TackleZone Defender Score
Rating-led, with duels, interceptions and aerials — built for the position where doing your job well means the stats stay quiet.
What it measures
Defending is the clearest case of counting stats misleading. A centre-back who positions himself well makes fewer tackles, not more, because he does not need them. Raw tackle counts often reward the defender who keeps getting beaten first.
TDS puts half its weight on match rating for that reason, and uses the counting stats to separate defenders who are otherwise rated alike.
Components and weights
Match rating
50%
The provider's per-match rating, averaged across the season. Carries the most weight in every score because it is the only component that reflects things the counting stats miss.
Duels won
21%
Ground contests won. The most frequent defensive action in the data.
Interceptions
17%
Reading the game rather than reacting to it.
Aerial duels won
12%
Folded into duels where the feed does not separate them.
Percentages are read directly from the live formula, so this table changes whenever the score does. Each component is normalised across the qualifying pool before the weights are applied.
Why it is built this way
Rating carries the largest share of any of the four scores. That is deliberate: of all positions, defending is the one where the countable actions explain the least.
Where a competition does not report aerial duels separately, that weight is folded back into general duels rather than scored as zero.
Who qualifies
900+ minutes in the season block and a match rating of at least 6.8. Players below either bar are not scored, because a per-90 figure drawn from a few hundred minutes measures luck more than ability.
What TDS does not capture
Full-backs and centre-backs share one formula and one pool, despite doing different jobs. A modern attacking full-back is judged on the same axes as a penalty-box defender.
Clearances, blocks and line-holding are not weighted. Nor is anything about build-up play, which is now a large part of a centre-back's role.
A defender in a dominant side sees fewer defensive actions and can score lower than a busier defender in a worse team.
We publish this section because a score you cannot argue with is not worth much. If one of these limitations matters for the player you are looking at, weigh the number accordingly.