.png)
We head into July. However, it doesn't feel like that at the moment in the UK with the decidedly autumnal feel to the weather. I saw earlier this morning that the temperature at Silverstone for the British GP was a cool 10.6c! Not that a bit of rain on Sunday won't make the race a little more unpredictable.
You'll note that I haven't commented on the England vs Switzerland Euro quarter-final. That's because I've written this opening passage on Saturday. My thoughts for the game veer from cautious optimism to an acceptance that we will finally meet our match against a better team than the four we've faced previously.
Heading into the round-up this week we'll start with the European Championships and an entry from Satoshi Ganeko which leverages Tableau's dynamic zone visibility function brilliantly to create this tabular scrolling effect looking at a number of fascinating Euro-related facts. This would make for a fantastic quiz resource. Great job, Satoshi!
This next viz has got a lot of love on X over the past few days and it's easy to see why. Damola Ladipo has compared each of the teams in Euro 2024 across a number of metrics (including pass completion, shots on target, possession and XG) and produced these wonderful looking pizza plots (think filled radar charts) to provide a quick and clear comparison. As always with Damola's work the design is stunning and there are many gems to find here. As an England fan, I tried to avoid looking at Group C! Statistically speaking one of the worst groups in the history of international tournament football! As a treat for you all, I'll share it as the image for this week :-)
I watched most of the Portugal vs France game last night and I can only recall one free-kick being awarded to Portugal in what might be considered a dangerous area. I wonder whether the weight of evidence against the accuracy and conversion rates of Cristiano Ronaldo convinced him to give up free-kick-taking duties and pass the reigns over to Bruno Fernandes. This visual (and accompanying thread) from Opta Analyst demonstrates the major tournament desperation Ronalso had when trying to score. Just take a look at some of these circles!
Oh, the result of that free-kick from Fernandes last night? Over the bar!
I've seen the fantastic work of Krisztina Szűcs replicated across many different themes and sports and those following sporting-related visualisations will immediately recognise her rectangular scoring momentum 'shifters'. AU has used this concept as a theme to inspire this incredible dashboard looking at all the teams in the Poolish football leagues. The design and level of detail are stunning and I spent a long time exploring different teams and enjoying the patterns each created.
We've seen some fantastic netball-related vizzes and resources recently. Continuing that theme is this epic X thread from Zak Saucede exploring the goal momentum across a couple of games: the Netball Super League Final and 3rd place play-off. Zak does a brilliant job of showing how the different ebbs and flows of the games pan out. What is particularly striking, in a sport where you'd assume the goals interchange relatively equally with one another, are some periods where momentum shifts completely and a team goes on a run of unreplied goals. The biggest 'streak' I noticed was seven in the Pulse vs Starts game. Brilliantly done, Zak!
We circle back around to the world of Formula 1. I didn't enter this season with a huge amount of optimism about how events would pan out, expecting another Verstappen/Red Bull domination. How pleasantly surprised I've been. Not only are McClaran pushing Red Bull but Ferrari and Mercedes have both made significant strides forward. This viz from Dan Wade explores how last week's Austrian Grand Prix panned out. I love a bump chart for this type of view, there is so much to explore as incidents occur, during pit stops and of course, towards the end of the race, the coming together of Lando Norris and Verstappen. Great work in pulling this together, Dan!
Last up, CJ Mayes continues to mine the depths of stats from the tennis world in his latest blog post. It's quite the couple of facts he's unearthed and as usual, provides the explanation and resources behind the whole process.
The morning after the afternoon before. Well, once again, it wasn't easy, it wasn't an exciting watch but nothing quite matches the tension of watching your national team at a major tournament. One thing you can't deny is the spirit the players are showing is commendable and a couple more special moments have been added to the memory bank.
Until next time, take care and have a great week.
Simon & the #SportsVizSunday team
תגובות