MANUEL NEUER, PASSES AND INTERCEPTIONS ANALYSIS - WC 2018

Hypothesis:

Given his quasi-center back playing style I was looking at Neuer’s passes, his position when he passed the ball, where it was passed and what the outcome was. I was also looking at the places where he intercepted the ball from play. I was expecting him to be:
- considerably better than (most) other keepers in terms of giving teammates the opportunity to keep the possession of the ball because of his short-passing style,
- intercepting many balls outside his penalty area.
I might be somewhat biased, because in my junior times this is the way I played, but I think this style:
- gives the team the confidence that there is someone who constantly monitors the situation and can clear the balls they missed before a shot on their goal even happens,
- there will not be unnecessarily lost balls and the play will be led by the players who are generally better than goalkeepers in building efficient actions.

Analysis:

I analyzed three matches played by Germany in the group stage. These are the places where Neuer (red) intercepted the ball vs. other goalkeepers (blue):

Germany is attacking from left to right. The dots denote the location when the interception was made. It can be seen that indeed, Neuer was far more active in various locations on the field outside of the penalty area as far as interceptions are concerned.

I also analyzed the passes he made in all three matches and, again, compared to Germany’s opponents, but I also eyeballed all other matches. The pass map for the group matches looks like this:

The arrows denote the passes. Faded ones are incomplete. Germany (red) is attacking from left to right. It can clearly be seen that the style of passing of Manuel Neuer is different from other goalkeepers. He plays the ball short, mostly sideways, to one of his defenders for them to build further play. Rarely does he kick the ball into the half of the opponent, and quite rightly so, because - for him - all but one such trials failed, as it can also be seen on the graphs. As mentioned earlier, I eyeballed all the other matches to check how other goalkeepers behave. In general, the tendency is to kick the ball forwards, to the opponent’s half. Some goalkeepers played in a similar way to Neuer, but it only happened for one of their matches at most.

As much as one can argue about Neuer`s and Germany’s approach’s efficiency in terms of the end result, and how much it`s Neuer’s merit, one thing is certain. The percentage of lost balls is considerably lower - even up to six times, as seen on the graphics. This allows to control the ball for more time and - as long as one does not win matches by simply being in possession - you cannot score without a ball.