Heat Maps & xG Stats to be included in FIFA 22

Two very popular statistics are set to make their debuts in FIFA 22. The player Heat Map and Expected Goals (xG) have potentially been leaked.

According to an in-game screenshot posted by @KingLangpard on Twitter, the Heat Map can be seen showing a players positioning throughout the game. There was no visual confirmation of proof of the xG stat as of yet.

READ MORE: 7 Features We Want To See More Of In FIFA 22 Ultimate Team

FIFA 22 Heat Map

The player Heat Map has been a popular statistic or tool that is used to determine a player's positioning throughout a game. This can provide useful information on how the player was positioned both offensively and defensively.

With this data a player can determine whether or not they were as effective as they wanted to be, while also looking at if they were fulfilling their positional duties correctly.

The Heat Map is used extensively in the Football Manager games as it provides insightful looks at how a player or team is behaving vs their instructions.

For FIFA 22, it could be used to determine how effective a players positioning and tactical instructions are, with changes to be made if they're simply not in the right place at the right time.

READ MORE: Youngsters Set To Battle It Out For FIFA 22 Cover

FIFA 22 Expected Goals

The Expected Goals (xG) stat is one of the newest to be introduced to football in general. In short it looks at the chances created by a team and how likely it is that those chances could be scored. This produces the xG stat.

It's calculations are easily the most in-depth for any football statistic. Many purists are not a fan of the stat as they believe it tries to calculate too many univariable qualities.

xG is calculated by looking at each chance a team has and judging it on the following criteria;

• Type of assist - Was the assist a cross, simple pass, through ball etc.
• Was it a header?
• Was it a shot with a foot?
• Angle of the shot
• Distance of the shot
• Was it a one-on-one or big chance
• Did it occur from open play or a set-piece

It does not take into account who the player taking the chance is and applying that to the xG calculation which some have raised eyebrows at.

Surely Harry Kane would have a higher chance at finishing a chance compared to, say, John Stones?

xG is presented as a decimal number. If a chance is given an xG of 0.30, the chance should be converted into a goal 30% of the time.

A team's xG is the average goals they are expected to score each game based on average chances. An individual player can be given an xG value for a season to determine where they should be expected to finish on the season.

This would be a larger number, for example, Harry Kane's xG for 20/21 was 22.17 and he finished with 23 goals. This means he just about exceeded his xG based on the chances he had across the season.