S S symmetry Article Asymmetries in Football: The Pass—Goal Paradox Daniel R. Antequera 1,2,3, David Garrido 1,2,3, Ignacio Echegoyen 1,2,3, Roberto López del Campo 4, Ricardo Resta Serra 4 and Javier M. Buldú 1,2,3,5,* 1 Complex Systems Group, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, 28001 Madrid, Spain;
[email protected] (D.R.A.);
[email protected] (D.G.);
[email protected] (I.E.) 2 Laboratory of Biological Networks, Centre for Biomedical Technology (CTB-UPM), 28001 Madrid, Spain 3 Grupo Interdisciplinar de Sistemas Complejos (GISC), 28001 Madrid, Spain 4 Mediacoach-LaLiga, 28001 Madrid, Spain;
[email protected] (R.L.d.C.);
[email protected] (R.R.S.) 5 Institute of Unmanned System and Center for OPTical IMagery Analysis and Learning (OPTIMAL), Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710000, China * Correspondence:
[email protected] Received: 22 May 2020; Accepted: 19 June 2020; Published: 24 June 2020 Abstract: We investigate the relation between the number of passes made by a football team and the number of goals. We analyze the 380 matches of a complete season of the Spanish national league “LaLiga" (2018/2019). We observe how the number of scored goals is positively correlated with the number of passes made by a team. In this way, teams on the top (bottom) of the ranking at the end of the season make more (less) passes than the rest of the teams. However, we observe a strong asymmetry when the analysis is made depending on the part of the match. Interestingly, fewer passes are made in the second half of a match, while, at the same time, more goals are scored.