The most used types of playing systems in the 5 major leagues (2023)

Hello !

Welcome to this 10th football post. For better visibility, I advise you to look at my posts on a computer (for the size but also because the colors differ on a phone that has a dark theme like me. If the theme is light, only the size makes it difficult to read).

Today, a dataviz on the types of playing systems used by the teams of the 5 major leagues.

There are many different playing systems. For beginners, a playing system is the arrangement of players on the field. The team has 11 players, and the coach decides how many defenders, midfielders, and attackers he will put in, and where.
The best known playing system is probably 4-3-3, which means 4 defenders, 3 midfielders and 3 attackers.

Given the large list of existing systems, I decided to make an arbitrary classification. This allows me to have a simpler dataviz and above all reduce potential data errors.
For example, it is common in football that systems with 3 or 5 defenders are actually equivalent. It's simply that the defenders on the side have a complete role, allowing them to go up in the offensive phase, but also to go down very low, as a "strict" defender. We then find a real line of 5 defenders and not 3.

To help you see this, here is an example below that illustrates this point :

Another piece of information about my classification. I grouped according to the number of strikers and not the attackers. This is why in the 2nd example above, only the attacker in the center is colored pink. He's the striker.

Finally, my classification is as follows :

• 3 or 5 defenders and 1 striker
• 3 or 5 defenders and 2 strikers
• 4 defenders and 1 striker
• 4 defenders and 2 strikers

We then obtain :

The results are interesting and deserve to be calculated with a temporal evolution. I say this because, historically, culturally, it is known that in Italy (Serie A), we often play with 5 defenders.
However, this is what we find in the year 2023. Around 55% of team compositions had 3 or 5 defenders, more than in other leagues.

However, coaches generally favor playing systems with 4 defenders and in particular with only 1 striker (except in Italy !).
Each period has its favorite playing system (today 4-2-3-1 and 4-3-3 which are 2 very similar systems). At one time, the 4-4-2 was very fashionable, but it is increasingly neglected. As in many sports, athletes change and so do their abilities. Therefore, certain aspects of each of its sports change, and therefore the playing systems too.

Thanks for reading ! I hope it was clear and you liked it.

You will find the code and data below by clicking the github link button.

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See you soon for new content 👋