Signal Preprint proposes off-ball possession-quality index for football analytics

Summary

A new preprint proposes an index for judging the quality of ball possession in football using broadcast video data. The authors treat possession percentage as one of the sport's most commonly cited yet most misleading numbers. A team that recycles the ball for sixty percent of a match in its own half is not doing the same thing as a team that holds sixty percent of the ball while pinning its opponent back. Existing event-based frameworks for valuing possession only price the actions of the player on the ball, leaving aside whether the movement of teammates without the ball actually opened up space. To close that gap the paper introduces a two-stage index. The goal is to tell genuinely threatening possession apart from circulation that never really challenges the opponent.