Son to leave Tottenham this summer after 10 years
The South Korea international joined Spurs from Bayer Leverkusen in 2015 and has scored 173 goals in 454 appearances.
He was captain when Tottenham beat Manchester United in the Europa League final in May to clinch their first trophy in 17 years.
The 33-year-old, who is under contract with Spurs until 2026, is in advanced negotiations with Major League Soccer side Los Angeles FC.
Son described the decision as "the most difficult one I have made in my career" as he spoke to media alongside new manager Thomas Frank.
"I came to north London as a kid - a very young age, a young boy came to London who even didn't speak English," Son said.
"Leaving this club as a grown man is a very, very proud moment."
Tottenham are in Seoul as part of their pre-season preparations, with Son set to start and skipper the side against Newcastle in their friendly on Sunday - meaning his final appearance for the club could come in his home country.
Frank, who replaced Ange Postecoglou as head coach in June, described Son as "a true Spurs legend" and "one of the greatest players to play in the Premier League".
"If that is the last game for Sonny, what a place to do it here in front of his home fans," Frank said.
"It could be a beautiful ending."
Tottenham also face Paris St-Germain in the Uefa Super Cup on 13 August, but Son may depart by then.
'I need new environment to push myself'
Son said winning a title in Europe with Spurs "felt like I had achieved everything I possibly could".
He made his Tottenham debut in September 2015 and went on to make 333 Premier League appearances.
He scored 127 times in the league - level with former Chelsea striker Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink at 16th in the league's all-time scorers list, above the likes of Dwight Yorke, Steven Gerrard and Ian Wright.
He became the first Asian player to win the Premier League golden boot, sharing the title with Liverpool's Mohamed Salah with 23 goals in the 2021-22 season, and a year later was the first from the continent to reach 100 Premier League goals.
He featured in the Champions League final against Liverpool in 2019 - which the Reds won 2-0 - and took over as club captain from Hugo Lloris in August 2023.
"I need a new environment to push myself. I need a little bit of change - 10 years is a long time," Son added.
"I spent a lot of time reflecting on whether I wanted to experience football in a different environment, and I had those conversations with myself over and over again."
Son also provided 101 assists in all competitions and holds Spurs' record for Premier League assists with 71.
He has also made the sixth-most appearances in the history of the club - behind only Cyril Knowles, Pat Jennings, Gary Mabbutt, Steve Perryman and Glenn Hoddle.
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New York Times
32 minutes ago
- New York Times
Ranking every Premier League home kit for 2025-26: Wavy brilliance, retro styling and a nod to shepherds
A new season and new threads to enjoy — unless, of course, your team already wore their 2025-26 home kit last season for marketing purposes. As ever, the beginning of a campaign means new strips for all 20 Premier League clubs and that has stirred The Athletic's resident kit critic Nick Miller into action. He has cast his eye over every fresh home shirt that we'll see when English football's top flight gets back underway next week and has rated them from worst to best. Dive into the list below. This placed 32 out of 32 in our Club World Cup kit rankings, and not much has changed my opinion since. If you've ever been on holiday to a place where English football is popular, but isn't necessarily touched by stringent copyright laws, you might be familiar with this sort of design. Essentially, this looks like a very unofficial Chelsea shirt, designed by someone who knows two things: that Chelsea play in blue, and they play in London, so have produced something that you might expect to see on a roadside stall somewhere, alongside a clothing that says "MY MUM WENT TO LONDON AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT" on it. It might as well have a British bulldog and a picture of the Queen on it. Brentford have switched from Umbro to Joma as their kit manufacturer this season, their fifth in the Premier League, so they're very much part of the furniture now. But this shirt has a significant 'Championship/League One yoyo club' feel to it, the sort of thing that Brentford might have worn…well, when they were a Championship/League One club. Maybe this is a prediction in kit form, a comment on the turbulent times that Brentford are going through, a suggestion that they will actually be in the Championship/League One soon. Obviously this isn't true, football kits take years to design and produce, but there is just something about this that doesn't feel quite right. Sorry Brentford, sorry Joma. West Ham are among a few teams who have called their own home kit a "modern classic in the making", which doesn't feel like the sort of thing you can declare about your own gear. We'll be judges of that, thank you. They also report that this shirt is "stripped back to create a clean, minimalist look for the new season", which is very true and without context, looks pretty nice. But where's the blue for the claret and blues? It's relegated to the collar and cuffs and a little triangle underneath the armpits. It's not the first time that they've pulled this stunt, but it just doesn't feel like a West Ham shirt. The general Adidas theme this year is a mid-2000s retro nod, with the curved piping down from the armpit to the hip referencing kits from circa the 2006 World Cup. Takes you back, doesn't it: Jose, Frank and JT are all together for Chelsea again, electro clash bands are riding high in the hit parade and everyone is strutting around in low-rise jeans. Which is fine, but on this Villa kit it feels like an element too many: with the retro piping, the Adidas stripes on the shoulders, the detail on the cuffs (referencing the Villa Park facade) and the background pattern on the main body of the shirt, it's just all a bit too…busy. Crystal Palace are selling this season's home shirt in both standard and 'body' fit, the latter being the skin-tight fit that the actual professional athletes wear. If you're not a professional athlete and feel confident enough in your physique to go for the body fit, and aren't nervous about every undulation in your stomach and every slice of pizza you've eaten to essentially be on display, then fair play to you. For the rest of us, the standard fit will do nicely. It's a fairly straightforward design and the white pinstripes between the thicker main stripes break things up a bit, but what's going on with the thick white stripes on each sleeve? Why? It just looks a bit distracting, like wearing a neon bucket hat with a suit: everyone's eyes are going to be drawn to that, rather than the rest of the pretty good shirt. Pretty route one stuff here from Brighton and Nike. Blue and white stripes. No other colours. No real trim. Bit of a white collar. White cuffs. Done. Bosh. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing: sometimes, simple and route one is good. The only real gripe I would have is that the band across the middle of the shirt, housing the sponsor's logo, seems to get bigger and bigger every year. American Express started sponsoring Brighton in 2013, and they've always had an accommodation for their branding, but if you look at the evolution of their shirt over the years it has grown, to the point now where it looks a lot like the shirt is actually built around it. Got to pay the piper and all that, but it feels very ostentatious. There are a few staples of your classic seaside gift shop: lewd postcards, T-shirts with slogans aimed at stag dos, mountains of the local sweet 'delicacy'…and those weird little bottles with multicoloured sand, arranged in a theoretically whimsical and enchanting fashion. It's always slightly unclear what you're supposed to do with them, but Umbro have clearly found a purpose: the inspiration for Bournemouth's new home shirt. This is your classic red and black stripes, but with a 'rippled sand' pattern on the red bits…because Bournemouth is on the coast! It's by the seaside! Where sand is! It's good stuff. Actually, the pattern looks a bit more like the streaks on a car windscreen that just won't be shifted, but I guess you have to do something if you want to be a bit different with stripes. It's great when a kit is inspired by something particular to the club, a detail that adds a little something individual to the shirt and thus isn't just a cookie-cutter design. But is that negated a bit if you have to read the sales notes of the shirt to understand what it is? When you're told that the squiggly lines on this Burnley shirt are a reference to the topography of the hilly area around Turf Moor, it makes perfect sense. But if you don't read that, it looks like someone at Castore left the shirt with their two-year-old child and a box of crayons. Which isn't to say it's necessarily bad. Points awarded for a little thought and imagination, at least. There's something about Fulham which conveys reliability, predictability, comfort even. They'll finish somewhere between ninth and 13th. They'll sometimes play some nice football. They'll be a home for some nice young players who weren't quite good enough for the biggest clubs. So maybe it's appropriate that they have one of the more basic kits you're likely to see. It's fine isn't it, nothing really to complain about, nice and clean…but from any further away than a couple of yards, it's just a white shirt with some black bits on it. Peer a little closer and you'll see a quite nice pattern that references the wrought iron on the gates of Craven Cottage, but beyond that the only notable thing is that they seem to be wearing white rather than black shorts this season, which will look quite weird for a while. Often, the fuzzy edges that sometimes end up on the stripes of shirts can get quite annoying, but you assume that designers are just doing it to add something slightly different to a set format. Apparently not in this case. This is from the blurb on the Adidas website: "The time-honoured shepherd's check pattern added to the edges of the stripes on this Newcastle United FC jersey create blurred transitions that really catch the eye". So yeah…inspired by…shepherds. We're assuming this isn't a tribute to Freddie Shepherd, the former Newcastle chairman who was viewed as reasonably unpleasant in the 1990s. But still…shepherds. We reviewed this shirt before the Club World Cup, and with the benefit of seeing it in action, it does look pretty nice. If you're a sash fundamentalist, you could argue that it should be left to those who commit to it - your River Plates, your Perus - rather than just dipping in for one season, but this works quite nicely, even if it does look a bit like it's been applied by a half-hearted painter-decorator. It's also exactly the right shade of blue for City, which is crucial. There are two types of people in this world: those that think the trim on Manchester United's home shirts should be predominantly white, and those that think it should be predominantly black. The latter group holds sway this year, but there's enough of a nod to the former to keep them interested, at least, with some white amongst the black on the collar and cuffs. According to the Adidas blurb, this shirt "pays tribute'" to United's home, with some "abstract Old Trafford-inspired graphics on the sleeves". Now, abstract can mean many things, but in this case it appears they mean: "you basically can't tell what they're supposed to represent so you can just say they relate to whatever you like". If you want a proper Old Trafford graphic on a shirt, spend hundreds on a retro 1994 edition instead. Real retro vibes to this Wolves shirt, both in a macro and a micro sense. Pull back, view it from a bit of a distance and it could look like a recreation of a shirt from the 1970s, worn by someone with a big bubble perm and a nice thick moustache. But go in close, and it has a variety of background designs on the main body of the shirt that reference assorted elements of the club's past, including a version of what the club's badge used to look like back in the 1970s. All of which gets a big thumbs up here: it might be manufactured by Sudu, which are essentially an in-house company backed by Wolves owners Fosun, but they've nailed it here. Nottingham Forest announced their new home shirt on the same day that it emerged Morgan Gibbs-White was heading to Tottenham, which turned out not to happen, but was not ideal timing, particularly as this shirt references the 1992-93 version, when Forest also sold their best attacker to Tottenham (Teddy Sheringham), and subsequently got relegated. Still, that's all behind them now, and this is a pretty nice shirt, continuing Adidas' continuing love affair with the pinstripes this year along with some good, simple trims. There are gripes - it probably would've looked cleaner without the secondary pinstripes, the shield around the Forest crest makes it look a bit 'Pro Evo 2004' - but overall: strong. In the years since Arsenal returned to the warm embrace of Adidas in 2019, they have mucked around with the iconic three stripes on the sleeve quite a bit: they've had blue, a slightly darker blue, white, gold and sometimes no stripes at all. But the classics never go out of style, and in this case the classics are the combination of white sleeves and red stripes. It just works, doesn't it? It fits. It feels like an Arsenal kit. There's a bit of variation here with the repeated background pattern of the stylised Arsenal 'A', but otherwise it's back to basics here. And that's alright by us. Very good. You could gripe about the size of the sponsor's logo, and you wouldn't really be wrong: you can see that thing from space, and both the Nike swoosh and the Spurs badge look like they've been squeezed in above it. Also, anyone who has lived in a bad rented house might recognise the background pattern, which is reminiscent of the awful ceilings you sometimes get in the bathrooms of those places, the sort of material whose only real purpose seems to be as a vector for mould. But if you ignore those things, this is a really nice shirt, the broadly plain white front of the shirt framed by the dark blue bands from the shoulders and into the armpits. It's a new era for Tottenham Hotspur, and they're going to look right smart in it. There are arguably more important things in life than who makes a particular football club's football kit. But there are some team-manufacturer duos that just seem to make the world a more ordered place. Denmark and Hummel. Brazil and Nike. And then there's Liverpool and Adidas. They've been apart for 13 years, with Nike, New Balance and Warrior (?!?!??!?) sharing duties in the intervening years. But they're back together now, and it's delightful, this shirt giving a healthy nod to the ones they wore circa 2007 - think Fernando Torres, Xabi Alonso, Dirk Kuyt…Andriy Voronin. They announced this with an Alice In Wonderland themed video for some reason, but eccentric marketing choices aside, it's the winningest of winners. Sometimes you have urges that make you feel slightly ashamed of yourself. The guilty pleasure. The sort of thing that you're instinctively drawn to, but then your logical brain kicks in and you stop and check yourself. A relatively minor one of mine is that the Red Bull logo actually looks pretty good on - nay, perhaps even enhances - any kit it's on. It's a tricky feeling, for someone who a) thinks Red Bull the drink is disgusting and b) is philosophically opposed to the multi-club model they essentially pioneered, but the heart wants what it wants. And in this case the heart wants a delightfully simple Leeds shirt, with tremendous detail around the collar and cuffs (which references the tunnel many Leeds fans walk through to reach Elland Road, apparently), and is…regrettably…finished off quite nicely by those two rutting bulls. Listen, nobody is perfect. There are many reasons to welcome the return of Sunderland to the Premier League, but one of them is the presence of Hummel in the top flight, and as ever it has delivered here. If you're nit-picking, there's probably a touch too much black on the shirt (which isn't bad, it just makes them look a bit Brentford-y or Sheffield United-y), but otherwise this is a special thing. It's quite 'retro 1980s' in an era where retro now means the mid 2000s, which is quite comforting for those of us of slightly more advanced years. The pattern on the white stripes is apparently inspired by the Wear Footbridge near the Stadium of Light, but what really matters is that this looks sensational. Welcome back. This is absolutely exceptional. The wavy lines are a reference to the River Mersey, on the banks of which Everton will be playing this season at…sorry, it's been a couple of months and it still sounds utterly ridiculous…the Hill Dickinson Stadium. They look tremendous, and while it might not be a deliberate tribute to Everton's kits of their real glory days in the mid/late-eighties, this shirt does remind you of that a little bit. Kit appreciators of a certain mindset went into deep mourning when Everton went from Hummel to Castore, a brand that reeks of rugby, but if they're going to produce shirts that look like this all the time, then sign me up for a day at Twickers drinking pints with Hugo and Jonty. (Top photos: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton) Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
New York Times
32 minutes ago
- New York Times
Dominik Szoboszlai and the new battle for Liverpool's No 8 role
When Dominik Szoboszlai arrived at Liverpool in 2023, he was handed the iconic No 8 shirt — and it may be the No 8 role that becomes his home this season. The signing of attacking midfielder Florian Wirtz for a potential club record £116million ($155m) was an opportunistic move and one that was set to have knock-on effects for a number of his new teammates. Advertisement The German's arrival, along with the other additions made this window, including forward Hugo Ekitike and full-backs Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez, have had supporters discussing their best line-up for the upcoming campaign. Given Wirtz's position, Szoboszlai was naturally often the odd man out. Ryan Gravenberch, Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai were head coach Arne Slot's preferred midfield trio last season. They started 21 of Liverpool's 38 league games last season, winning 81 per cent of those matches (17). When one of those three didn't start, that win percentage dropped to 47 per cent. It was a midfield three that was influential in securing the Premier League title, yet the arrival of Wirtz means that it is unlikely to be seen frequently this season. The 22-year-old is a versatile attacker who could play as a false nine or from the left flank, but it has been pretty clear from pre-season that he will be operating from the No 10 position. Szoboszlai had made the No 10 position his own last season. He played a crucial part in possession but was arguably even more important out of possession, leading Liverpool's press and providing a relentless work rate, which included covering the space behind Mohamed Salah. The question marks surrounding Szoboszlai as a No 10 came from his output. He finished the campaign with eight goals and nine assists in 49 appearances in all competitions. It was a solid return and went some way towards answering the challenge laid down by Slot early last season about goal contributions being a must from the player operating in that position. Wirtz brings greater creativity and technical threat, so is an understandable upgrade, but when given the opportunity, Slot always heaped praise on Szoboszlai. After the 4-1 victory over Ipswich Town in January, where Szoboszlai scored the opening goal, Slot told reporters during his post-match press conference: '(It was) nice for him, because he's, in my opinion, a bit underestimated,' Advertisement 'Not by me, but he doesn't always get the credit for the fact he's very important for this team because his work rate is un-be-lievable. He just keeps on running with the highest intensity and that is so important for a team that wants to compete for something.' Those comments are not the type of thing a head coach would say about a player who was not going to remain a crucial part of his team moving forwards. Yet he is now faced with the positive conundrum of who plays in the two midfield spots behind Wirtz. Mac Allister was Liverpool's most important midfielder in the second half of the campaign, operating in the No 8 role. As focus increased on stopping the influential Gravenberch, who is unlikely to be shifted from the starting No 6 role, it allowed his partner in the double pivot to flourish. While he was not missing often, there was a noticeable decline in the midfield's effectiveness when the Argentine was absent — examples include the first half against Southampton and extra time against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League last-16 second leg in March. He provides control in possession and often sets the tempo. His performance in the 5-1 victory over Tottenham on the day Liverpool clinched the league title was a masterclass. Not only does he knit everything together on the ball, his defensive output can often go underappreciated. Therefore, entering this season, to suggest he is not part of Liverpool's first-choice starting XI seems ridiculous. Yet the injury which saw him ruled out of Liverpool's final two Premier League games last season delayed his start to pre-season and has allowed Szoboszlai to stake his own claim for the No 8 role — and he has taken that opportunity. The Hungarian has enjoyed an excellent build-up to the new season. He has looked like a leader and has been sharp from the moment the whistle blew in the first friendly against Preston North End, playing in the No 10 role that day and then right-back against Stoke City. In the last three games, he has predominantly played in the left-sided No 8 role. Advertisement In the deeper role, Szoboszlai's rounded skill set and engine has allowed him to flourish without the pressure of providing the final pass or finishing off a move. He defines 'box-to-box midfielder' and has been able to show his ball progression capabilities and passing range while still joining in with attacks. In this example, Szoboszlai received possession and clipped a ball in behind the Athletic Club defence for Frimpong. He then joined the attack and was in position for a tap-in, but Cody Gakpo elected to shoot rather than cross. Trent Alexander-Arnold played an important role in Liverpool's build-up, particularly with his long passes down the line or across the pitch. Following his departure, Szoboszlai can provide that instead, as he did with the cross-field pass which began the move for Liverpool's opening goal in the 3-2 defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion at the end of last season. Against Athletic, he began the move which nearly saw Wirtz net his first goal at Anfield, again with a clipped pass into the right channel. He is also a powerful runner, and can move Liverpool up the pitch very quickly. That was on show for Liverpool's first goal against Athletic as Szoboszlai drove forward and released Hugo Ekitike. His low cross was finished by Salah. There are also the tactical implications of having a No 10 in the mould of Wirtz rather than Szoboszlai. Wirtz is not an old-fashioned No 10 who had a free role and limited defensive responsibility. The attacker is a willing contributor off the ball, but the running Szoboszlai did from that position last season sometimes hindered his ability to influence the game in the final third. It would make little sense to risk the same happening to the new marquee signing. If that is the case, more responsibility would be placed on the deeper midfield – and whoever is playing right-back – potentially requiring them to cover more ground. Szoboszlai is more athletic than Mac Allister and can move from one penalty box to the other in a matter of seconds, an important attribute to combat opposition counterattacks. The example below shows Szoboszlai pressing an Athletic midfielder in the opposition half, before recovering to dispossess another in his own half. He also has height on his side, which will be a factor against certain opponents given Liverpool's lack of size at full-back. The signing of Ekitike has helped the balance of the side, and a potential addition of Isak would too. Mac Allister has his own skill set and ability to read the game which makes him just as effective in all departments, even if he does not possess the raw speed. In the limited game time he has had in pre-season, his own qualities have stood out. In the final half an hour against Yokohama F Marinos, for example, the 26-year-old established control for his side. Advertisement It highlights the enhanced options Slot has going into this season thanks to the additions and the versatility of the midfielders he already has in the building. If anything, the pair may share the role, allowing each other to get sufficient rest throughout the campaign so they are fresher entering the final months of the campaign. Curtis Jones will have a say in all this too. He has also had a strong pre-season and played in the No 8 role when Mac Allister was absent in 2024-25. He is another who can play in all three of the midfield roles and he will be keen to build on a solid season last year. The fight for minutes is set to begin, and it will provide Slot the type of headache that all managers love. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
New York Times
32 minutes ago
- New York Times
Introducing The Athletic's new player-style pizza charts
Even those with a moderate interest in data will have seen that player pizza charts are a staple visualisation in the world of football analytics. These graphics can be a valuable starting point in breaking down a player's stylistic profile with a single glance, with this style of visualisation being a key theme at The Athletic over the years, from smarterscout pizza charts to team playstyle wheels. Advertisement This summer, we have had a refresh. Allow us to present our player pizza charts 2.0 — all right, maybe the title could be catchier, but the visual is exciting. Here, we use Opta data (via FBref) to create some new metrics broken down into defence, possession, progression and attack across Europe's top five leagues — the Premier League (England), Bundesliga (Germany), La Liga (Spain), Ligue 1 (France), and Serie A (Italy). However, rather than the same metrics for every player across every position, we now have bespoke graphics with metrics that are most relevant to the respective position. First, how do you read these player graphics? Much like other pizza charts in The Athletic's suite, each player is given a 'percentile' rating between zero and 99 for each metric. Put simply, the higher the number, the more frequently — or efficiently — the player performs this action compared with their positional peers. Instead of inundating you with endless 'per 90' numbers, we prefer to strip things back and present the percentile numbers, alloing you to assess a player's stylistic profile easily and quickly. You may also notice that we have rebranded a few established metrics to ensure we are speaking 'football language' throughout and not drowning you in any technical terms. So let's walk you through what we have, alongside some examples… Front-foot defending — this looks at how often a player goes hunting for defensive actions, measured as tackles attempted, challenges attempted, fouls committed, interceptions plus blocked passes per 90 minutes. To account for the opportunity to perform such actions, this metric is adjusted for a team's possession. Tackle success — this looks at the percentage of tackles won as a share of all tackles attempted, challenges attempted and fouls committed. Back-foot defending — this looks at more reactive defensive actions, measured as blocked shots and clearances per 90 minutes. Again, this metric is adjusted for a team's possession. Loose ball recoveries — this shows how often a player retrieves the ball when neither side has it. A good proxy for a player's inclination to hoover up potential danger or anticipate where the ball is going to land to restart their team's possession. Advertisement Aerial volume — simply a player's aerial duels contested per 90 to indicate their propensity to compete in the air. Aerial success — you will have guessed this one. The percentage of aerial duels won as a share of total aerial duels contested. An easy example to run through is Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk. As illustrated below using last season's stats, the centre-back regularly competes for headers (Aerial volume, 79 out of 99) and is one of the best in Europe in winning those battles (Aerial success, 94 out of 99). Regularly Liverpool's defensive safety net, Van Dijk's back-foot defending ranks highly (91 out of 99). Somewhat surprisingly, he does not always come out with the ball when he makes a challenge (Tackle success, 31 out of 99), often committing low-risk fouls that still manage to kill the opposition's attack. As a bonus defensive metric, we have also included the following for full-backs: One-v-one defending — this looks at the percentage of dribblers tackled as a share of total dribblers challenged. A frequent task for any full-back and a good proxy for their defensive solidity. Having finally been given a run of games in a Tottenham Hotspur shirt, full-back Djed Spence showed himself to be near-immovable in a one-v-one situation, with the strength and athleticism to swat most wingers to one side when they dared to cross his path. Link-up play — the percentage of short or medium-distance passes as a share of total passes made. Often teases out the technicians whose job it is to keep the play ticking over in a metronomic fashion. Ball retention — the percentage of passes completed as a share of total passes attempted. It might not be the sharpest of tools, but it shows a player's inclination (or tactical instruction) to look after possession. Launched passes — the percentage of long-distance passes as a share of total passes made. While purely stylistic, you will often — but not always — find that players operating for direct teams rate highly for this metric. Surely the best example for this season is Paris Saint-Germain's quadruple-winning midfielder Vitinha. With an ability to evade pressure, he looks after the ball like his life depends on it (Ball retention, 98 out of 99), predominantly keeping those passes short (Link-up play, 98 out of 99) but not shy to ping a cross-field ball when the situation allows it (Launched passes, 67 out of 99). Creative threat — this is a combination of a player's expected assists (xA) and actual assists per 90 minutes, with an 80 per cent to 20 per cent weighting towards xA to provide a more accurate view of a player's creative process rather than restricting it to the outcome. Cross volume — the number of crosses made per 100 touches in the attacking third. Dribble volume — the number of dribbles attempted per 100 touches. This accounts for a player's opportunity to perform this action, rather than purely highlighting those operating for dominant teams. Pass progression — the number of progressive passes as a share of total passes made. This shows a player's inclination to make a progressive pass when given equal opportunity. Carry progression — the number of progressive carries as a share of total carries made. This shows a player's inclination to make a progressive carry when given equal opportunity. Advertisement Progressive receptions — the volume of progressive passes received as a share of total passes received. This is often a good proxy for a player who likes to stay high and wide or ghost between opposition lines to find a pocket of space. An obvious yet interesting example is the mercurial talent of Florian Wirtz, Liverpool's new playmaker. His creative numbers at Bayer Leverkusen were easily among the best in Europe (Creative threat, 96 out of 99), but the data shows he is more than just an output monster. A low 'Pass progression' rating (37 out of 99) is likely due to his sheer involvement in Leverkusen's play last season (Link-up play, 99 out of 99) — showing his all-round game to get on the ball. Often receiving in advanced areas (Progressive receptions, 72 out of 99), Wirtz is brave in asking for the ball with bodies around him — desperate to play the killer pass and not simply pull wide to deliver a hopeful ball (Cross volume, 37 out of 99). Goal threat — this is a combination of a player's expected goals (xG) and actual goals per 90 minutes, with a 70 per cent to 30 per cent weighting towards xG to provide a more accurate view of a player's ability to generate chances. Shot frequency — the number of non-penalty shots per 100 touches. This can tease out those who only have eyes for goal from those who contribute more widely to their team's attack. Box threat — the number of touches in the penalty area as a share of total touches in the attacking two-thirds of the pitch. This often separates the roaming false 9s from those who stay between the width of the six-yard box. Shot quality — the average quality of a given chance, denoted by xG per shot. This is often a good measure of a player's ability to get into good areas to score and can have good predictive value for future performance. A good example is one of Europe's most coveted strikers, Alexander Isak. With attacking output that is in the elite category (Goal threat, 89 out of 99), it is interesting that the 25-year-old is not all about shooting volume (Shot frequency, 70 out of 99) — most likely because he is drifting into spaces to offer a creative threat and not just stay between the width of the posts (Box threat, 80 out of 99). Could he improve the quality of those efforts? Possibly (Shot quality, 80 out of 99), but being such a well-rounded striker means that he cannot always help to create a chance and be on the end of it at the same time. Keep an eye out for more of these visualisations on The Athletic, across the transfer window this summer and into the 2025-26 campaign. And if you have any thoughts, feel free to post them in the comments section below. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
