January 11, 2023

2023 NWSL Draft Big Board

January 11, 2023/ J. J. Post

It’s not much of a stretch to say that of all the American professional sports drafts, the NWSL draft is the hardest to correctly map out. Upwards of 250 players register every year for 40 available slots. Tape on these players is scattered among a litany of different paywalled streaming services, each lower quality than the next. As such, scouting out each year's crop of prospects can be an arduous, and perhaps on some level impossible, task. Thankfully, we do have some objective ways to view potential draftees: stats. And thanks to an army of different filters and search criteria, I’ve created a list of 16 players across four position groups that stand out statistically for one reason or another.

December 20, 2022

The Superdraft is Dead, Long Live the Superdraft

December 20, 2022/ Nate Gilman

The Major League Soccer SuperDraft is just a few days away, but don’t worry if you had no idea. Its importance in the assembly of good teams has diminished over the years, supplanted by academies, homegrown deals, and myriad other player acquisition methods. However, that doesn’t mean the draft isn’t important anymore. Kevin Minkus examined the SuperDraft for ASA in 2017, but the league is in a different place now than it was then. Plus, we have Goals Added now.

December 05, 2022

An Open Letter on the Best Athletes Argument

December 05, 2022/ Paul Harvey

For the first time in 8 and a half years, the US Men’s National Team played in the final round of the FIFA Men’s World Cup. We all expected what came next; after all, it happens every time the USMNT plays a high profile game in front of people who are relatively new to watching the sport.

November 18, 2022

Salary Caps and Chaos: Examining Parity and Predictability Across Sports

November 18, 2022/ Michael Imburgio

Soccer is beautiful chaos. It’s players working together to weave patterns in line with an overarching plan, but simultaneously reacting to moments influenced by an incredible number of rapidly changing factors. When the chaos lines up perfectly, it’s like those players share one mind and create a product greater than the sum of its parts. Relatively infrequently, that beauty and chaos influence the score.

November 10, 2022

How Do Teams Expansion Draft?

November 10, 2022/ Nate Gilman

Now that the soccer portion of the Major League Soccer season is over we can focus on what really matters: complicated systems by which the league shuttles players from one city to another. Though the 48-hour trade window came and went with little excitement, we’ll get a better look into what St. Louis CITY SC will look like on the field when it kicks off in 2023

The expansion draft doesn’t play as big of a role in team building as it once did but there’s absolutely still value to be found. Just finding average (or slightly below average) contributors can be a boon for franchises in early seasons in the league. As Lutz Pfannenstiel looks to build his Designated Team, he’ll have an opportunity to find contributors already in MLS. So how have the recent teams done in this particular team building exercise?

October 21, 2022

Ian Watches Soccer with a Computer - The Computer's Favorite Plays of the Season

October 21, 2022/ Ian L.

Now that the regular season is by all credible accounts over, it seems like a great time to peer back through the annals of history and see which plays the computer liked the best from the ENTIRE SEASON. Let us comb through literal months of historical footage dating back to like May, and remember some of the campaign’s most pedestrian moments that a computer thinks are the most impactful plays of the regular season.

October 20, 2022

2022 NWSL Regular Season Best XI: G+ edition

October 20, 2022/ ASA Staff

Another year has come around and it’s time for everyone’s favorite discourse: end of season awards. We’re tired of all the lists that leave out the players who really deserve their dues, so we crunched the numbers and returned the top 11 players according to American Soccer Analysis’ Goals Added (g+). This is totally unbiased and not at all subject to some tweaking to ensure that the output made sense (yes, there are two primarily left backs on our backline – in Vlatko we trust).

October 13, 2022

Ian Watches Soccer With a Computer - Decision Day

October 13, 2022/ Ian L.

The decisions have been made. Or occurred. Things have been decided, but in the boxing sense, I guess. I’ve never really liked #decisionday as a moniker for the craziest day in Major League Soccer. First of all, Decision Day is already a thing in another sport, and in THAT sport people are, you know, actually making decisions so it works better. Here are some alternate suggestions for what to call this most exciting day:

October 13, 2022

NWSL Playoff Probabilities and Predictions

October 13, 2022/ Arianna Cascone

The 2022 National Women’s Soccer League Regular Season wrapped up earlier this month, and both the Shield and the playoff race came down to the wire. In the NWSL, the top six teams make the playoffs, the top two teams secure a bye to the semifinals, and the regular-season winner is granted the NWSL Shield along with a $10,000 per-player bonus.

October 11, 2022

A Numbers Guide to the MLS Playoffs

October 11, 2022/ Kieran Doyle-Davis

Well, that’s it folks. The 2022 regular season is a wrap, many fought for the well traveled Supporters Shield, many failed. Now, the teams chase the real-and-totally-not-dictated-by-the-randomness-of-single-or-two-leg-elimination-series MLS Cup. As such, let’s take a look at why every team has a shot, or doesn’t.