What is ‘expected goals’?
First, the abbreviation of Expected Goals is xG, so if you see xG, you will know we are talking about expected goals. So, what is the Expected Goals metric?
Well, most likely, you have used it before without even knowing. Maybe you didn’t calculate it correctly, but you have discussed whether a specific team’s win was deserved based on the chances, the strategies, and how the game progressed. You most likely did this based on your ‘gut feeling’ or other stats like possession or number of shots. However, xG works for you by calculating this based on different statistics and metrics.
*Note: Expected goals needs to be applied correctly. A common mistake at fixture level is that a team with a higher xG should have won the game. That is not necessarily true as xG only measures the chance quality and not the expected outcome of that particular fixture. We have another API for the predicted outcome, which is the Prediction API.