SportsDataTutorials
7 tutorials

Soccer

Free event data from StatsBomb plus xG from Understat let you analyse matches like a pro - no paid feed required.

The xG explainers come first — they're the language of everything else. Then the StatsBomb event-data tutorials show you how professional match data is actually structured, and the World Cup scoring tutorial applies one groupby to a live-tournament snapshot. Soccer's bundled data includes real World Cup results, so every claim is checkable from the files you downloaded.

Level:
A team's completed passes drawn as arrows on a proper pitch with mplsoccer.
Soccer Intermediate

Draw a Pass Map with mplsoccer

Filter a match's passes from StatsBomb event data and draw them as arrows on a correctly-proportioned pitch using mplsoccer, with StatsBomb attribution.

~7 min
Both teams' shots on a pitch, sized by xG and marked for goals.
Soccer Intermediate

Build a Match Shot Map with Expected Goals

Plot every shot from a real match on an mplsoccer pitch, sized by its expected-goals value with goals highlighted — the most useful soccer viz there is.

~8 min
A heatmap of where one player was involved across a match.
Soccer Intermediate

Draw a Player Heatmap from Event Data

Collect every action a player took from StatsBomb event data and turn the locations into a smooth territory heatmap on the pitch, showing where they did their work.

~7 min
A team's passing network: average positions and who links with whom.
Soccer Advanced

Build a Team Pass Network

Combine players' average positions with their pass combinations to draw a pass network - the chart that reveals a team's shape and its most important connections.

~9 min