The Data Drift: What Our New Metrics Say About the Way We Now Play

A Strong Start with Subtle Shifts

Ten games into the 1. Liga Classic Gruppe 3 season and Chur find themselves sitting third, a position that reflects both continuity and quiet transformation. 

Inaki Arriola has retained the team’s familiar 3-2-5 in-possession structure, but the dynamics within it have begun to evolve in ways that are slowly reshaping the club’s identity. Big wins have punctuated their early campaign, including a statement 5–1 victory over Collina d’Oro, and their overall return of fifteen goals places them comfortably among the more threatening sides in the league. Yet nine goals conceded shows a defence still adjusting to new rhythms, and the broader picture is more nuanced: this is a side generating chances at a high rate but not converting them with the efficiency required to turn a good start into a title push.

The Paradox of Chance Creation

For all the improvement in verticality and directness, Chur’s biggest problem is a simple one: the ball is not going in the net often enough. They have already accumulated over 19 expected goals, but their attacking quartet of Adrian Perez, Hugo de Llanos, Eden Berishaand Ibrahim Babayev have scored only four times from a combined 8.86xG. The collective lack of confidence in the final action is becoming a clear theme of the early season, with players arriving in promising areas only to hesitate or overthink the moment. The frustration of their inefficiency is softened somewhat by the extraordinary form of Dion Cakolli, who has rescued the attacking output by scoring ten goals from just 6.98xG. His form has compensated for the misfires around him and increasingly shapes the way Chur attack, with more balls played early into his body and more faith placed in his strength and timing. The outcome is a team that remains dangerous, but far from as prolific as their underlying numbers suggest they could be.

A Softer, Slower Side with Sharper Verticality

The stylistic shift that accompanies these trends is striking. 

Compared with last season, the team are creating 11% less goals and assists, again suggesting their underlying creative patterns are producing less outputs – even if they are just losses in overall confidence. Their play has taken on a calmer tempo, with longer spells of patient circulation at the back but a more pronounced vertical punch once they decide to accelerate. This duality gives Chur a slightly more placid appearance in midfield phases, but also a more piercing one in transition and early progression. The midfielders, once the beating heart of chance creation, are contributing less directly in terms of line-breaking and incisive moments. Perez in particular has not quite replicated last year’s directness, and de Llanos, Babayev and Berisha have all been quieter, despite nine collective assists suggesting that final passes are still happening – just not with the same frequency or penetration as before. You have to wonder whether this is indicative of what Arriola wants to achieve, whether he is now playing to the strengths of the league’s most dangerous front man, or, concerningly, whether his team are unable to break down lower and more compact blocks as the opponents come to terms with the strength and tactical ability of this Chur side?

A Decline in Defensive Intelligence

The defensive picture is where the most revealing changes emerge. Chur are defending more frantically and less intelligently, a shift most obvious in midfield. Last season’s numbers painted a side that defended proactively, reading passes and intercepting rather than reacting with tackles. This year, the team-wide interceptions have dipped only marginally (from 1.77 to 1.67 per player), but the number of tackles has increased substantially. The midfield have seen the harshest drop in their Defensive Intelligence Index, falling almost 40% as they slide from 1.7 interceptions per game to just 1.2. The implication is clear: they are arriving later, defending more physically and less through anticipation, and relying on recovery actions rather than early disruption. 

This is not the hallmark of a better press nor a more aggressive high line. The numbers for possessions won and average defensive height remain consistent with last year, and dribble outputs have fallen rather than risen. Chur are simply doing more running to achieve the same defensive outcomes – a sign of frantic intensity rather than calculated control. They look, overall, weaker in turnovers and teams are countering them better than they had before. An issue Arriola must address. The intensity profile adds another layer of intrigue. The midfield’s Intensity Load Index has dropped by 40%, meaning they are performing significantly more sprints per kilometre than last season. A higher volume of running usually signals harder pressing or fitter players, but Chur’s data tells a different story. The defending structure remains similar, yet the midfield are working harder without gaining more. The result is a unit caught between trying to maintain the composure of last season and the reactive demands of the current setup. With more direct passes into Cakolli, fewer controlled midfield phases and a slower build-up tempo, the midfielders often find themselves scrambling to recover or compensate after possession bypasses them.

Direct Routes and the Cakolli Effect

The more vertical defensive transitions and earlier long passes into the striker reflect a subtle but significant tactical adjustment by Arriola. Recognising Cakolli’s influence, he has edged the side toward a slightly more direct approach. The back line now releases the ball earlier, trusting the striker’s ability to hold, pin, and distribute. This bypasses midfield more often than before and explains both the reduction in their creative and defensive metrics and the increase in their physical workload. The side are steadier at the back, calmer in early build-up, but much quicker to access the striker as the fulcrum. At its best, this brings the front four into advantageous second-ball positions; at its worst, it isolates them, highlighting their current crisis of confidence.

Individual Bright Spots

Even amid the mixed trends, several players have stood out. Sonny Henchoz continues to post exceptional defensive intelligence scores, bucking the wider team decline and emerging as the calmest and most proactive defender in the squad. His anticipation remains the structural anchor of a back line that would otherwise take on far more strain. Alexandre Vayzendaz’s arrival has softened the blow of losing Mateo Jungo, offering a like-for-like profile in almost every metric except goal output. He is still adapting, but the underlying signs are promising and suggest he will become a central figure once confidence settles.

The early-stage version of Chur this season is neither a regression nor a leap forward but something more complex: a team undergoing stylistic recalibration. They are calmer at the back, more reliant on their leading striker, less incisive in midfield and struggling with a crisis of confidence among their attacking quartet. Their numbers tell the story of a team running more but achieving only slightly more; defending harder but not necessarily better; creating chances but failing to finish them. And yet they sit third, with a platform strong enough to grow from. If the front four rediscover their belief and the midfield regains some of its defensive foresight, this could still become a season defined not by transition but by transformation