Paint the pitch red / Weaving a web

For AJC's Kick It World Cup newsletter, I used Sportradar data to chart how Spain controlled its 1-0 win over Argentina in the World Cup final.

"Paint the pitch red" plots every pass for each team, attacking toward the top, with arrows for completed passes and Xs for incomplete ones (out of bounds, interceptions and so on). Spain's passing filled the pitch end to end while Argentina's map thins out past midfield.

"Weaving a web" shows passing networks for each team's starting XI: line thickness shows the number of passes between two players and node size shows player involvement. Spain's Rodri anchored a lattice of overlapping triangles that smothered Argentina across a record passing night.