Expected Narratives: Jos' Valuable Platayer

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Of course Zlatan doesn’t want to go to the All Star game. Zlatan Ibrahimovic, beyond all of the memey “you are all lucky to be in the presence of Zlatan” schtick that pervades most of the think pieces penned about him, Zlatan knows his body better than anybody. He promised a rapid recovery from an injury that would have ended most careers and he delivered. “Lions don’t recover like humans” he remarked, and I suppose he’s got a point, but weird analogies aside, he’s played a lot more minutes than I think most of us would have expected, and if he thinks it’s a stupid use of whatever he’s got left in his tank to run around for the cameras during a midweek friendly, then I’m inclined to take the lion’s word for it.

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MLS Television Blackouts: When Emotion and Data Collide

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MLS Television Blackouts: When Emotion and Data Collide

Major League Soccer placed a calculated bet a few years back. They wagered they had core fans for life while they went searching for more marginal fans. The first part of this bet became public when MLS announced that ESPN had exercised their right to stream out-of-market games, and they would fold their digital streaming service MLS LIVE. All out-of-market content would move to a new ESPN+ app. It was sold as a great deal for existing fans. MLS Live was running at $70+ per season and the ESPN+ app was under $60 per year, and there was more content available. Sounds like a win, right?

But MLS LIVE wasn’t just an out-of-market service, because thirteen teams in 2017 did not exercise a blackout policy for their local games. Blackouts happen when a game is not televised for a specific group of people. They are very frustrating for fans who have paid for a service yet aren’t able to watch the game on a channel they thought they had paid for. The benefit of MLS LIVE was that fans of those thirteen teams that had severed ties with cable (aka "cut the cord") could watch their local team with the app. As a cord cutting Philadelphia Union fan, one of the teams that did not enforce blackouts, I was very happy with MLS LIVE.

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Setting the Table Week 21: Villalba, Edwards, and Rzatkowski

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Setting the Table Week 21: Villalba, Edwards, and Rzatkowski

Welcome to Setting the Table. Each week we take some time to focus on the best chance creators in MLS from the last weekend. If you want to see the best chances that were wasted check out Lowered Expectations. Here we focus on chances that ended with the ball in the back of the net.

#5 Hector Villalba to Josef Martinez, Atlanta United, 30th minute, 0.434 expected goals
Passes in sequence: 4

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Lowered Expectations: Week 21

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Lowered Expectations: Week 21

Welcome to Lowered Expectations, week 21 edition! Each week, we go about posting chalkboards and GIFs of the weekend’s best open-play shot attempts which did not quite live up to expectations (and rarely do we update this paragraph). We look at each one and not only evaluate the results, but also the process leading to them.

#5 - Christian Ramirez, Minnesota United, 71st minute, 0.457 expected goals
Assisted by: Darwin Quintero
Keeper: Matt Turner
Passes in sequence:  3

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Expected Narratives - BWP: The Best and Barco: Bust or Busta?

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Expected Narratives - BWP: The Best and Barco: Bust or Busta?

MLS went full MLS this past week. Unsurprisingly, Josef Martinez broke the hat trick record after escaping disciplinary action despite rather clear and damning footage of him headbutting Chad Marshall in the face. LAFC played too many internationals in their US Open Cup match and were nearly forced to forfeit despite beating Portland 3-2. If there is a hilarious irony to any of this, it’s that Portland would have gone through despite having far more internationals involved. Portland graciously withdrew their protest after learning that LAFC checked with US Soccer first and they said it was cool to play those players. The US Open Cup is an interesting tournament, and the American soccer landscape would be far poorer without it, but if the federation doesn’t actually know how all of the rules work there’s a reasonable argument that maybe teams that don’t take it that seriously are justified in their apathy.

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What Waiving Magnus Wolf Eikrem means for the Sounders' Season

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What Waiving Magnus Wolf Eikrem means for the Sounders' Season

There is a lot that goes into the signing a player for a club. I couldn’t tell you all the things involved, but my understanding of the situation from others who are far more experienced on the subject is that it’s usually a rather extensive process. Obviously there are exceptions to the rule, but generally speaking, navigating an international market, dealing with agents, negotiating contracts, weighing the cost benefit analysis of assets, and doing all those things within Major League Soccer’s byzantine roster rules shouldn’t be looked at as a simple process.

The word out of the Sounders camp last night was that Magnus Wolff Eikrem is going to be waived by the organization tol open up an international spot. International spots are hard to come by in this league and are generally valued over $100,000 in various resources (however we’ve seen them scale up higher later in the season as these resources are generally in even more in demand).

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Setting the Table Week 20 - Steffen's Value, Quintero's Arrival, and Fagundez's Production

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Setting the Table Week 20 - Steffen's Value, Quintero's Arrival, and Fagundez's Production

Welcome to Setting the Table. Each week we take some time to focus on the best chance creators in MLS from the last weekend. If you want to see the best chances that were wasted check out Lowered Expectations. Here we focus on chances that ended with the ball in the back of the net.

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Expected Narratives: The Loony All-StaHres Edition

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Expected Narratives: The Loony All-StaHres Edition

They say time flies by when you’re arguing over video review, and would you look at that? We’ve crossed the halfway threshold in the 2018 edition of Major League Soccer. The first half of the season has been a lot of fun if you like to read and talk about Atlanta. Last year’s MLS Cup finalists are more or less dead in the water, two of the league’s best coaches just peaced out to Europe, and with the transfer window opening shortly we’re bound to see some table shuffling over the next few months. We’ve been gone on World Cup duty for the last couple of weeks, so there is a lot to talk about now that I’m back from break. We’re gonna hit a few narratives hard and fast so buckle in.

Narrative: The All Star game is stupid.
Narrative Accuracy: Yes.

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Lowered Expectations: Week 20

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Lowered Expectations: Week 20

Welcome to Lowered Expectations, week 20 edition! Each week, we go about posting chalkboards and GIFs of the weekend’s best open-play shot attempts which did not quite live up to expectations (and rarely do we update this paragraph). We look at each one and not only evaluate the results, but also the process leading to them.

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