What is the Player MA-Score?

The Player MA-Score is a composite rating on a 0-100 scale that measures how a footballer is performing relative to other players in the same position group within the same league. A score of 50 is always the position median - not an arbitrary midpoint, but the actual statistical median of all players in that group. Half score above 50, half below. Unlike match ratings from SofaScore or FotMob - which rate a single game on a 1-10 scale and reset after every fixture - the Player MA-Score is a season-long assessment. It is updated daily and reflects a player's accumulated performance across all matches played in the current campaign. The score is built on the same mathematical foundation as the Team MA-Score: per-90 normalisation, Z-score standardisation, and CDF transformation. Both the Team MA-Score and the Player MA-Score now share the same five-dimension structure - Attacking Threat, Ball Progression, Defensive Solidity, Efficiency, and Form - adapted to the context of individual players rather than whole teams. For goalkeepers, the Attacking Threat dimension is replaced by Shot Stopping, which captures save quality, xG prevention, and penalty saves instead. The Player MA-Score adds one further layer the team score doesn't need: strict position separation. A goalkeeper is never compared to a centre-back. A striker is never compared to a central midfielder. The peer group for each comparison is always players doing the same job in the same league.

Consider what a generic player rating would look like. A goalkeeper who plays 90 minutes and makes 6 saves, records 0 goals, 0 assists, and 0 shots on target has done an excellent job - but a generic system that weights goals and assists heavily would give them a mediocre score. A striker who scores 2 goals from 1.1 xG has been clinical, but a system evaluating pass accuracy and defensive work rate would undervalue their contribution. The problem is fundamental: different positions have different jobs. Comparing them with a single metric set is like evaluating a surgeon and a pilot by the same performance criteria. Both are skilled professionals, but success looks completely different for each. MatchAnalyzr solves this by defining eight position groups with separate metric sets and weights. The groups are: - GK: Goalkeeper - CB: Centre-Back - FB: Full-Back (left and right) - DM: Defensive Midfielder - CM: Central Midfielder - AM: Attacking Midfielder - WAM: Wide Attacker / Winger - ST: Striker Each group uses only the metrics that are meaningful for that role. The weights within each group reflect the relative importance of each metric to overall performance in that position. A striker's score is dominated by goals, xG, and shooting efficiency. A defensive midfielder's score is dominated by duel win rate, passing accuracy, and tackles. The two players are never compared to each other.

Each position group has its own metric set, carefully selected to capture what genuinely matters for that role. All groups share the five-dimension structure (Attacking Threat, Ball Progression, Defensive Solidity, Efficiency, Form), with metrics assigned to the most appropriate dimension per position. For goalkeepers, Attacking Threat is replaced by Shot Stopping. Below is a full breakdown of the key metrics and weights used for each group.

Every position group uses a different set of metrics with different weights. This section documents the complete metric configuration for all eight groups across the five dimensions. All metrics are normalised to per-90 minutes before any comparison is made. Understanding which metrics drive each position's score - and why - is the key to reading the 'Why?' breakdown correctly. The five dimensions apply to every position group, but the metrics assigned to each dimension differ by role. Weights within each group reflect the relative importance of that aspect to overall performance in that position. For example, Attacking Threat carries 35% of a striker's score but only 10% of a centre-back's. **Goalkeepers (GK) - the exception: Shot Stopping replaces Attacking Threat** For goalkeepers, the Attacking Threat dimension is replaced entirely by Shot Stopping. This is the only position group with a structural dimension substitution. Shot Stopping combines saves per 90, saves inside the box, penalty saves, goals conceded (inverted), and clean sheets. The Efficiency dimension for GK uses clean sheets and pass accuracy rather than save metrics to avoid double-counting the same performance signals already captured in Shot Stopping. **Centre-Backs (CB) - Defensive Solidity weighted at 35%** Centre-backs are weighted heavily toward Defensive Solidity, built from duels won percentage, times dribbled past (inverted), tackles, interceptions, clearances, and blocks - a six-metric set that captures every core defensive action. Ball Progression captures pass accuracy, long balls, and through balls - reflecting the modern expectation that centre-backs initiate attacks from deep. Efficiency pairs duels won percentage with pass accuracy. Attacking Threat (10%) rewards goals and headers from set pieces through aerials won and xG. **Full-Backs (FB) - the most balanced profile** Full-backs have the most evenly distributed dimension weights among outfield positions, reflecting their dual attacking and defensive role. Attacking Threat captures goals, assists, and big chances created. Defensive Solidity captures duels won percentage, tackles, interceptions, crosses blocked, and times dribbled past (inverted). Ball Progression captures key passes, dribble success percentage, assists, pass accuracy, and long balls. No single dimension dominates the FB score. **Defensive Midfielders (DM) - Defensive Solidity and Ball Progression equally weighted** DMs are scored primarily on duels won percentage (26% of the Defensive Solidity dimension), tackles, interceptions, and pass accuracy. Errors leading to goals per 90 appears as an inverted metric - midfielders whose mistakes lead directly to goals are penalised heavily, because errors in central midfield create the most dangerous defensive exposure on the pitch. Fouls committed per 90 is also inverted, rewarding disciplined defending. **Central Midfielders (CM) - creative and defensive balance** CMs share the errors-leading-to-goal (inverted) stability metric with DMs. The creative dimension is captured through assists per 90 (27%, the single highest-weighted Ball Progression metric for CMs), key passes per 90, pass accuracy, through balls, and big chances created. Defensive Solidity is built from tackles, interceptions, duels won percentage, and the errors-leading-to-goal penalty. The CM profile rewards box-to-box contribution rather than specialists. **Attacking Midfielders (AM) - Attacking Threat weighted at 30%, goals and assists central** AMs are scored on goals, assists, xG, shots on target, shots total, and big chances missed (inverted). Ball Progression (30%) rewards key passes per 90, big chances created, assists, through balls, and dribble success percentage. Defensive Solidity carries minimal weight (10%) and rewards duels won percentage, tackles, and rewards holding the ball by inverting times dispossessed. **Wide Attackers / Wingers (WAM) - Attacking Threat weighted at 30%** WAMs combine direct goal threat with creative output. Attacking Threat captures goals, assists, xG, shots on target, shots total, and successful dribbles. Ball Progression rewards assists, dribble success percentage, key passes, and big chances created. Efficiency (20%) combines dribble success percentage, pass accuracy, and shots on target - wingers whose quality shows up in both creation and shooting. **Strikers (ST) - Attacking Threat weighted at 35%, goals at the core** Strikers have the most offensively concentrated metric set. Goals per 90 carries the highest single-metric weight in the Attacking Threat dimension for ST. xG per 90, penalty scored per 90, shots on target per 90, shots total per 90, big chances missed (inverted), and hit woodwork round out the seven-metric Attacking Threat set. Defensive Solidity (10%) and Ball Progression (15%) carry minimal weight for strikers - their job is to score, and the score reflects that clearly. Dimension weight ranges across position groups: - Attacking Threat: from 10% (CB) to 35% (ST) - Defensive Solidity: from 10% (AM, WAM, ST) to 35% (CB) - Ball Progression: from 15% (CB, ST) to 30% (CM, AM) - Efficiency: from 10% (GK) to 25% (CB, ST) - Form: 10%–15% across all groups Every weight listed here is the default configuration. All weights are stored in the database and can be adjusted by administrators through the Admin Panel without requiring a code deployment.

All player metrics are normalised to a per-90-minutes basis before any comparison is made. The formula is straightforward: metric value / (minutes played / 90). A striker who scores 8 goals in 1,260 minutes (14 full matches) has a goals-per-90 rate of 0.57 - the same as a striker who scores 4 goals in 630 minutes. Both players are producing at the same rate; the normalisation ensures they're rated equally. This is essential because footballers play varying amounts of time. Rotation players, substitutes, players returning from injury, and players who have been rested all accumulate fewer raw statistics - not because they're performing worse, but because they're playing less. Per-90 normalisation strips this out and makes performance rates comparable across all players regardless of their role in squad rotation.

The Attacking Threat dimension uses xG per 90 - the total Expected Goals from all shots, including penalties (each worth approximately 0.76 xG). Because penalties carry a disproportionate share of total xG, they would otherwise dominate the attacking score for any penalty taker and mask their open-play contribution. The MA-Score handles this in two complementary ways. First, for strikers specifically, penalties scored per 90 appears as a dedicated metric in the Attacking Threat dimension (15% of the seven-metric attacking set for ST). This isolates and rewards penalty-conversion ability directly rather than letting it inflate the general xG figure by proxy. Second, across all attacking groups, xG is only one of several Attacking Threat metrics. For ST, for example, goals (25%), xG (20%), shots on target (12%), shots total (10%), hit woodwork (8%), and big chances missed inverted (10%) all carry meaningful weight alongside penalty scored (15%). A striker whose total xG is inflated by penalties but whose underlying open-play shooting is weak will see this reflected in the lower weights on goals-per-90 relative to xG, and in the shots-on-target and shots-total sub-metrics. The result is a defensible methodology that does not require stripping penalties out entirely: penalty conversion is real footballing value, and the score system rewards it - it just does not pretend that high-xG penalty kicks are equivalent to hard-won open-play chances.

Every player in MatchAnalyzr has two MA-Scores displayed simultaneously: the Season Score and the Form Score. Understanding the difference between them - and the information in the gap between them - is one of the most powerful analytical tools in the system. The Season Score uses all matches in the current season, updated daily. It is the definitive long-term assessment of a player's quality relative to their position peers. Because it incorporates the full sample, it is stable - a single outstanding or poor performance barely moves it. When evaluating a player's true level for scouting or transfer analysis, the Season Score is the right number. The Form Score uses only the last 5 matches with exponential decay weighting. More recent matches have greater influence: weight = e^(-0.1 x days since match). A match played three days ago influences the score far more than one played 30 days ago. The Form Score is volatile by design - it reacts quickly to genuine runs of form. For players, the Form dimension combines result-based performance, xG-Momentum (is the player's xG per 90 trending up or down across recent matches?), and for defenders and goalkeepers, xGA-Momentum (is the team's defensive xG conceded improving while this player is on the pitch?). The gap between Season Score and Form Score is itself informative: - Form much higher than Season: a player on a significant upward trend - perhaps returning from injury, settling into a new system, or hitting a purple patch. A forward in this situation is worth targeting in fantasy football or monitoring for a potential breakout. - Form much lower than Season: a player in a dip - possibly fatigued, dealing with a minor knock, or going through a difficult spell. Context matters, but this signal is worth investigating. - Scores aligned: consistent performance, no major recent deviation from the season-long trend. Both scores are updated daily, recalculated automatically overnight.

Player MA-Scores are colour-coded throughout MatchAnalyzr to make interpretation immediate. The same five-tier system used for Team MA-Scores applies to all player ratings: - 75-100 Strong (Teal): An elite player at their position in the league. One of the best in the division across their role's measured dimensions. - 55-74 Above Average (Emerald): Significantly above the position median. A consistent performer - typically a key player for a competitive side or an established international-calibre footballer. - 40-54 Average (Amber): The median band. A score of 50 is literally the position median. Players here are performing as expected for their level and role. - 25-39 Below Average (Orange): Underperforming relative to position peers. A player in this range is struggling to meet the standard of their peer group - which may indicate form issues, system mismatch, or genuine quality concerns. - 0-24 Weak (Red): Significantly below the position average. One of the weaker performers in the league for their position group. The colour thresholds are configurable in the admin panel and are applied consistently across every widget, badge, and report in MatchAnalyzr.

Every Player MA-Score displayed in MatchAnalyzr has a 'Why?' link. Transparency is not a feature - it is the entire premise of the MA-Score system. Hovering over the 'Why?' link shows a tooltip summarising the main drivers: for example, 'High xG per 90 (81), strong shooting accuracy (76), big chances conversion above median (68)'. This converts the number into a sentence without requiring any additional navigation. Clicking the 'Why?' link (available to Pro and Premium users) opens the full score breakdown: - The score for each metric within the position group - The raw per-90 value for each metric - The Z-score for each metric (how far above or below the position median) - A comparison bar showing where each metric sits relative to all players in the same position group - The playing time dampening factor, if applied - Whether the Form Score is diverging significantly from the Season Score, and by how much This level of detail is not replicated by any competitor at launch. SofaScore will not show you why a player scored 7.8. WhoScored will not explain their weights. The MA-Score is explicitly designed to make you a better analyst by showing every step of the calculation.

The Player MA-Score is available on Pro and Premium plans. Free users can see that a player has a MA-Score widget on a dashboard, but the score itself is blurred with an upsell prompt. Access by plan: - Free: Player MA-Score widget visible but blurred. Season Score and Form Score not accessible. - Pro: Full access to Season Score, Form Score, and the 'Why?' tooltip. Score widgets available in dashboards. Players can be added to the watchlist up to the Pro watchlist limit. - Premium: All Pro features plus the full 'Why?' breakdown with per-metric comparison bars, dimension sub-score display, and historical score trends. Access to up to 10 seasons of historical data for long-term player development tracking. The Player MA-Score widget comes in three sizes (S, M, L) and can be added to any dashboard. The S size shows the headline score and colour badge. The M size adds the Season/Form split and the top contributing metrics. The L size shows the full metric breakdown inline.

The Player MA-Score is a tool, and its value depends on how it is applied. Here are the most effective use cases.

Several football analytics products publish player ratings. Understanding how the Player MA-Score differs helps clarify when each system is most useful. SofaScore and FotMob publish match ratings (1-10) for individual performances. These are useful for recapping a single game but do not aggregate into meaningful season assessments. They reset after every fixture, they don't account for position differences in a rigorous way, and no methodology is published. WhoScored produces season-average ratings from match ratings. Their methodology is partially disclosed but not enough to reproduce or interrogate the numbers. Ratings skew toward attacking output and are not position-normalised with eight distinct groups. FBref (StatsBomb) publishes percentile rankings for individual metrics across multiple statistical categories. These are transparent and position-specific, but there is no single composite score - you must interpret across many columns simultaneously. Excellent for deep analysis, but not designed for dashboard integration or quick interpretation. OPTA does not publish individual player composite scores in a publicly accessible format at the level of MatchAnalyzr's Player MA-Score. The Player MA-Score's distinctive combination - eight position groups, dual temporal view (Season + Form), per-90 normalisation, xG and position-specific metric sets, playing time dampening, full transparency via 'Why?', and dashboard integration - is not replicated by any competitor at launch.