Stefan Reinartz and Jens Hegeler once played together at Bayer Leverkusen. In 2014, the two ex-professionals also developed the “Packing” project – a method for analyzing football games that serves as the basis for calculating the playing strength of players and teams.
After their company was recently sold to the Australian company Catapult for many millions, Reinartz and Hegeler highlighted Toni Kroos, who has since retired from football, as a prime example in terms of packaging.
“There is no one at his level anymore,” said Reinartz in an interview with the magazine 11 friends about Kroos. Looking at the data analyzed by Packing, he further explained: “He had 90 outplayed opponents per game, today the best with Vitinha from PSG and Aleix García from Bayer 04 Leverkusen are almost 80, followed by Kimmich (Joshua Kimmich; Anm. d. Red.) at 70.”
Kroos? “He was a strategist”
Kroos was “a strategist”: “He wanted to first gain control of possession of the ball. And only then initiate speed by playing vertical passes or setting up teammates,” explained Reinartz.
“The ranking of the clubs” is also particularly important for the company. This should also please FC Bayern, who, according to Packing, are “right now the strongest team” in Europe. Followed by Arsenal FC in second place and Manchester City in third place.
To determine this ranking, the company uses, among other things, the odds on the betting market. The performance of the teams is calculated retroactively from these expected values.
When analyzing the German record champions, Hegeler identified clear strengths: “In our data we see that they outplay a lot of opponents, but are themselves outplayed very little. They also produce the highest pressure in counter-pressing of all European teams.”
Bavaria? “This is very unusual”
Overall, Packing divides the game into six different phases: in possession of the ball and against the ball, transition phases offensively and defensively, standards and a phase of the second ball game.
In a national comparison, Bayern are the outstanding team in every phase of the game. “This is very unusual,” stated Reinartz.
The German national team can also apparently have legitimate hopes for the 2026 World Cup. “We recently did an internal analysis and the German team is doing pretty well. I was surprised myself that they were third behind Spain and France on the same level as Argentina,” said Reinartz.
