Total shots counts every attempt; shots on target counts only those that would go in without a keeper's intervention. The on-target line is lower and materially harder to clear, because a large share of any player's attempts miss the frame entirely.

Both are more readable than goalscorer markets for the same reason shots on goal is the best hockey market: attempt volume follows role and instruction, while conversion is largely noise. A striker instructed to press and shoot early will keep generating attempts whether or not he is scoring.

Even elite forwards fail to score in most matches they play. A striker with 20 goals in a 38-game league season scored in — at most — 20 of those matches, and realistically fewer once braces are accounted for. That is a player who misses the anytime market more often than he hits it, and he is having an excellent season.

A hit rate on this market will therefore sit low for almost everyone, and that is correct rather than a sign of poor form. Comparing it against a basketball points hit rate is comparing two very different kinds of question.

Clubs in European competition play midweek as well as at weekends, and managers rotate squads heavily to manage fatigue. A forward who started the last five league games can be rested entirely for a fixture sandwiched between two Champions League nights.

This is a materially larger risk than load management in the NBA, because the substitution is total: the player does not appear at all, or comes on for the final fifteen minutes with no realistic chance of clearing a shots line.

Our numbers exclude matches a player did not appear in, so the hit rate is not dragged down by rest days. But it also cannot tell you that tonight is likely to be one — and team news often arrives an hour before kickoff.

An assist is the final pass before a goal, so it inherits both of the goal market's problems and adds another: a creative midfielder needs his teammate to score, and in a low-scoring sport that is a demanding condition.

A player can create six clear chances and record nothing. Over a long window this averages out somewhat, but over five matches an assists hit rate is telling you as much about the finishing of the players around him as about his own passing.

Whether a player is booked depends on three things, and only one is the player: his own discipline and role, the referee's tolerance, and the temperature of the fixture.

Referee assignment is published before matches and varies enormously in card frequency. A combative defensive midfielder in a derby with a strict official is a different proposition from the same player in a routine mid-table fixture with a lenient one. A hit rate averaged across all of those situations describes none of them well.

This is the soccer market where we would put the least weight on our own numbers, because the dominant variable is not in the data at all.

The five competitions we cover are not interchangeable. Card rates, pace and shot volumes differ between them, as do the rotation pressures — an MLS side without continental commitments rotates far less than a Premier League club in Europe.

When a player transfers between leagues, his historical numbers describe a different context than the one he is now in. That is an ordinary limitation of any historical rate, but it bites harder in soccer than in the closed North American leagues, where movement happens within a single competition.

Every figure on the Soccer slate is computed the same way, and the full explanation — what a hit rate counts, how the window changes the answer, and what the numbers cannot tell you — is on our methodology page. If a market term above is unfamiliar, the glossary defines every one we cover.

Nothing here is betting advice. We are not a sportsbook, we take no wagers, and a historical rate is a description of the past rather than a prediction. If gambling stops being fun, help is free and confidential: call or text 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) in the US.