The verdict on Possession

It is only a slight simplification to say that a team cannot score unless they shoot and they will not shoot until they get the ball close to goal. The most desirable possession, therefore, is in the attacking third.

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A team who are high on a list for possession up front can get good results even if they are not high on the lists for possession in the centre or at the back. Examples in recent seasons included Atalanta in Serie A, Athletic Bilbao in La Liga and Monaco in Ligue 1.

The opposite is also true. A team who are low on a list for possession in the attacking third will likely get bad results even if they are not low on the lists for possession in the middle and defensive thirds. A prime example was Southampton last season in the Premier League. In a previous article we said they underperformed their payroll. This was one of the main reasons why.
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Ian Graham was director of research at Liverpool during their glory years under manager Jurgen Klopp. In a book called How to Win the Premier League he wrote: “possession in the attacking third of the pitch was much more valuable than possession in the other two thirds of the pitch.” In other words: where you have the ball matters more than just having the ball. As you will see when we look at the most prestigious European club competition.
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Evidence from the Champions League
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The UEFA Champions League technical reports give possession for each team in each third. We analysed the last ten – those covering seasons 2014-15 to 2023-24.

We divided teams into three types – those knocked out in the group stage, those knocked out in the round of 16 and those who reached the quarter-finals or beyond. Of all the time the ball was in play how long was it with each type of team in each part of the pitch?
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Possession in the Champions League (2014-15 to 2023-24)

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Teams knocked out in the Group Stage

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Teams knocked out in the Round of 16

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Teams reaching the Quarter-Finals or beyond

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You can see that there were no differences in the defensive third but there were differences in the middle and attacking thirds. More successful teams tended to have more possession in the more dangerous areas, which is why they tended to have more possession overall. It is also why they scored more goals.

Even highly successful teams who did not have a lot of possession in total did in most cases have a lot of possession in the attacking third. Real Madrid won in 2021-22, Atletico Madrid and Monaco were semi-finalists in 2016-17. All had at least 12% possession in the attacking third even though none had more than 51% possession in total. Other teams who reached the final, semi-finals or quarter-finals averaged 12% in the attacking third and 54% in total.

Evidence from the Big Five Leagues‍

You will see the reward of having the ball near the opposition’s goal even more clearly when we look at touches in the attacking third.

On the FBref website we found data for Europe’s Big Five Leagues – Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1 – from the last eight completed seasons, 2017-18 to 2024-25. For each team in every season we calculated two figures. The first was percentage of attacking third touches. It was a team’s touches in their attacking third expressed as a percentage of all attacking third touches in their matches – that is to say, their touches in their attacking third and the opposition’s touches in the opposition’s attacking third. The second figure was percentage of goals. It was a team’s goals expressed as a percentage of all goals in their matches.

On this graph we have plotted one against the other – percentage of attacking third touches against percentage of goals. The pink line is how it would have looked if they corresponded exactly – if teams with 50% of attacking third touches scored 50% of goals, and so on. You will see that there was in fact a very close correspondence.
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Scoring and conceding in Big Five Leagues (2017-18 to 2024-25)
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We have got something that we are sure you will agree gives a good idea of how many goals different types of teams score and concede, and we have done it without knowing anything about xG or shots.

Individual testimony

Ernesto Valverde is in his third spell as coach of Athletic Bilbao in La Liga. The first two went well and the third has gone well so far. We will compare the three seasons completed since Valverde’s most recent return with the five seasons before.

In the earlier seasons Athletic took 49 per cent of all touches in their matches. In the later seasons they also took 49% of all touches in their matches. In the first five seasons their average finishing position was 11^th. In the last three seasons it was 6^th.

How did they get more points with the same share of touches? Because they achieved a better share in the best place. In the earlier seasons Athletic took 51% of attacking third touches and scored 50% of goals. In the later seasons they took 58% of attacking third touches and scored 60% of goals.
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Athletic Bilbao with and without Ernesto Valverde

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We could have said similar things and made similar graphs for Gian Piero Gasperini’s time as coach of Atalanta in Serie A and the tenures of various coaches of Monaco in Ligue 1.

Southampton last season took 49% of all touches in their matches in the Premier League – the same as Athletic Bilbao over eight seasons in La Liga. But Southampton took only 40% of attacking third touches. It goes a long way toward explaining why they finished bottom: too few of their touches were in the part of the pitch from which nearly every goal is scored, and too many were in the part where one that goes wrong is most likely to lead to a goal conceded.

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Expert witness
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Pep Guardiola has coached Manchester City, Bayern Munich and Barcelona, the teams in the Premier League, Bundesliga and La Liga who in almost every season rank first for possession, first for percentage of all touches – and first for percentage of attacking third touches. Guardiola insists that passing should serve a purpose.
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Marti Perarnau wrote a book called Pep Confidential about Guardiola’s time with Bayern Munich. It quotes Guardiola saying: “I loathe all that passing for the sake of it, all that tiquitaca. It’s so much rubbish and has no purpose. You have to pass the ball with a clear intention, with the aim of making it into the opposition’s goal. It’s not about passing for the sake of it.”

Every goal that is not an own goal comes from a shot. Almost every shot comes from within the attacking third. Only rarely does a player bother to shoot from further out, and even more rarely does the ball go in the net. We at 10star know what helps a team and what hinders them. It is one of the reasons we can offer better prices to go with our fully automated risk management systems and advanced customer sharpness algorithms. We never lose sight of a sportsbook’s goal.

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^{Published 11 September 2025}

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