2023 Season Previews: FC Cincinnati, New York City FC, Philadelphia Union
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2023 Season Previews: Los Angeles Galaxy, Nashville SC, Minnesota
/2022 was a mixed year for Nashville SC. Shuffled over to the Western Conference for a single season, the ‘Yotes (yes, it’s short for ‘coyotes’, no I won’t stop calling them that) started the season with an eight-game road trip, never quite figured out how to win consistently at Geodis Park once they got home, and missed out on a home playoff game by on tiebreakers.
Read More2023 Season Previews: Toronto FC, Charlotte FC, Atlanta United FC
/Predicting 2023 for Atlanta United seems impossible, and that has almost nothing to do with what happened in 2022, although we really should look at 2022. First, something of a tradition in these previews, the full and up to date annotated franchise xGD history of Atlanta United.
Read More2023 Season Previews: DC United, SKC, St. Louis city
/Part of the impetus for short-term improvement could come down to Rooney as 2023 is the final guaranteed season of his contract. If Matt Doyle’s current projected depth chart starts for DC on February 25, the teams average age would be 29.4. Rooney will have to rely on an older attacking core of Designated Players to keep the Black and Red in contention.
Read More2023 Season Previews: Austin, Vancouver, Montreal
/Hello Austin fans, it is I, your favourite team hater. Author of tweets such as “SCOREBOARD”, and “Dread it, run from it, the xG arrives all the same”. You remember me. I hope you’re all well. I’m here today to talk about your beloved Austin FC and their 2023 hopes, shall we?
Read More2023 NWSL Draft Big Board
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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.
Read MoreThe Superdraft is Dead, Long Live the Superdraft
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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.
Read MoreAn Open Letter on the Best Athletes Argument
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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.
Read MoreSalary Caps and Chaos: Examining Parity and Predictability Across Sports
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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.
Read MoreHow Do Teams Expansion Draft?
/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?