Here comes the latest update on this years Champions League finalists' Goalimpacts. Borussia Dortmund is currently ranked 8th in the list of the best football teams. They already overachieved by reaching the final, but that surely will not hinder them trying to win it. In the duel against the number three in the world, Bayern Munich, they are the underdog. However, they beat number two, Real Madrid, twice this year and can make their dream come true. Then again, these victories were at home.
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Bench: Sebastian Kehl (135.7), Moritz Leitner (115.6), Julian Schieber (116.5), Felipe Santana (119.9), Nuri Sahin (128.8), Mitchell Langerak (116.8)
Playing with Güdogan and Sahin as number six is too risky in my point of view, but may be an option to force a goal if Bayern is in the lead and Dortmund is running out of time.
The number in the brackets are the career average numbers of the Goalimpact. The higher the number the better the goal difference of the player's team was when he was in the field as compared to when he was not. The average over all players in the database is 100, so actually none of Dortmund's players, that may take part in the final, is below average.
Careers are long and the career average Goalimpact may and will not be 1:1 correlated with the current form of the players. Another way to look at it is the 1-year rolling Goalimpact that is shown in the following graphs for all positions.
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Hummels, Subotic and Schmelzer are the three most influential defenders at Dortmund. Santana, the hero of the Malaga game, has had a less perfect performance on the field, but still can be considered to be good. Piszczek is not as good as a wing-back as Schmelzer, but without alternative.
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Best performer in the midfield was Sebastian Kehl. Personally I don't think he will play anyway as he only entered the game shortly before injury time in the two semi-finals, too. He is 33 and may not be able to play at full speed over 90 minutes. On the other hand, the two victories of Bayern over Dortmund this year were both without Kehl.
Gündogan shows first signs of a slowdown in performance growth and stabilizes on an high level, especially given his age. Like Bender he is now at a 1Y-Goalimpact of 160. Sahin's performance increased further. He apparently gets better adopted to Dortmund's tactical plan again. Leitner unfortunately sees his performance drop steadily further. It fell from its peak at 133 to now 118.
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Großkreuz and Lewandowski had the best performance in the last 12 months from all forwards. Interestingly, Kuba, Götze, Reus and Schieber were all about equal in the same time period, but 15 points lower than the top two. Talent-wise there are big differences though. Götze reached this performance already in the age of 20. So while it may not be an immediate problem for Dortmund that Götze leaves the team, it is a big lost opportunity for the future.
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Bench: Xherdan Shaqiri (136.7), Luiz Gustavo (143.8), Anatoliy Tymoshchuk (130.3), Claudio Pizarro (143.8), Rafinha (134.4), Daniel Van Buyten (138.0), Mario Gomez (150.5), Diego Contento (122.2)
There are few teams that have such a strong bench. Hardly any, to be more precise. Robben and Gomez are absolutely word-class. Robben is even in the Goalimpact Hall of Fame.
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Dante continues his miraculous raise in performance that started already during his time at Mönchengladbach. He and Boateng are clearly the preferable pair of center-backs. Van Buyten is a good backup though.
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Phillip Lahm is not only the best wing-back of the world, he is also at the heights of his performance. His 1Y-Goalimpact is above 250 since September 2011 and raised more in the last few months towards 300.
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Schweinsteiger and Martinez have the momentum on their side. Both underwent an exceptional performance improvement this season. Notably, Kroos didn't seem to have benefited from this record breaking season so far. Same holds for Tymoshchuk that recovered from his intermediate dip. Gustavo improved a bit and is an option to secure a lead.
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Bayern has many world-class forwards to chose from. Ribery and Robben, the Raumdeuter Thomas Müller and of course Mario Gomez. However, Heynkes usually prefers Mandzukic over Gomez, presumably because of his more intensive pressing work. Shaqiri's exceptional development continues. Until now he is on a similar path as Thomas Müller was in his age. A note to Pizarro: he hardly played this season, but certainly he is more than a backup. When on field, his performance was so incredible that his 1Y-Goalimpact raised to 300. Given the low amount of minutes, I removed the last two data points not to spoil the graph.
Bayern is the favorite for this years' Champions League title both according to Goalimpact and the betting markets. However, Goalimpact sees this more like a 40%-60% decision and not 30%-70%.
Update 22.05.2013
Looks like Kroos and Götze can't play as they will not recover from their injuries in time, so I removed them from the assumed staring XI. The updated odds reflecting this information are given here.
Apparently, Betfair had this factored in already to large extend.
Borussia Dortmund
According to latest rumors, Mats Hummels will be fit to play the final, but Mario Götze is not going to make it. Therefore Klopp can't sent his best squad on the field and the line-up may look like this.
Bench: Sebastian Kehl (135.7), Moritz Leitner (115.6), Julian Schieber (116.5), Felipe Santana (119.9), Nuri Sahin (128.8), Mitchell Langerak (116.8)
Playing with Güdogan and Sahin as number six is too risky in my point of view, but may be an option to force a goal if Bayern is in the lead and Dortmund is running out of time.
The number in the brackets are the career average numbers of the Goalimpact. The higher the number the better the goal difference of the player's team was when he was in the field as compared to when he was not. The average over all players in the database is 100, so actually none of Dortmund's players, that may take part in the final, is below average.
Careers are long and the career average Goalimpact may and will not be 1:1 correlated with the current form of the players. Another way to look at it is the 1-year rolling Goalimpact that is shown in the following graphs for all positions.
Defense
Hummels, Subotic and Schmelzer are the three most influential defenders at Dortmund. Santana, the hero of the Malaga game, has had a less perfect performance on the field, but still can be considered to be good. Piszczek is not as good as a wing-back as Schmelzer, but without alternative.
Midfield
Best performer in the midfield was Sebastian Kehl. Personally I don't think he will play anyway as he only entered the game shortly before injury time in the two semi-finals, too. He is 33 and may not be able to play at full speed over 90 minutes. On the other hand, the two victories of Bayern over Dortmund this year were both without Kehl.
Gündogan shows first signs of a slowdown in performance growth and stabilizes on an high level, especially given his age. Like Bender he is now at a 1Y-Goalimpact of 160. Sahin's performance increased further. He apparently gets better adopted to Dortmund's tactical plan again. Leitner unfortunately sees his performance drop steadily further. It fell from its peak at 133 to now 118.
Attack
Großkreuz and Lewandowski had the best performance in the last 12 months from all forwards. Interestingly, Kuba, Götze, Reus and Schieber were all about equal in the same time period, but 15 points lower than the top two. Talent-wise there are big differences though. Götze reached this performance already in the age of 20. So while it may not be an immediate problem for Dortmund that Götze leaves the team, it is a big lost opportunity for the future.
Bayern Munich
Apparently, Holger Badstuber will no return to the team before November, extending his injury break to a full year. Kroos is injured, too, but is likely not fit for the final. Otherwise, Heynkes can freely chose from all players. A likely starting XI is shown here.
Bench: Xherdan Shaqiri (136.7), Luiz Gustavo (143.8), Anatoliy Tymoshchuk (130.3), Claudio Pizarro (143.8), Rafinha (134.4), Daniel Van Buyten (138.0), Mario Gomez (150.5), Diego Contento (122.2)
There are few teams that have such a strong bench. Hardly any, to be more precise. Robben and Gomez are absolutely word-class. Robben is even in the Goalimpact Hall of Fame.
Center-Back
Dante continues his miraculous raise in performance that started already during his time at Mönchengladbach. He and Boateng are clearly the preferable pair of center-backs. Van Buyten is a good backup though.
Wide-Back
Phillip Lahm is not only the best wing-back of the world, he is also at the heights of his performance. His 1Y-Goalimpact is above 250 since September 2011 and raised more in the last few months towards 300.
Midfield
Schweinsteiger and Martinez have the momentum on their side. Both underwent an exceptional performance improvement this season. Notably, Kroos didn't seem to have benefited from this record breaking season so far. Same holds for Tymoshchuk that recovered from his intermediate dip. Gustavo improved a bit and is an option to secure a lead.
Forwards
Bayern has many world-class forwards to chose from. Ribery and Robben, the Raumdeuter Thomas Müller and of course Mario Gomez. However, Heynkes usually prefers Mandzukic over Gomez, presumably because of his more intensive pressing work. Shaqiri's exceptional development continues. Until now he is on a similar path as Thomas Müller was in his age. A note to Pizarro: he hardly played this season, but certainly he is more than a backup. When on field, his performance was so incredible that his 1Y-Goalimpact raised to 300. Given the low amount of minutes, I removed the last two data points not to spoil the graph.
Summary
Bayern looks too strong for Dortmund. They have a team nearly without any weaknesses. If you want to point to somewhere, the weakest spot seems to be David Alaba. However, Dortmund has a strong defense that can keep the score even for a long time and they have a creative attack that can score against any defense. This is certainly not going to be the easy win for Bayern as many seem to expect.Odds
I'm not sure how to correctly predict the draw probability. I suspect it may be a bit higher than in a normal games as both teams may consider extra time to be attractive under certain circumstances. Therefore I report "draw no bet" odds here.| Goalimpact | Betfair | |
| Dortmund | 39,8% | 27,8% |
| Bayern | 60,2% | 72,2% |
Bayern is the favorite for this years' Champions League title both according to Goalimpact and the betting markets. However, Goalimpact sees this more like a 40%-60% decision and not 30%-70%.
Update 22.05.2013
Looks like Kroos and Götze can't play as they will not recover from their injuries in time, so I removed them from the assumed staring XI. The updated odds reflecting this information are given here.
| Goalimpact | Betfair | |
| Dortmund | 37,7% | 27,0% |
| Bayern | 62,3% | 73,0% |
Apparently, Betfair had this factored in already to large extend.