentage of ball possession and the number of goals were downloaded from Instatscout platform. The videos used to extract the number of penetrative passes were also downloaded from Instatscout. Pearson correlation was used for statistical analysis. Furthermore, factor analysis was conducted to locate the relationships between the variables and the statistical significance was set at P<0.05.RESULTS: The results showed a high correlation between ball possession and penetrative passes (P<0.001, r=0.818). A high correlation was also found between possession and goals (P<0.001, r=0.862) but also between penetrative passes and goals (P<0.001, r=0.954).CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, possession of the ball in the Greek Super League seems to play an important role in the success of the teams as both the number of penetrative passes and the goals achieved are increased. The results of the study may influence the planning of both the offensive and defensive phase of training sessions.