In Reply to: Ah, i see...thank you! * posted by ClockBlocker on June 26, 2026 at 13:12:41
which stands for "expected goal". It evaluates each shot for its likelihood in terms of producing a goal, based on a bunch of factors I never bothered to find out. There are a bunch of stats released after every game to help analysts. I don't normally pay attention to those because I'm a casual fan, but this point came up wrt Turkey's 60+ shots in the last two weeks, so I had to check.
Game 1, against Australia: Aussies took 9 shots, 4 on target. Turkey took 30 shots, 8 on target. The xG was 1.10 for Aussies, so they overperformed slightly by scoring 2, and 3.19 for Turkey, who underperformed by scoring 0.
Game 2, against Paraguay: Paraguay took 7 shots, 2 on target. Turkey took 32 shots, 5 on target (dismal!). The xG was 0.74 for Paraguay (so they more or less matched that with 1 goal) and 3.26 for Turkey (facepalm!) with 0 scored.
By contrast, in game 3 against the US: The US took 18 shots, 7 on target, while Turkey took 9 shots, 3 on target (all three ended up being a goal). The xG was 1.92 for the US, which matches the number of goals scored, and 1.12 for Turkey, which means they did better than what one would expect, given the types of opportunities they got.
Hey, I may start following these numbers going forward. They're kinda fun after the game.
(I used this site for the numbers. I assume they are close to accurate.)