The ability to play under pressure separates elite players from the rest. 

Provoking defenders to engage on the ball has become a key ability to manipulate the opposition, generating space and opportunities. 

This Drawing Pressure metric captures those situations, quantifying how often players are able to receive the ball in space, and then intentionally draw an opponent out.

By identifying possessions that begin with little to no pressure but purposely evolve into high-pressure engagements, this metric highlights players who act as attractors—disrupting defensive blocks by holding the ball or driving directly at opponents to provoke engagement.

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Applied use cases

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• Wide Attackers
  Find wingers who excel at receiving the ball in isolation, dragging full-backs out of position to create 1v1 opportunities or opening up underlapping channels for teammates.

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• Central Defenders
  Identify ball-playing defenders who comfortably hold possession to invite the opposition press, creating numerical superiorities and line-breaking passing lanes behind the first line of defense.

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Metric Definition

Drawing Pressure flags players who receive the ball in space, intentionally wait for a defender to jump out and press them before making their next move, or, conversely, drive the ball towards an opposing player to provoke and engage him directly.

Specifically, it measures possessions that start from a pass reception under low or no pressure, last for at least 2 seconds, and end under high or very high pressure.

The Overall Pressure Degree is driven by four key components: the time defenders have to close down the ball carrier, the space available to the receiver, the ease of available passing options, and the technical difficulty of the reception.

Each of these is assessed on a five-level scale, from Very Easy to Very Difficult.

These elements are then combined into a single, model-based metric — the Overall Pressure Degree — expressed on a scale from None to Very High.

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If you’d like to dive deeper into SkillCorner’s Playing Under Pressure Framework, check out the full explainer and video below:

Know more about SkillCorner’s Playing under Pressure Framework.

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