Ground Passes - Top 10 of Europe's Big 5 Leagues

Image by AZ Quotes

A famous line from one of my biggest footballing inspirations. 

In this piece we will highlight the top 10 teams (across Europe's Big 5 Leagues) that currently lead the rest when it comes to, keeping the ball safely on the ground, thus far this season. Of course this is a statistic that can be a little misleading because of course in order to play the most ground passes, you need to have the ball. But as one can see based on this list, there are some teams that have not been that dominant domestically that still rank highly. This just shows how footballing philosophy shapes a club, regardless of the immediate results.

*All data is taken from StatsBomb*

1. Manchester City - 12,942 grounded passes

2. Paris Saint-Germain - 12,917 grounded passes

3. Napoli - 10,887 grounded passes

4. Real Madrid - 10,849 grounded passes

5. Chelsea - 10,796 grounded passes

6. Marseille - 10,747 grounded passes

7. Lazio - 10,547 grounded passes

8. Barcelona - 10,410 grounded passes

9. Bayern Munich - 10,269 grounded passes

10. Liverpool - 9,915 grounded passes

 

The most interesting of these figures is Man City and PSG being top 2 on the list, and nearly 2,000 grounded passes ahead of the third placed, Napoli. Is this is an indicator that simply having the best players (which Man City and PSG arguably do) constitutes for playing more grounded passes overall? It would be easy to think this, especially in PSG's case given the competition in Ligue 1 is definitely lighter than Man City's rivals in the Premier League. But looking at Man City in, what many describe as the most difficult league in the world, the Premier Leauge, it is simply incredible to see such a high number of grounded passes. As we mentioned teams who are not as high in their domestic league tables are also present, Lazio, Marseille and Barcelona. This goes to show that it is also simply the style that a club approaches the game in that constitutes the number of grounded passes. I am sure Brian Clough would be proud of every team on the list.