What if Jhon Duran scores double his xG forever?

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This round of UEFA Champions League action featured a bunch of stuff that didn’t make any sense, and I enjoyed it a lot. With more games and more information, we’ll be able to make sense of what’s going on in the competition. But for now, we’re just rolling with the weirdness and going “huh, that’s weird.”

Before we get going, some business. We’re very happy to provide this newsletter for free, and we’re able to do that because of ads. We’d really appreciate it if you’d check out our partner 1440, who does a great daily news roundup. —KM

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I hope Jhon Duran just keeps doing this

Aston Villa pulled off their best win of my lifetime on Wednesday, beating Bayern Munich 1-0 off the back of an absolute banger by Jhon Duran. The most effective substitute in world football scored off the bench again, and it was another outrageous banger.

(USA version here.)

You already know what a Stats Nerd like me is going to say about Duran. [Pinching my nose so I can say this in the dorkiest nasal voice possible] Duran’s performances are unsustainable! He’s overperforming his xG by a ridiculous amount! No one can score 0.01 xG shots all the time! Regression to the mean is inevitable!

Here are the numbers for people who are interested and not already telling me to fuck off: Duran has 13 goals from 6.31 xG in all competitions between this season and last. If he really is the best striker of all time and can consistently overperform his xG at the same rate as Lionel Messi, you’d expect him to score 8 goals from those shots.

I hope he is better than Messi for real. That would be the coolest thing of all time to get to witness as a football fan. For a guy who looked like a really good but not slam dunk prospect at Envigado and Chicago Fire to go on to be the best goal-scorer in the history of the game would make me unbelievably happy.

No one knows how good Jhon Duran is right now. We’re not going to know for a long time if he’s just a pretty good Premier League striker or a future Ballon d’Or winner. But he’s on one of the most entertaining runs of form I can remember.

WTF Atléti

Does anyone have an explanation for what happened here? Because I am at a loss.

Atlético Madrid are a team that you expect to have a solid defensive shape in big matches, if nothing else. But the first goal they conceded against Benfica was genuinely shocking. Please enjoy this spacing between right center back Axel Witsel and right wingback Marcos Llorente.

The camera cut to an extremely apoplectic Diego Simeone, who couldn’t believe what he was watching. He ended up making 4 substitutions between this goal and the start of the second half, but things just proceeded to get worse. They conceded a set piece goal to a guy who lost his marker by tripping and faceplanting 2 seconds before he scored, and gave away two penalties.

Atléti got no creative attack in exchange for their wide-open defense, creating just 0.26 xG and no shots after the 60th minute. This was such a comprehensively poor team performance that I’m wondering if dodgy lasagna or teammates fighting over a girl was involved. This is inexplicable.

We know even less about Juventus now

We’re on a serious roll when it comes to red cards giving us bad information. Arsenal’s robbed us of what could have been an epic match with Manchester City, Manchester United’s probably made them look worse than they are against Tottenham, and now this one.

Juventus conceded a nice goal to Benjamin Šeško early, but was generally playing the very good defense they’re becoming known for until goalkeeper Michele Di Gregorio got sent off in the 59th minute. It looked like we were heading for a relatively uneventful 1-1 draw, but you can see how dramatically the game changes at that moment.

Juventus really struggled to prevent shots with 10 men — shocking! — but they also took advantage of their opponent opening up significantly by scoring a couple of excellent goals. Francisco Conceição was involved in all 3 that they scored, and he looks like he’s going to be worth his €30m purchase option this summer.

This game also featured two injuries in the opening 12 minutes. Juve’s star center back Bremer tore his ACL and will be out for the season, while Nico Gonzales will miss at least a few weeks with a thigh injury.

On Tuesday, I said that RB Leipzig are an excellent “are you great” gatekeeper team, and we’d know a lot more about Juventus after this game. Instead, we know much less. I have no idea if their defense is actually great, and if it can continue to be one of the world’s best without Bremer in the lineup.

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