Last week the first data analysis of this series got published in which I looked at the most interesting Austrian centre-backs. In this week’s analysis, the task will be to use data and statistics to find the best full-backs of Austria. The number of talented Austrian full-backs grew within the last few years and we had in this season with Stefan Lainer and Christopher Trimmel, two men who were the first-choice players in the right-back and right wing-back position respectively of their Bundesliga clubs. Due to that, the Austrian national team has now several options in these positions as we will see now.
In this data analysis, I will use data to find the best left-backs and right-backs for the national team of Austria to then look at the stats of some players in more detail. Also, I want to note that all stats which are used in this analysis are the average values per 90 minutes.
Comparison
Before we look at the results of my research which will be visualised in graphs, I have to make clear which filters I used. My central filters were that the players would need to be Austrians and that they have played in this season at least 1013 minutes as a full-back or a wing-back for their respective club. Next, I deleted all players who play in Austria’s second division and are not U23 players. I did that since full-backs who are 23-years-old or even older and still don’t play in Austria’s top-flight or a different league of Europe are neither interesting for Austria’s head coach Franco Foda at the moment, nor will the players have a realistic chance to get nominated for the national team within the upcoming months and years.
Also not included in the following graphs are the men who have dual citizenship and could play for the senior team of Austria, but already made appearances for the youth teams of other nations. Considering these aspects, we’ll get in the following the current best full-backs of Austria and young players who could be nominated for the national team of Austria within the next years.
The first metrics at which we look will be the defensive ones. Even though the full-backs are in Foda’s 4-2-3-1 are incredibly important for the build-up and the attacks, they are still part of the back four and therefore should have decent defensive abilities. The statistics at which we look at first will be the successful defensive actions per game and the success rate for defensive duels in %. This data should help us to find the Austrian full-backs with the best defensive abilities.
The player who stands out in the graph above is Lukas Prokop of Austria Vienna II who is 20 years old and is the younger brother of Dominik Prokop (a promising winger of Austria Vienna who we’ll probably talk about in another data analysis of this series). Prokop is a left-back and has really great defensive values as he makes 11.44 successful defensive actions per 90 minutes and wins 66.47% of his defensive duels. Even though you have to consider that he plays in Austria’s second division, they are still solid values for a player at his age. The 32-year-old Thomas Schrammel has the best value for winning defensive duels (69.7%). Jürgen Bauer who was featured in every game of Horn this season as part of the starting XI wins 66.95% of his defensive duels which is the second-highest value.
As I already mentioned earlier in this data analysis, the full-backs need to be quite strong when it comes to offensive actions due to the tactics of Foda. In his 4-2-3-1, it is mostly Bayern Munich’s David Alaba and Valentino Lazaro who are the wingers, and these two dont permanently stay wide as they often drift into position in the half-spaces. Due to this, the full-backs need to push forward to position higher up the pitch and provide width. To see how offensively strong the players are, we take their statistics for progressive runs and progressive passes (both per 90 minutes).
