Possession tells viewers who has the ball, but FIFA's Match Momentum aims to capture how threatening a team's position and movement are. Arron Ackerman explains how pressing, acceleration, and space creation can make a team dangerous before it wins possession. The discussion with Juan Busso and Lester Nare shows why the team wanted a measure that could recognize more than sustained time on the ball.
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Players can create useful space and attacking opportunities while their team is out of possession.
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Pressing can reduce an opponent's options while putting the pressing team in a better position if it regains the ball.
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The guests describe tracking movement and spacing as essential context that a possession percentage cannot provide.
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19:13distinct from how momentum is defined here and quantitatively speaking when we say momentum as unique from possession like what are we really like I just want to dig deeper on that what are we really saying in the difference there in the storytelling Juan, do you want to go or I'm happy to go? >> Go. I I'll I'll jump later. >> Sure. So, quantitatively, what we're saying is that we already have a good understanding of what good looks like, let's say, right? Um because we have, you know, a lot of data that shows us what good looks like. So, we work
19:54backwards from what good looks like, right? And we look we work backwards or in a sense that just because you don't have the ball or just because you're not close to the goal necessarily in this moment that you do not have a potential threat on the opposition. Right? So quantitatively you have a really high line. you have uh a player moving at an acceleration pace of X, you know, which we know is getting closer to goal um at a certain rate which we know causes uh a level of threat that you also see a dispersion of the other players. So quantitively we know that all of these
20:36movements are creating space and space is what ultimately um creates the greatest amount of threat. And then when you take space creation closer to goal at a speed, that is when you get the most threatening moments. Forget about the ball for a second. That is that is ultimately what you then have. So when you are then without the ball, you're sat in a really deep position, for example, and you have multiple players going and pressing the opposition who yes, we have a one to say that that opposition team are in uh in possession of the ball. we quantitatively know the speed at which they are closing that space down and therefore reducing the threat of opposition but also increasing
21:16their own threat should they then get the ball all of a sudden okay bang there you go right so if you if you don't take all of those things into consideration what you just have is you have possessionbased metrics which is not what momentum is momentum team having a momentum isn't a possessionbased metric
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