Free kick Threat Score: Measuring the threat a player generates from indirect free kicks

For me, 2024 is going to be more about creating and applying existing data metrics across football. The first genre of metrics is the metrics that are useful for set pieces because I feel that’s where a lot of improvement can be made and also because I’m just a nerd for set pieces.

Earlier this year, I already introduced Corner Threat Score . The Corner Threat Score is a metric that I’ve created to measure the threat of the delivery by the player taking the corner. It measures the threat of the cross/pass, the zone it arrives in, the possibility of direct contact resulting in a goal, and the swing of the corner being taken.

You can read all about it here:

Corner Threat Score: Measuring the threat a player generates from taking inswinging and…

So, the idea is quite similar for this new metric called Free kick Threat Score (FTS). How does the free kick taker generatethreat and how can we measure it the data at hands?

This article will be quite the same as the article on CTS, but with a few details that are different to make sure it’s clear what…