Kabilo’s Finishing Runs Hot
Assaf Kabilo has scored 13 Italian Serie A goals for Juventus from chances worth 8.3 expected goals, leaving a 4.7-goal surplus and a neat question of skill or fortune.
13 goals from 8.3 expected: Assaf Kabilo’s Italian Serie A season has a 4.7-goal surplus, the sort of margin that turns a good run into a debate. The 35-year-old Juventus right winger has scored 13 times in 31 league games, including one penalty, from 64 shots. Twenty-seven have been on target; one in five shots has gone in.
The numbers are not a verdict on how long the run can last. They do, however, make the next goal part of the argument: is this a finisher repeatedly finding the answer, or a streak waiting for its arithmetic to cool?
Kabilo’s total sits above the expected figure even after the penalty is counted in both, so the gap cannot be dismissed as a bookkeeping trick. Yet 13 goals are still 13 goals, and 27 shots on target suggest a winger who has kept asking questions of goalkeepers. Juventus have won no consecutive Italian Serie A titles in their current run.
A season’s conversion rate can be both an achievement and a warning. Kabilo has 13 goals to show for his work; the expectation says 8.3 would have been closer to the ordinary return. Whether the difference belongs to exceptional touch or good fortune is still unsettled.