Season Previews: LAFC, New England, Seattle

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The Vel-lesser of Two Evils

By Ben Bellman

LAFC had nearly the best possible season you can have after winning MLS Cup, making it to the final a second consecutive year and shining as the analytics darlings of the Western Conference. LAFC led their conference in both xG difference and xPoints, reflecting consistent dominance in generating and limiting opponents’ underlying shooting opportunities. Steve Cherundolo’s team achieved this success through a transition game that exploits speed and technical skill to get behind defenses. Much of this comes down to the brilliance of Denis Bouanga, who turned 14.5 xG worth of shots (4th in MLS in 2023) into 20 league goals to win the golden boot. But apart from Carlos Vela and Ryan Hollingshead, no one else on the roster was reliably putting the ball in the net. That will need to be the main point of improvement for the Black and Gold in 2024, and a flurry of outgoing and incoming moves will keep things exciting in SoCal. Does this top heavy and largely new roster have the depth to compete in every chance for a trophy?

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Season Previews: Atlanta United, Houston Dynamo, Real Salt Lake

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Atlanta United: Almada and Inshallah

By Tony ElHabr

2023: Garth is Good

Under the new leadership of CEO Garth Lagerway, Atlanta United returned to the playoffs in 2023, shaking off the previous season's disappointments. While Atlanta was ousted in the first round at the hands of the eventual champs, the team gave fans plenty of reasons to have hope for the future.

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Season Previews: Sporting KC, Vancouver, Dallas

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Punny Titles Are For Clubs That Don’t Hire Gavin Wilkinson

A 2024 Sporting Kansas City preview can only begin with the acknowledgement of an ending. Two club legends, Graham Zusi and Roger Espinoza, won’t be lacing up their blue boots this season. One of those two has been in a Sporting KC jersey every year since 2008. The duo combined for nearly 700 games played and oversaw the collection of four trophies. They will be sorely missed by the fans and in the clubhouse. The fact that Zusi spent his entire 15-year career with one club is just a marvelous feat. What a career.

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Season Previews: RBNY, San Jose, Nashville

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WELCOME TO FORS-BERGEN COUNTY

By J.J. Post

The prince that was promised finally arrived.

After years of fans clamoring for a bonafide star to take the pitch for the home team at Red Bull Arena, the New York Red Bulls finally went out and acquired such a player. Emil Forsberg, who’s been in the Red Bull soccer-sphere since 2015 with Leipzig, is the sort of player that can be an immediate gamechanger in MLS. 

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Season Previews: Montreal, Charlotte, Portland

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Columbus Deux: Boogaloo Électrique

By Kieran Doyle

Coming off the highs of the 2022 season, CF Montreal felt like they had some real momentum… then they let their best in league coach walk, sold their eight (maybe) best players, hired a maniac, and decided we’ll play 180 degrees different from our very successful previous tactical identity and now with mostly bad players. That went predictably badly, with Montreal undergoing a humongous -30 xGD swing from +18 to -12, as they just missed the playoffs in a weak Eastern conference. Also at some point they had to cut one of their few good players for fighting a guy in a men's league game. Truthfully, the less said about 2023 the better. 

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Season Previews: DC United, Minnesota, NYCFC

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Lesesne in the Membrane

By Nate Gilman

DC United wasn’t terrible in 2023, finishing 12th in the Eastern Conference though racking up 40 points and a +5.99 expected goals difference pre American Soccer Analysis data. But it was an uninspiring season nonetheless and a major offseason overhaul followed. So the Black and Red enter the 2024 season with what looks to be real change for the first time in a long time. Wayne Rooney is out. Same, too, with Dave Kasper. Ally Mackay (and Caleb Shreve!) are in. So is Troy Lesesne. 

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Season Previews: Austin, LA Galaxy, Chicago

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A Sheep in Wolff’s Clothing

By Tony ElHabr

2023 Disasterclass

Austin FC's 2023 season was a stark departure from their 2022 success, marred by injury woes and underperforming signings from the departed and controversial Claudio Reyna. The defensive line sorely missed Ruben Gabrielsen as the injury bug hit the backline, forcing Alex Ring into an impromptu center back role for a majority of the season. The attacking front struggled as well, with Emiliano Rigoni and Gyasi Zardes often having underwhelming performances. On the brighter side of things, Jon Gallagher’s early season nose for the net earned him an All-Star selection, and Brad Stuver continued to be a shot-stopping savant. 

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Season Previews: Miami, Toronto, Colorado

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Messi Messi Top 10 Moments Messi SEO Messi Schedule Messi Tickets Messi

By Sean Steffen

Miami. City of … something. I don’t know, beaches, presumably. It's’ a town that loves sports, when LeBron is on the team, or the Heat are inexplicably in the finals. But last year, Miami sports fans had something new to excite them, and the city became known worldwide for something else: its proximity to Fort Lauderdale.

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Who are the best penalty takers in the 2023 MLS playoffs?

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Once again, it’s time for the Major League Soccer playoffs and penalty shootout season. Changes in the playoff format to a best of three-game first round where tie games after regulation go straight to a shootout mean that a player’s penalty taking skill may be more important than ever. 

To quantitatively determine the best penalty takers in the 2023 playoffs, I again turn to empirical Bayes estimation. If you want the full explanation of how this works, go read my 2021 article on this topic, or, better yet, Tuan Nguyen Doan’s work that I based this work on. In short, I gathered penalty kick information via FBRef for 863 players that have attempted more than 4 penalties in their club careers (international matches are excluded here). This was used to calculate what is known as the prior distribution - basically what you would expect a normal player’s penalty taking ability to be if you know nothing about them. As a player takes penalties, the number and conversion rate give you more information about each player that updates your prior distribution to a posterior distribution. The more penalties that a player attempts gives more confidence in our ability to determine how good they actually are at taking penalties.

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