Jonathan Tah and the pass between the lines

1063 settled passes from the middle third over 28 Bundesliga matches and 2253 minutes. A team-mate was standing between the opponent's midfield and defensive lines on 866 of them (81%), free on 406, and wide open on 47. He played the free man 13 times (3.2% of those chances) and the wide-open man 1. The rest of the time the ball went sideways (43%) or forward but short of the line (30%).

Showing the full season. Use the match picker in the top bar to look at any set of games.

EVERY PASS HE PLAYS FROM THE MIDDLE THIRD: WAS THE LINE-BREAKING PASS ON, AND DID HE PLAY IT?

How often the pass was on, and how often he found it

"How many times can he find this line-breaking pass, compared to how often the possibility was there?"

Three bars for "the pass was on", from loosest to strictest. Someone between their lines: 866 passes. Free, meaning 3 m of space and an open lane: 406. Wide open, meaning 5 m of space, a 2.5 m lane and no more than 28 m away: 47. He played the free man 13 times, the wide-open man 1.

EVERY FREE MAN BETWEEN THE LINES, PLAYED OR NOT

One marker per free team-mate standing between the opponent's midfield and defensive lines at the moment he plays. Free = no opponent within 3 m, no opponent within 1.5 m of the passing lane, and within 38 m of him.

HOW OFTEN THE PASS WAS ON, BY HOW STRICT YOU ARE

HOW MANY WERE FREE, AND HOW OFTEN HE PLAYED ONE

TAKE RATE BY HOW FAR THE MAN WAS

AGAINST THE OPPONENT'S BLOCK

WHO THE FREE MAN WAS

THE READ

The pass is on far more often than he plays it. Over the season a team-mate was free between the lines on 406 of his 1063 settled passes from the middle third (38%, roughly 14.5 a game). He played that man 13 times: 3.2%. Raise the bar to a window nobody would argue with and there were still 47 of them, about 1.7 a game, of which he played 1.

Distance is not the explanation: he took 11 of 232 when the free man was inside 22 m and 2 of 174 when he was further away. The man standing there most often is H. Kane (108 times, played 2). The chance appears most against a mid block (41% of his passes).

What he does instead

"And if he does not play it, what did he do?"

The 393 passes where a free man was standing between the lines and the ball went somewhere else.

THE PASS HE PLAYED WHEN A FREE MAN WAS STANDING BETWEEN THE LINES

THE WIDE-OPEN ONES ON THE PITCH

The moments where the man between the lines was wide open and the ball went somewhere else. Solid arrow = the pass he played, hollow ring = the man he did not play. Drawing all 393 free-man moments here turned the pitch into a blur, so this is the strict set.

WHERE THE BALL WENT INSTEAD

THE PASS ITSELF

Over the season, on the 393 passes where a free man stood between the lines, the ball went sideways 170 times (43%), forward but short of the line 118 times (30%), across their line to someone else 45 times (11%). 52% of those passes were sideways or backwards - the ball stayed in front of the opponent's midfield line and the position was recycled.

The men he goes to instead: A. Pavlovic (55), J. Kimmich (45), T. Bischof (38). He does still break the line 47 times in these moments, but with a different pass - usually wide or over the line rather than into the pocket in front of him. It is a low-risk profile: 95% of the passes he chooses arrive.

Does it cost anything

What happened in the rest of the possession after the pass, for the three kinds of moment. Small samples on the first row: he only played it 13 times all season.

WHAT THE POSSESSION DID NEXT

The rest of the same possession after his pass: the furthest point it reached, and whether it ended in a shot. Season view is in the read text.

COMPLETION AND RISK

How often each kind of pass arrives. The line-breaking pass is harder than the safe one; the question is whether the gap is big enough to justify never playing it.

Season-wide, when he did find the man between the lines the possession reached the final third 62% of the time and ended in a shot 23% (n 13); when a free man was there and he played elsewhere it was 68% and 16% (n 393).

His own risk profile is clear: 100% of the line-breaking passes arrived against 95% of the safe ones.

The moments, frame by frame

Real tracking frames at the instant he plays the pass. Gold ring = a free man between the lines, dashed gold = the pass that was on, solid = the pass he played. Season view.

FC Augsburg 2-3 FC Bayern München, 30 Aug, 39'. Tah (LCB) has the ball in the middle third in established possession with H. Kane free between the lines, and plays S. Gnabry (CAM).

Match by match

28 matches with minutes. He had at least one chance in 27 of them and played the free man in 11.

CHANCES TO BREAK THE LINE, AND WHAT HE DID WITH THEM

One column per match he played, in date order. Click a column to add or remove that match from the selection.

Most wide-open chances in a single game: 6 against FC St. Pauli (29 Nov, 51 with a free man), of which he took 1. His best game for this was SC Freiburg with 3. In 16 of the 27 matches where the pass was available he did not play it once.

The same test for the other centre-backs

Every Bayern München centre-back this season on the same test: how often a free man stood between the lines while they had the ball in the middle third, and how often they played him.

Same moments, same definition, for every centre-back with at least 60 settled passes from the middle third this season. Season view.

Tah takes 3.2% of his chances; the other centre-backs together take 4.7%. On all passes, 11% of his cross the opponent's midfield line against 13% for the others. The most willing is J. Stanisic (2 of 20), the least H. Ito (1 of 65).

The spread is narrow because this is a team pattern: Bayern München's centre-backs took 43 of 1038 chances between them (4.1%), and 8 of 140 of the wide-open ones. The ball is moved around the block rather than through it, and the man in the pocket is reached a pass later. Tah sits at the cautious end of that, not outside it.