Barcelona changed the goal and got rid of "shooting"?

Sports Weekly All-Media Reporter Liang Hongye reported

Currently, Espanyol goalkeeper Joan Garcia is about to join Barcelona, ​​and only the last details are being finalized. People can't help but ask why Barcelona currently has two experienced goalkeepers, Ter Stegen and Szczesni, and young substitute goalkeeper Penia, why do they still have to sign a goalkeeper?

Barcelona is preparing to sign Joan Garcia, the main goalkeeper of the same city rival Espanyol, with the breach of contract of 25 million euros. If taxes are included, Barcelona can win Joan Garcia for 26 million euros. At present, Joan Garcia has agreed to join Barcelona in principle, but he still needs to have a final conversation with the Barcelona management. Joan Garcia hopes to get two guarantees, one is to ensure that he is Barcelona's main goalkeeper, and the other is to hope that Barcelona can guarantee that he can register. For these two issues, which are not problems, in fact, everything is easy to discuss. First of all, Barcelona cannot publicly and clearly guarantee that he is the main goalkeeper, but in fact, anyone with discerning eyes knows that Barcelona, ​​who is financially in a tight position, will definitely let him play as the main player. Flick's plan for the new season is Joan Garcia's main player, Szczesny's substitute, and the remaining substitutes are the young people. Joan Garcia's agent is the same as Dani Ormo's agent. The agent knows that Barcelona has difficulty registering, but also knows that the team will likely solve the problem, but it is also difficult to get Barcelona to make a 100% guarantee. Szczesni has verbally accepted Barcelona's 1+1 contract extension, but Szczesni's role in the new season is a substitute. As the captain Terstergen, although the Germans do not want to leave Barcelona, ​​if Barcelona signs Joan Garcia, the two will face fierce competition in the new season, and Joan Garcia is obviously dominant, which means Terstergen will become a substitute. This is a huge risk for Terstergen, who wants to participate in next year's World Cup as the main goalkeeper of the German team. It is not ruled out that Terstergen leaves the team without the guarantee of Barcelona's main player.

Barcelona won all domestic league championships in the past season and reached the semi-finals of the Champions League. The team is on a good upward trend. How to strengthen the team next season is a big topic. The first position that Barcelona thinks about is the goalkeeper. There is no doubt that this is related to Barcelona's Champions League trip this year. Inter Milan goalkeeper Sommer's brave performance, and he saved Barcelona's must-scoring goals many times, so Barcelona missed the final. Another team entering the finals also had Donnarumma's brave performance bonus, so it became a consensus to have a good goalkeeper to win the Champions League.

Who is Joan Garcia? Why is he attracted by the picky Barcelona? Joan Garcia is the main goalkeeper of Espanyol who has successfully relegated. This season, La Liga conceded 51 goals, and is the third goalkeeper with the most goals conceded in La Liga. Despite this, Joan Garcia is generally regarded as the best goalkeeper in La Liga this season because his save success rate is also very high and he is considered the main goalkeeper of Spain in the future. Even when media surveys, more than 90% of Spanish journalists and commentators believe that Joan Garcia has more capital to become Barcelona's main goalkeeper next season than Ter Stegen.

To see how strong Joan Garcia is, it needs to be seen with a lot of statistics. After all, the performance of the goalkeeper is difficult to see with the naked eye of the experts. Joan Garcia's save success rate this season is 75.5%, ranking fifth in La Liga. The current Spanish goalkeeper Unai Simon, Bilbao goalkeeper, has a save success rate of 79%. Barcelona's main force in the second half was Sczesni, whose save success rate was 66.7%, ranking 20th in La Liga. Penia's save success rate was better than Sczesni, which was 69.8%, ranking 16th in La Liga. Joan Garcia successfully saved 140 times in La Liga, the most in La Liga. Of course, this data is mainly because Joan Garcia is also the goalkeeper with the most shots, as high as 192 times. Szczesni's saves were 21 times, Penia had 35 times, and Terstegen, who played only 8 league games, had 13 times.

We also need to look at the ratio of the expected number of goals scored and the number of shots. This data can be called "shooting and killing" data. To see how easy it is to score, the number one in La Liga is Barcelona's main goalkeeper Szczesny in the second half of the season, which is 0.35, which can be said to be "shooting and killing" in La Liga. Joan Garcia ranked 13th, at 0.28. Courtois ranked 18th at 0.27, while Atletico Madrid goalkeeper and La Liga gold gloves Oblak ranked 24th at 0.19. It is worth mentioning that this data is not only related to the goalkeeper's level, but also to the team's defense style.

What can convince Barcelona most is the difference between the expected number of goals scored and the actual number of goals conceded. This statistics show how much the goalkeeper can save the team with his own reaction and save. We can see that this statistics of Joan Garcia is 7.7 goals, ranking first in La Liga, 2.5 goals higher than second-place Osasuna goalkeeper Sergio Herrera, which is a very big gap. Szczesny's data on this statistics is 0, which means that the expected number of goals scored is the same as the actual number of goals conceded. Peña ranked 33rd with -1.3, while Terstegen ranked 38th with -2.6. It can be seen that Szczesny is indeed better than Peña and Terstegen, but far from being as good as Joan Garcia. But compared with different environments, it is actually biased. We can refer to the other three famous goalkeepers in La Liga. Spanish goalkeeper Unai Simon ranked 8th with 2.3 goals, Real Madrid goalkeeper Courtois ranked 18th with 0.7 goals, and Golden Gloves Oblak ranked 37th with -2.4, only one higher than Terstergen.

In the European arena, should all strong teams have a high-level goalkeeper to guard the Longmen? Judging from the data, it seems that this is a truth. The top three in the Champions League saves this season are: Real Madrid's Courtois and Inter Milan's Sommer tied for first with 51 saves, and the third is Aston Villa's Big Martin. We can see that Real Madrid's elimination in the quarter-finals this season is not Courtois' fault. Inter Milan did make great contributions to entering the finals, and Aston Villa's ability to reach the quarter-finals is also closely related to Martin's Big Martin's performance. In this statistics, Szczesni made a total of 27 saves, ranking 23rd, but considering that Polish goalkeeper only played 8 games, while Courtois and Martin both played 12 games, and Sommer played 14 games, Szczesni’s data is reasonable. Judging from the success rate of the Champions League goalkeeper saves, except for Liverpool substitute goalkeeper Kelly, the other top 8 are famous goalkeepers. Their rankings are 1 Alisson, 2 Kelly, 3 David Raya, 4 Martin, 5 Oblack, 6 Mignon, 7 Sommer, and 8 Courtois (from 88.9% to 77.1%), while Szczesny can only rank 24 with 67.4%, and Penia can only rank 38 with 50%.

In terms of statistics on the difference between the expected number of goals scored by the Champions League and the actual number of goals scored, David Raya ranked first at 4.9, Girona goalkeeper Gasaniga (4.6) ranked second, Martin (3.9) ranked third, Sommer (3.0) ranked eighth, Courtois (2.4) ranked 12th, Donnarumma (2.2) ranked 13th, and Szczesni ranked 20th with 1.6, while Peña ranked 47th with -0.9. It seems that Flick deprived Pena of the main position in the second half of the season, so that Szczesni made it reasonable.

And after shooting directly, the expected number of goals and shots are more accurate than the number of shots. It can be seen on the list that Barcelona's two goalkeepers are also among the top, Penia ranked first with 0.4, which is a veritable "shooting directly" and Szczesni ranked fifth with 0.36, and a famous goalkeeper in front of him. Bayern's Neuer ranked fourth. From this point of view, Barcelona and Bayern's radical backline pressure tactics are indeed more likely to win the "shooting directly" ranking. But Paris goalkeeper Donnarumma (0.33), who also plays offensive football, only ranked 14th, and several goalkeepers who performed well this season ranked very low, David Raya (0.28) ranked 30th, Courtois (0.27) ranked 32nd, Sommer (0.26) ranked 35th, and Alisson (0.24) ranked 38th.

The fact is that the data may be of great help to everyone to find the ability of goalkeepers. Judging from the data, Barcelona goalkeepers can only rank in the middle and lower reaches of the La Liga and Champions League. But it is definitely not possible to have data alone. When measuring the goalkeeper's level, it depends on the team's playing style. The Barcelona back line mentioned that the midfielder's playing style is very radical, which will definitely not help the goalkeeper's save. Although most journalists and commentators are more optimistic about Joan Garcia's performance at Barcelona next season, some people have reservations and need to actually see whether Joan Garcia is adapted to such radical defensive approach to reach a conclusion. Recently, Barcelona center Lewandowski was also asked about his opinion on Joan Garcia joining the team. Lewandowski's statement is quite pertinent, "You can shoot you 10 times in a team, you save 7 or 8 times, but in Barcelona, ​​the opponent may only shoot you 3, 2 or 1 times in a game, and you have to save it. This is not a concept." So talking about whether the goalkeeper can save the team, rather than talking about the team's style may be a wrong proposition. For example, when Xavi won the La Liga championship with defense, Terstergen's save success rate ranked among the top in the continental region, and in the current Flick's system, it is difficult for goalkeepers to reproduce such data. In addition, the law that only a high-level goalkeeper can help the team win the Champions League seems to be missing in this 5-0 final. Paris scored 5 goals with 8 shots. Sommer, who may be the best goalkeeper of the year, also performed like a "shot-on-point shooting". Because Inter Milan had to wait until 70 minutes to fall behind 0-3 after the first shot, Donnarumma did not need to save the team's performance. Of course, the team needs a high-level goalkeeper, but with this higher-level goalkeeper, it is not necessarily possible to win the championship.