Go for Goal or Fist it Over? What do the stats say?

I was at a tightly contested club game recently. The club I was working with were leading by 2 with no more than 5 minutes to go. A favourable break from a kickout, and a well timed hand pass later and our corner forward had one defender beside him and a goal keeper in front of him. Management and teamates were torn between shouting fist it over or go for it. Our forward ultimately iced the game putting the ball in the back of the net and secured two invaluable points. This along with a sea of tweets from recent weeks of football had me asking, what is the right decision when in you get that close to goal.

To calculate the best option from a statistical point of view we're going to use extremely basic probability. The outcome of a goal is 3 whereas a point is 1. Using potential conversion rates we are able to calculate an expected return from each opportunity.

Although the approach is quite simplistic these results would challenge even the most conservative of players and managers. We can clearly see that the quote unquote right option is go for the goal. Unless the player or team is operating at poor conversion rate of 33% or below, players should really be aiming to take on the goal keeper in an attempt to rattle the net. Managers and coaches should be keeping track of how players and the teams are performing in their shooting drills especially those goal focussed, e.g. 3v2's and 3v3's and keep a record of how efficient their team is in front of goals and identify what is the correct decision for each player based on their individual conversion rates. One would likely argue that if team's put enough emphasis on goal focussed drills that most players would be scoring goals more than 1 goal every 3 shots and that eventually the correct decision for every player would be to shoot for goal.

We would like to note that the numbers don't consider the nuances of the game including when a player could square it across for an open net, or if a team is leading by a large margin late on and the goal would be meaningless and potentially considered rude. However, in midst of battle, players should never be scorned for going for goal if they are confident and their number's back them up. The reality is the goal is the best option, isn't that why the age old phrase that "Goals Win Games" has stood the test of time.