Le Ligue 1 - xG Lollipop Chart

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the ninth issue of the Viz of the Week newsletter, where I'll be featuring a new visual each week and sharing the code behind it.

I want to give a warm welcome to the 21 new subscribers that joined this week. 🤍

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Club football is back, and with it comes plenty of data to analyze and play with.

This week I was inspired by a visual I saw in the timeline from one of the greats in football analytics, David Sumpter, the author of Soccermatics.  

Even though cumulative xG plots are the most common to show the danger created by teams within a certain fixture, I thought that making visualizing that same data through a lollipop chart would be a good idea. And a fun one at that.

To be honest, I'm really proud of how pleasing this looks on the eye. However, I do have to admit that the common cumulative xG charts may do a better job at clearly communicating the data.  

What do you think?

Note: the layout was made using the subplot_mosaic method and you can have a deeper insight on this by reading my most recent matplotlib tutorial.

Figuring Figures Out - A Matplotlib Tutorial, Part 1

A matplotlib tutorial on better axes placement for beginners. We use the add_axes, subplot, and subplot_mosaic methods.

Son of a cornerThe Son

From Around the Grounds

I'm adding a new section to the newsletter where I'll highlight visuals or articles that caught my attention during the week, if you'd like to be featured @ me on Twitter so I can see your work 😊.

Shot Map Template by @_JKDS_

Are Attacking Roles Changin? by Shreyas

League Two Match Template by @xG_data

The code

I hope you enjoyed today's post. As always, you're welcome to take a look at my code and reproduce the visual.

All you need to do is check out my GitHub to get access to the code and data behind it.

If you enjoy these posts and charts, please help me by subscribing to my website and sharing my work.

Catch you on Thursday for this week's Premier League predictions 👋

EPL Predictions - Son of a corner

Matchday and end-of-season projections for the Premier League.

Son of a cornerThe Son