April 12, 2022

State of MLS Analytics: April 2022

April 12, 2022/ Eliot McKinley

Over the last few years, analytics in MLS has been turned on its head. Whereas five years ago if a team had one person “doing analytics” it was a big deal. Now, questions are asked if a club doesn’t and it is not uncommon for clubs to have multiple people on staff. With the hiring of the league’s first general manager that came up through analytics, DC United’s Lucy Rushton, a new system was needed to grade MLS teams. This system is not based on how well teams utilize analytics like previous editions, in part because that can be very hard to know from the outside, but on the number of people, a team employs to do it.

April 07, 2022

Beckie with the Good Stats

April 07, 2022/ Kieran Doyle-Davis

Janine Beckie Transfers to Portlanada

At the theoretical height of her powers, Janine Beckie, former 8th-overall pick in the NWSL draft, is back Stateside with a point to prove. With her contract with Manchester City ending at the end of this year, Beckie made the move to join the very Maple Leaf-centric Portland Thorns, a move no doubt aided by the obvious Canadian throughlines of Rhian Wilkinson, Karina LeBlanc, and her strike partner-in-crime Christine Sinclair. I’ll save the Thorns tactical breakdown for our preseason previews post Challenge Cup (keep your eyes peeled), but who exactly are the Thorns getting?

March 08, 2022

The Four Biggest Tactical Trends in the NWSL

March 08, 2022/ Carl Carpenter

Amidst all the chaos that the 2021 NWSL season brought (which we won’t get into in this space) there was some fantastic soccer played. While the goals per 90 were at their lowest in many years, that did not mean the matches were without intrigue: the manufactured parity that is commonplace within the American sports ecosystem has thankfully not led to teams essentially being copycats of one another. Still, like almost any league, there exists a clear and definitive “style” which conditions what we see week in and week out.

February 25, 2022

2022 MLS Season Previews: DC United

February 25, 2022/ ASA Staff

Rounding out the list of our 2022 MLS Season previews is DC United! You can find all of the 2022 season previews here!

February 25, 2022

2022 MLS Season Previews: Colorado Rapids, Los Angeles FC, Real Salt Lake

February 25, 2022/ ASA Staff

We’re wrapping up our MLS team previews today with Colorado Rapids, LAFC, and RSL, as the MLS season opens tomorrow, February 26, 2022. You can find all of them here!