Ball possession: Benfica is king of the European leaders

On the attack: this is how the Benfica team has looked in the first 13 matches of the season.  The team displays on the pitch arguments that are worthy of praise and, above all, results (13 victories in a row). And one of the pillars of this performance is ball possession, where the eagles lead internally and among the leaders of the 10 best ranked UEFA Leagues. 

In this particular aspect, if Benfica is the Portuguese team with the highest percentage of ball possession in the Liga Bwin, with 68,1%, transposing to what was done in all the matches of this season, we see that the eagles are the leader among the leaders of the 10 Championships with the best UEFA ranking, reaching an average of 62,6% per match in the 13 games played, as revealed by data from the Wyscout platform.

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Close behind Benfica in the ball possession ranking of the top 10 European leagues are the Scots of Celtic with an average of 62,5% in the 10 matches played, in a list that includes the following teams: Arsenal (60,12% in eight matches), Paris Saint-Germain (58% in 11 matches), Real Madrid (57,5% in nine matches), Salzburg (56,9% in 13 matches), Royal Antwerp (56,07% in 15 matches), Napoli (56,04% in nine matches), PSV Eindhoven (52,71% in 13 matches) and Union Berlin (46,21% in 10 matches).

In terms of passing, in the Liga Bwin, the Reds are dominant, with a total of 4610 in seven rounds.

In the 13 matches played, the eagles managed an average of  17,38 shots per game, 37,6% of each were on target; they registered 629,23 passes per match and a pass accuracy of 8,3%.

Also of note is the number of positional attacks that the team made on average, 42.15 per game, 26.3% of which ended with shots on goal.

In terms of corner kicks, Benfica won an average of 7.85 per game and 22.5% resulted in shots. In the Liga Bwin, the Reds are the team that took the most corner kicks (64).

Still in the chapter of set pieces, it was also found that the eagles benefited from fewer free kicks than their opponents per game (1.85 vs. 2.15), but presented a better use of them to finish (29.2% vs. 10.7%).

Two other indicators show us the team's capacity to flank the game...

On average, the Reds made 21.31 crosses per game, with a success rate of 38.2% (against eight of their opponents, with a success rate of 21.1%). In the Liga Bwin, Benfica also leads in this parameter, with 168 crosses.

As for the offensive duels, the participation reached 80.62 per game and 39.8% success rate.