Defensive Duel

When a player attempts to dispossess an opposition player to stop an attack progressing.

S. Kryvtsov in a defensive duel against İ. Gündoğan.

Details

• A Defensive duel is always paired to an Offensive Duel from the player of another team.

Attributes

Successful: Yes / No

If the defensive player stopped the progression of the attacking player with the ball and didn't commit a foul, the defensive duel is considered won (and the linked offensive duel is considered lost). See the full definition in Offensive Duel.

Examples of a won defensive duel:

1. defending player dispossesses the attacker
2. defending player kicks the ball out
3. the attacker stays with the ball, but the defender forces him to go back

If a defending player lets the attacking player progress with the ball, it's considered a lost defensive duel (and a won Offensive duel for the player with the ball, see Offensive duel for more details).

Outcome: Clearly won (API tagId 703) / Clearly lost (API tagId 701) / Neutral (API tagId 702)

A less sophisticated algorithm for defining the outcome of the duel. If the next action of the duel is one of the players in the duel, the duel is assigned a clearly won value to this player and a clearly lost value for his opponent. All other cases are neutral.

Anticipation (API tagId: 20): Yes / No

A defensive player is positioning himself better to reach the ball first. Used together with the Beaten to the ball attribute in a corresponding Offensive duel.

Available metrics

Defensive duels / 90 minutes

Number of defensive duels normalized per 90 minutes.

Defensive duels won (%)

Percentage of won defensive duels.