Original title: Macrostructural Passing Networks Across Competitive Contexts: A Case Study of Manchester City
José Gama, Gonçalo Dias, Ana Chaves, Manuel Santos +5 · October 2026
Researchers studied Manchester City across all 38 league matches of their 2023–2024 season. Instead of tracking single players, they mapped every completed pass to see the whole team as an interconnected web. They tested if this web changed across the season, at home versus away, against tough opponents, or when winning versus losing. The overall team shape barely changed between home and away games. It only shifted a few specific passing patterns depending on the quality of the opponent and the match outcome.
A group of friends is passing a ball around in a circle during a casual game. Usually, if they move from a park to a noisy gym, you might expect their entire rhythm to completely break down. Here, the gym or park is match location, and the passing circle is the team's network. The study shows that the players maintain almost the exact same collective passing shape regardless of the venue, only tweaking who trades passes when facing a much stronger challenger.
Coaches and analysts often focus on individual players instead of how an entire team moves the ball as a single system. This research reveals that top-level team passing networks stay remarkably steady over a full season, only shifting specific connection patterns when the opponent's skill level or the match result changes.
The study is a single-team case study focused exclusively on Manchester City during the 2023–2024 English Premier League season. Its findings may not apply to other clubs, leagues, or seasons, and the dataset is limited to successful passes without evaluating off-ball movement or defensive actions.
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Macrostructural Passing Networks Across Competitive Contexts: A Case Study of Manchester City — José Gama, Gonçalo Dias, Ana Chaves et al. — Applied Sciences — doi:10.3390/app16199888
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.