More toothless than Cape Verde: this stat shames Mbappé & co

More toothless than Cape Verde: this stat shames Mbappé & co The first half was truly one to forget from the French perspective. Against Senegal, they almost fell behind twice and, despite perhaps having the best attack in the tournament, posed no threat at all.  And that “posed no threat at all” really has to be emphasized. According to the stats account 'The xG Philosophy', the World Cup co-favorites produced a lower expected goals value in the first half than mega-underdog Cape Verde did yesterday against Spain.  France’s xG value at halftime stood at 0.02, while Cape Verde managed 0.04 expected goals against Spain in the first 45 minutes.  Mbappé & Co. are unlikely to like that statistic at all. But looking at the first half, the question of where a higher xG value was supposed to come from is also absolutely justified.  Things immediately improved for the French in the second half. Among others, the Real striker got a really good scoring chance that Mendy was able to stop at the very last second.  This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.