What is a big chance?

That's the short version. The confusing part is not the idea itself, it's how the tag gets applied and how it differs from the other numbers next to it on a stat sheet. Here is what actually decides a big chance, how it splits into created and missed, and why the label is a judgement call rather than a calculation.

What is a big chance?

A big chance is Opta's tag for a situation where a player should reasonably be expected to score. Opta's own wording is that it is "a situation where a player should reasonably be expected to score, usually in a one-on-one scenario or from very close range when the ball has a clear path to goal and there is low to moderate pressure on the shooter." Every penalty is automatically counted as a big chance, regardless of who is taking it or how the game is going.

The definition does not come with a fixed distance in yards or a specific angle in degrees. It is a judgement made by a human data analyst watching the match, weighing the same handful of factors every time: how much space the shooter has, how many defenders are in the way, and whether the goalkeeper has already been beaten to a more advanced position. Two shots from a similar spot on the pitch can get different tags if the pressure on the shooter is different, which is exactly why this is a judgement call rather than a formula.

Big chance vs shot on target

A big chance and a shot on target measure different moments in the same passage of play, and mixing them up is the most common mistake reading these numbers.

A shot on target is only recorded once the player actually gets an attempt away that would have gone in without the goalkeeper stopping it. A big chance is tagged earlier, at the moment the opportunity itself exists. That gap matters because a big chance can be missed completely: the player fluffs the finish, scuffs it wide, or does not even manage a touch on the ball, and none of that produces a shot on target at all. A striker can be given three big chances in a match and finish the game with zero shots on target, if all three are botched before a shot is even struck.

The reverse can happen too. A shot on target does not have to come from a big chance. A speculative effort from distance that the goalkeeper has to save is a shot on target, but if the shooter was under real pressure and did not have a clear path to goal, it was never tagged as a big chance in the first place.

Big chance vs xG

A big chance and expected goals (xG) both describe chance quality, but they are not the same kind of number, and they are built differently.

xG is continuous. Every shot gets a value between 0 and nearly 1, worked out by comparing the shot to the historical outcomes of thousands of similar shots. A big chance is discrete. It is a yes or no tag applied to a situation, decided by a human analyst rather than calculated from a model. Opta explicitly lists big chance status as one of the inputs that feeds into its own xG number, alongside shot angle, distance and body part, so the two are related but not interchangeable. In practice a big chance usually carries a high xG value once the shot is actually taken, but a big chance is tagged on the opportunity itself, before or even without a shot happening, while xG only exists once a shot has been struck. The FootyMetrics guide to xG covers the model itself in full; this page is about the discrete tag that feeds into it.

Big chances created

Big chances created is the number of passes a player has made that directly led to a big chance for a team-mate, whether or not that team-mate actually scored. It is a subset of a player's key passes and assists, not a separate stat built from scratch: every big chance created also counts as a key pass, or an assist if the chance is scored, but not every key pass rises to the level of a big chance. A regular cutback that sets up a rushed, heavily pressured shot is a key pass. The same cutback landing at the feet of a player in space with a clear run at goal is a big chance created.

It is a useful way to separate a player who sets up genuinely clear-cut chances from one who racks up passing numbers from lower-quality attempts. A winger with a modest assist count but a high big chances created total is creating the kind of openings a striker should be finishing, even if the final numbers have not reflected it yet.

Big chances missed

Big chance missed is recorded against the player who had the opportunity, not the one who created it. Opta's definition covers two situations: the player gets a big chance and completely misses the ball without a shot going anywhere close to on target, or the player has a clear opportunity to shoot and instead does something else, holds it up, tries to pass, takes an extra touch, and the chance disappears with no attempt at all.

This is the stat that can make a good individual performance look worse than it was. A striker can play well for 90 minutes, get into two or three genuinely clear-cut positions, and still finish the match with a big chances missed total against their name, because missing a big chance now and then is normal, even for a clinical finisher. Nobody scores every one-on-one. A single missed big chance in an otherwise strong game says less about a player's overall performance than it looks like on a stat sheet, and it is worth reading alongside how many chances they had in total, not as a number on its own.

Why the tag is judgement-based

Unlike a shot's distance or whether the ball crossed the line, whether a situation counts as a big chance is not something a camera or a tracking system measures directly. It is assigned by a trained data collector watching the match, applying the same criteria play to play: was the shooter close to one-on-one with the keeper or very close to goal, was the path to goal clear, was the pressure on them low to moderate rather than heavy.

That has a real consequence. Because it is a human judgement rather than a fixed formula, there is some inevitable variation in exactly where the line gets drawn between a big chance and a good chance that falls just short of it, in the same way two different match officials can see a foul challenge slightly differently. Opta trains its analysts against the same definition and reviews decisions to keep it consistent match to match and collector to collector, but it is still fundamentally a judgement call rather than a number that comes out of a calculation, which is worth knowing before treating a big chance count as a perfectly objective measurement.

Big chances as a stat

FootyMetrics tracks big chances created and big chances missed for every player across 115+ leagues, alongside shots, shots on target and the rest of the shooting picture. The full definitions for both, along with every other stat FootyMetrics tracks, sit on the stats glossary.