Atalanta’s gung-ho style is already a commonplace fact for even the most casual of Serie A fans. Heavy pressing, a high dose of scoring opportunities, and an all-or-nothing style of offense embody the La Dea side many of come to know and love. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand the club’s success this year, but it is still fun to see numbers confirm the eye test we have seen in matches throughout the year. Below are a collection of charts for Serie A and how Atalanta rates in some key metrics that delivered it’s success this calendar year. All statistics are from fbref.com, and I encourage anyone interested in statistics to give the website a look; plenty of eye opening statistics for the geek in everyone.
Expected Goals
Expected goals always need to be taken with a grain of salt – but it still provides a quick luck-free method to establish a baseline of how a club played. Atalanta outperformed its xGoals and underperformed its xGoalsAgainst, but ultimately the xGoalDifferential was quite similar to how the club performed this season.
Unsurprisingly Atalanta led the league in expected goals, and was admirably 4th in expected goals allowed – good enough for third overall in expected goal differential. Again not too surprising is that Inter, Juventus, and Atalanta are clearly ahead of other clubs that challenged for UCL spots this year. This is still a good exercise in not selling all out on xGoal data, as Milan who were relatively pedestrian in its expected goal differential (even when you include all the penalties earned) still finished 2nd in the tables this year. But this just lays the groundwork for some of the areas Atalanta exceled.
Pressing
Atalanta did not apply the most pressure this season in aggregate – this award goes to Sampdoria – but La Dea won the ball back nearly a third of the time the club applied pressure. Being top in the league in this category, along with being quite high in ball possession metrics offers the first key to La Dea’s success. Quickly winning the ball back – as you can see Atalanta led the league in applying pressure in it’s opponents half – La Dea did it’s upmost to ensure that opponents could not make it into its half. Hence the club finished dead last in pressures in it’s defensive third – which has much more to do with fewer opportunities to press in defense rather than dropping deeper and being more passive once the opponent crosses the midfield line. The epitome of offense being the best defense.
Ball Progression
It’s one thing to just pressure and win the ball, but assertively getting the ball into dangerous areas is how to capitalize on good defensive work. Again Atalanta excels in many of these categories, but two stood out the most to me.
The first chart, progressive passes received, is an astounding view on how frequently Atalanta looks to move the ball forward once it has possession. No recycling possession, but trying to be as dangerous as possible as quickly as possible. Remarkably, Atalanta received 20% more progressive passes than second place Juventus. Seeing La Dea first in this statistic is not a surprise, but the gap between first place and second place is still remarkable.
Progressing the ball naturally leads to more opportunities in the opponents box. Again it is no surprise that Atalanta is neck and neck with Napoli in producing chances that should lead to shots. I also wanted to highlight lowly Fiorentina (in purple) as well to illustrate the success that Vlahovic had this year in finishing off so many chances from seemingly so few opportunities to make an impact.
Ultimately this leads to a nice narrative into Atalanta’s success. Not just pressure, but successful pressure, is quickly transitioned into moving the ball forward and getting chances on goal. It paid off in spades for La Dea, as they not only finished with the most expected goals in the league, but the most goals outright. It also goes to show that offensive can sometimes be the best defense. Atalanta spent so little time having to defend in it’s own third, that the defense didn’t have a whole lot of pressure to apply in it’s own third, thus translating into the 4th best expected goal against record – La Dea were also first in shots against at 321 (15% better than 2nd place Inter).
Again statistics aren’t everything, but they are reaffirming. It is nice confirmation that there is a not a supreme amount of luck in Atalanta’s favor, or that the club is just a flash in the pan. The club’s tactics, strategy, and player buy-in all elicit it’s magnificent success. Nothing suggests that Atalanta cannot continue these patterns. The club is looking at players with similar traits to what made it successful this year (primarily Thorsby who led the league in defensive pressures), and look to have a sound plan to continue capitalizing on its success. Next year, if La Dea can just shore up that defense a bit more, who knows what we have in store? A lot to dream on at least! As always, Forza Dea!!!
