Goals Added: Introducing A New Way To Measure Soccer

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Goals Added: Introducing A New Way To Measure Soccer

Soccer analytics has always had a problem between the boxes. Thanks to expected goals, we’ve gotten good at valuing shots, but shots won’t tell you much about the ninety-plus-minute scramble that produces just 26 total chances over the course of your average MLS game and maybe three goals if you’re lucky. Shots make up about three seconds of action for every four minutes of soccer. Grading the sport on that alone is like assigning GPA based on how well students walk across the graduation stage.

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"We're Not Supposed to be Here": Nick Rimando's Legacy in MLS

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"We're Not Supposed to be Here": Nick Rimando's Legacy in MLS

Nick Rimando stands on his line. Actually, standing isn’t the right word to describe what goalkeepers do before a penalty. They wiggle, shimmy, stare down the penalty kick taker. In this case: David Beckham, bleached blond and bemused. This little American couldn’t lace up my boots. He doesn’t deserve a chance to stop me, David Beckham. Surprisingly, Rimando has a similar thought. “‘We’re not supposed to be here’,” he would recount his thought process to MLSsoccer a few years later. “Everyone in this crowd, everyone who follows this league doesn’t think that we should be here, doesn’t think that we should win this game. This is the Galaxy’s game.”

Beckham steps up. Rimando shuffles to his left, half-diving, half falling down. Fully realizing his mistake. The dive is uncertain; he looks like someone who realizes their phone is still in their pocket the instant before they crash into the deep end of a pool. The shot rolls into the net without trouble.

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NWSL 2020 Mini-Previews: North Carolina, Sky Blue, and Chicago

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The eighth season of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) was supposed to kick off on April 18th. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the beginning of the season has been postponed until shrugs, well…eventually… someday… we hope. We’re hard at work creating full season previews, but while we wait for games to start up, we wanted to give fellow woso fans a little something to read. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing some of what we’re thinking about in hopes of starting conversations about the upcoming season now. Think of these as the previews of our previews.

Our first set of teams are all in very different places coming into this season. One hopes to continue dominance. Another’s offseason changes potentially signal a new chapter for the club. The third must find a way to cope with the glaring departure of arguably their most important player.

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Coaches Reward Goalscorers. But Should They?

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Coaches Reward Goalscorers. But Should They?

On March 30, 2019, the 16-year-old midfielder Gianluca Busio came on for Sporting Kansas City in a rout of Montreal. He didn’t do a whole lot in his half hour on the pitch—seven of his eight completed passes went backwards—but in the 78th minute he poked the ball away from a center back and slotted home his team’s sixth goal. The next week Busio was rewarded with a full 90 minutes and he scored again. The week after that, another appearance, a third straight goal. Coach Peter Vermes was sticking with the red-hot kid and it was paying off.

Alas, not all breakthroughs go as smoothly as Busio’s. On July 17, a teenage striker named Theo Bair earned his second career start for Vancouver. He made a couple of promising runs where he held off a New England defender and found a shot from a low cross, but neither chance connected. The first hit the far post and ricocheted out. Two minutes later, Bair reached back for a bouncing pass at the top of the six-yard box but couldn’t quite corral it. The shot sailed over the crossbar from embarrassingly close range and Bair tumbled head over heels into the goal, where he slapped the grass in frustration. He was subbed off, and next game he only appeared for the last 14 minutes.

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Data Based Coaching: How to incorporate data-driven decisions into your coaching workflow

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Data Based Coaching: How to incorporate data-driven decisions into your coaching workflow

I will start this with a disclaimer: this is not how Borussia Dortmund or Manchester United incorporate analytics into their coaching workflow, it’s not even how the Colorado Rapids incorporate data into their coaching. It is a look at the opposite side of the same coin Carl Carpenter examined earlier this week, only for a smaller school without access to the biggest and baddest equipment.

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A Day in the Life of a Performance Analyst

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A Day in the Life of a Performance Analyst

6:30 AM

During the fall season, my day starts pretty early. Training sessions are in the mornings to allow our players to schedule classes for the afternoon and not be pressed for time. I’m very much a morning person, however, so this isn’t much of an issue for me. I live within a five-minute walk of the training grounds so after getting dressed I head off to meet with the other members of staff prior to our session beginning.

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Single Game xG is here to stay - is it useful?

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Single Game xG is here to stay - is it useful?

It’s been documented for a while that Expected Goals is the best single metric for understanding performance of a soccer team and predicting it’s future. It outperforms possession, total shots ratio, goal difference, points scored, and other fun but inferior statistics. The word on expected goals has been slowly on the rise since ASA’s first model was released in 2013. For kicks, below is an indexed view of times the metric has been searched for in the United States since that grand moment in time. Searches reached an all-time high this past February.

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Comparing Players: Clustering and Style of Play

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Comparing Players: Clustering and Style of Play

For technical directors and front offices in professional soccer, finding the next great player to fit their team’s style of play is of utmost importance. Gone (we hope) are the days of picking up players just to fill a roster. Each move is calculated, aimed to fit a “system” of play that each manager, general manager, technical director, and assistant coaches have designed in order to give their team the best chance at victory. This change from the old days of soccer puts immense pressure on scouting directors and general managers to fill their team efficiently, gaining maximum talent from minimal pay; all while conforming to the manager’s desired style of play.

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2020 Season Preview: New England Revolution

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2020 Season Preview: New England Revolution

“Parity translates to mediocrity. It doesn’t translate to excellence.” - Bruce Arena (2014)

You know, it’s kind of easy to imagine why the coach of the Los Angeles Galaxy might feel that way. After all, circa 2014, they were still the biggest club around, flexing their money advantage as much as the rule book would allow them and maybe sometimes just a little bit more. The Galaxy were more or less a lonely yacht moored in a league mostly populated by the kind of boat owned by upper middle class hobbyists. Those boats that are often neglected, dock fees piling up, the owners wondering if this thing is actually worth any of the hassle.

And to be clear, I don’t think he’s wrong. The boat he found himself the captain of in the middle of 2019 was a result of that parity. Mediocre was a charitable way to describe the mess Bruce inherited following the bizarre and disastrous tenure of Brad Friedel, a captain who motivated his crew by holding a can of gasoline and waving around a torch.

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2020 Season Preview: Portland Timbers

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Over the last two years, Giovanni Savarese has led the Timbers to overachieve in his first year as coach and underachieve in his second. Through this, Savarese has struggled to find his best formation, play in his preferred style, and make the team his own. In his third season at the helm it looks like he may finally have a team of players that is built to fit his desired methods and approach.

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