Data Analysis: Switzerland vs Germany 13:1 – 04.12.2018

There was no doubt who will end on top in the game between Switzerland and Germany. Swiss floorball team scored first goal in 7th minute and just kept going until the scoreboard stopped changing with 13-1 result.

Let bring our goal scoring summary for you. This reveals from what types of possession were goals scored:

5-0 from slow attack possessions

4-0 from quick attack possessions

1-0 from odd man rush possessions

1-0 from turnover possessions

1-1 from power-play possessions

1-0 from shorthanded possessions

The total is … yeah 13-1. From now on we analyze only even strength situations. Swiss team did not need goals from dangerous possessions such as odd man rushes or turnovers. In fact due to their strategy Germany was able to yield more odd man rushes (3-6) but could not convert from them. Swiss team had big advantage in slow attack possessions (46-19) but Germans created had even more quick attack possession than opponent (19-24). So where was the difference?

First reason is the quality. Switzerland was able in their possessions yield much more dangerous situations and we call them *clear path opportunities.

Graph above shows in what share of possessions were team able to create clear path opportunities. There is a big difference in quick attack possessions. Yes, Germany tried to played quick and counter their opponent but they failed in executing against strong and tight defence of Switzerland. Also when Swiss team turned the ball over on offensive half they executed clear path on 67% of them. That is scary number. To ease your astonishment it´s good to add that Switzerland yielded just 6 situations like that so data sample contradicts strong words wrote

Overall, move on to clear path and also odd man rush opportunities summary.

Germany did not have bad first period and were able to keep up on these dangerous possessions and the score was cruel for them as they were outscored 4-0 (shorthanded goal did not help).

In next period Switzerland scored another three goals and created 11 clear path opportunities which is high number.

Trend countinued in the third with another clear path advantage for Swiss team (9-3).

Germany had their looks and some chances too and had enough to score some goals at even strength. They couldn´t but at least they scored one on power-play just less than 4 minutes before the final whistle.

This goal was well deserved as they pushed even more in final minutes of the game (see graph of shot attempts during the game below).

For the final graph clear path opportunities and odd man rush situations were selected for players.

Germany prevented odd man rushes against and so the graph does not look too bad for them. In fact their first line (Siede, Böttcher, Bröker N, Von Pritzbuer, Nihlén) ended the game with arguably solid differential in those dangerous possessions and they were good in odd man rush situations in particular. For Swiss team it was mainly second line (Bürki, Camenisch, Känzig, Hartmann, Hofbauer) who enjoyed playing against deeper defence as they created dominant clear path differential.

Gif part is coming. Cross field pass on offensive half is interesting aspect of the game and good teams are searching for this options to catch defence and goalkeeper on the wrong side of the play. Following gif shows perfect execution of such possession.

Notice the gap between defenders and forwards of Germany that is taken advantage of for the pass. Can Swiss next opponents prevent situations like this one?

*Clear path is a situation in which offensive player is located in dangerous area in front of the net, there is no defender between him and goalie and a real chance for this player to receive ball exists.

By Petr Malina