Late dominance and three penalties: BVB set new xG record against HSV | OneFootball

It’s not an official record that Borussia Dortmund’s team achieved in the match against Hamburger SV. After all, xG values are just one of many statistics collected around football, but not something truly relevant or countable like goals or assists. And yet, it is a unique value that BVB achieved yesterday.

With a total of 6.24 xG in this game against HSV, BVB set a new record in the Bundesliga. No team has ever reached so many potential goals within 90 minutes since this data has been collected. Which brings us to an important caveat that should not go unmentioned in light of this “record.”

xG values and similar statistics have only been recorded in the Bundesliga since the 2020/21 season. So, around 60 years of Bundesliga football that took place before are not taken into account here. And even if you score many goals, you might still not reach a particularly high xG value. It’s reasonable to assume that in matches where a team scored significantly more goals than BVB’s three yesterday, the value of 6.24 xG would also have been surpassed—if it had been recorded.

The outstanding candidate for this would, of course, be Borussia Mönchengladbach’s record victory. BMG won 12:0 in the spring of 1978 at the Rheinstadion in Düsseldorf—against Borussia Dortmund. And two other hot candidates for a game with a higher xG value also involved BVB. In 1971, BVB lost 1:11 to FC Bayern Munich. In 1982, they won by the same score against Arminia Bielefeld.

Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images

Numerous Shots and Three Penalties Bring BVB the Record

The new record value achieved by BVB came about due to two aspects of the game. First, there were the three penalties awarded to BVB by referee Matthias Jöllenbeck, a first for the Black and Yellows in their Bundesliga history. These alone contribute a very high share to the total xG value. In addition, there was an incredibly dominant second half, especially considering the weak first half.

There were 15:0 shots on goal in that second half, which were counted in the end. BVB repeatedly pinned HSV back and thus created a multitude of opportunities.

However, the fact that the victory was so narrow and that with a new record value of 6.24 xG only three goals were scored—two of them from penalties—would be another story entirely.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.