In the southern suburbs of Stockholm, an experiment is taking place. In February, Hammarby — a football club in the Allsvenskan, Sweden’s top division — announced they were embracing data, statistics and mathematics to a degree never seen before.
In fact, they were so confident in their approach that they announced their statistical measures of success and how its supporters could track those during the season.
Among those key performance indicators are: xT (expected threat) and xTA (expected threat against); xG (expected goals) per 90 and xGA per 90; xG per shot, for and against; and xG difference.
For Hammarby, though, this was just the latest step in a project that has incorporated data and analysis deep into the club — they have been working
