2022 MLS Season Previews: Atlanta United FC, Houston Dynamo FC, Minnesota United FC
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2021 MLS Season Previews: Atlanta United, Chicago Fire, and FC Dallas
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We’re publishing three team previews every weekday until MLS First Kick on April 16th. You can find all of them here.
Read MoreWhere Goals Come From: How The Best Teams in MLS Pass
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This is the fifth article in a series of articles and videos in the Where Goals Come From project from Jamon Moore and Carl Carpenter.
By now, readers of the Where Goals Come From project will be very in tune with the benefits of progressive passing in soccer, both from a data and tactical perspective. Within these last few weeks you’ve probably noticed a trend about the scope of progressive passing and its effectiveness throughout all levels of men’s and women’s football, furthering its importance within the game as a means of scoring goals (you know...where goals come from).
However, as American Soccer Analysis, we would be remiss to not put one specific league under the microscope and take a deeper look: in this case, Major League Soccer. In doing so, I’m going to look at the various tactical schemes the “defining” teams of the past three seasons in MLS have used to find success. These teams are:
Read MoreOffseason Outlook: Atlanta United Football Club
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Following the departure of left back Mikey Ambrose and the new more expensive deal for Miles Robinson, there are two Supplemental Roster spots open, so Atlanta will need to fill these two spots with players who are making the senior minimum, or Generation Adidas, or a specifically designated SuperDraft picks, or a homegrowns. I would bet on a 2020 first round draft pick holding one spot and something creative happening with the other, some sort of loan where Atlanta only pays the senior minimum and the home club takes the rest perhaps.
Read MoreExpected Narratives: Have Some Ambition
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Narrative: Ambition Rankings
If there is one day on the MLS calendar that I dread with a clarity and purity often seen only in very expensive diamonds (let’s call them “diamonds of ambition”), it’s Grant Wahl’s annual musings on which MLS teams have proven their ambition the most. For those unaware, every year our nation’s preeminent soccer scribe sends out a questionnaire to every MLS team asking them to flex their financial bonafides and then ranks them according to how expensive their DPs are, whether or not they get good crowds, and that “it” factor that you can’t explain but Grant knows it when he sees it. Unsurprisingly, Atlanta tops this year’s list and Colorado pulls up the rear, but the middle is just gluttonously full of incisive takes. “We’ve invested 10 million dollars in our academy says one team”, “oh yeah well WE expanded our stadium so suck it” says another. “Tell me more” says Grant Wahl, and we’re left with a bunch of people squabbling over whether Jan Gregus or Pedro Santos is a more ambitious signing.
Read MoreAtlanta United 2019 Season Preview
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Join me for a moment in a Lovecraftian horror in which time is an illusion and the events of life as we know it, or the meaningful events at least, (soccer matches) progress not sequentially by the steady consumption of the present as measured in minutes and seconds but by the experience of passes being attempted from open play. In this nightmare, as the fates dictate the average MLS team experiences 900 such passes attempted during a match (the total of both teams over 90+ minutes), and using passes experienced as the unit of account, the average 2018 MLS team spent 46% of its matches with a level score line (27% leading and 27% trailing).
Read MorePostseason Preview: Atlanta United FC
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We joke about it. Atlanta has become the Marcia Brady of Major League Soccer and while that’s annoying to most all of us, it’s also not undeserved. This talented team has not only assembled a rare grouping of talent but they’ve been able to build upon their first season and grow to become a giant in this league.
While the narratives are often what they are this is a good opportunity to put into context what Atlanta has truly accomplished and what they are at their bones. A really really good team that has few flaws and has managed to minimize their opponents ability to expose those flaws.
Read MoreExpected Narratives Week 33: End of Year Awards 2018
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It was a pretty light weekend in Major League Soccer featuring a match seeking to answer that age old question “what happens when the opposite of an immovable object meets the opposite of an unstoppable force?” The answer? Colorado wins 2-0, I guess. That match will probably be remembered more for the altercation following the final whistle which featured two players being showed red cards FIFTEEN minutes into stoppage time so I guess Colorado and MInnesota aren't’ best friends now, which could be problematic as previously they seem to be the only destinations that would actually want some of the other’s lackluster players. I sure hope they work it out. I’ve got $5 on a Franz Pangop for Yannick Boli trade.
But also, Oh my god DC United are just so irresistible right now. It’s like watching Michael Jordan in that flu game but instead of Michael Jordan it’s more like BJ Armstrong and instead of the flu it had something vaguely to do with raccoons. I predicted a few weeks ago that this team would find its way to the postseason and I’m feeling more and more confident about this every week. Watching people eat their crow flavored Pot Noodle about Wayne Rooney has become appointment viewing during office hours. To say Rooney has been a revelation is only true if you’re one of these people who have apparently never once watched Wayne Rooney play soccer. You aren’t seeing some surprising late career renaissance version of a softer more reflective Rooney, you’re getting the same bullish kid in a dad’s body with an innate ability to grab a game by the scruff of its neck and drag it wherever he wants.
Read MoreLowered Expectations: Week 27
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Welcome to Lowered Expectations, week 27 edition! Each week, we go about posting chalkboards and GIFs of the weekend’s best open-play shot attempts which did not quite live up to expectations (and rarely do we update this paragraph). We look at each one and not only evaluate the results, but also the process leading to them.
Read MoreLowered Expectations: Week 26
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Welcome to Lowered Expectations, week 25 edition! Each week, we go about posting chalkboards and GIFs of the weekend’s best open-play shot attempts which did not quite live up to expectations (and rarely do we update this paragraph). We look at each one and not only evaluate the results, but also the process leading to them.
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