ASA Podcast: Episode III

Hello, there, you fine traveler. If you are of a west coast bias, you'll love today's show. First I have to say I'm really saddened by the fact that neither myself nor Matty worked in a "Third" joke with as much as we like to talk about cutting the field into thirds, and with this being our third podcast. *sigh* it didn't happen, maybe we'll save the jokes for Episode XXXIII. Anyway... we have the following for you.

We chronicle the life and times of your's truly, me, Harrison Crow, and little background as to why I created the site.

We talk a bit about possession stats: why they're important, why they are not, and how they are sometimes misleading. I referenced a blog post from Opta during this conversation. Please take a look, as it has a lot of really good information. I'm trying to come up with a bunch of material for a post later on today. I hope you all check it out.

We do mention Montreal and their Italian-influenced defense/counter-attack system and how it's helped them to a second-place start in the Eastern Conference.

Next, we chronicle the poor start for the Sounders, and perhaps why they have produced no goals despite an excellent possession percentage. We also mention Sporting Kansas City and the LA Galaxy, as well as the Portland Timbers and their dominance in possession.

We use the segue of the Portland Timbers to talk a little bit about Will Johnson. He's an underrated pick-up who has scored some amazing goals, and his ability to troll Alan Gordon is exceptional. Yep, he's gone for 3 games. Gordon, not Johnson...

And for those of you who didn't catch his brilliant goal at home, which effectively gave the Timbers 3 points, check it out below:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHMV-zPqccc]

Lastly we talked about our Game of the Week, the matchup between Sporting Kansas City and the Los Angeles Galaxy. While separated by 7 points in the table--with two games in hand for LA--Tempo Free Soccer's rankings has them 1 and 2 overall in MLS. We make our picks for who we like, why, and a few little facts to back it up.

We hope you enjoy the podcast!

[audio http://americansocceranalysis.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/american-soccer-analysis-podcast-3.mp3]

ASA Podcast: Episode II

Hope that you all enjoyed your weekend! We're back with Episode II, where Matthias and I discuss a bit about crosses and open-field play in the midfield, and what value they can add to a club. If you care to have a deeper look at some of the numbers, Matty was nice enough to put a piece together should you care to take a look. If not, tune in to the podcast below. Hopefully we'll start producing some more content by May, and there will be a reason to check back with the site more than once a week!

[audio http://americansocceranalysis.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/american-soccer-analysis-podcast-2.mp3]

Also make sure to check out the YouTube video,linked below, to the SSAC13 Soccer Analytics panel. A lot of good stuff there.

The small effects of crossing in MLS

During the podcast that Harrison and I recorded yesterday (to be posted soon), we discussed the value that a midfielder can bring to a team even if he’s not scoring. Harrison brought up, for instance, Mauro Rosales' crossing ability as a dangerous weapon for the Sounders. The only thing I had to offer to the conversation was data-driven, as I have not seen the Sounders play this season (yes, I unfortunately missed the Timbers-Sounders match). I noticed in the 2013 data that teams that “cross too much” as part of their offenses have tended to fare slightly worse this season. Let me explain the methodology… The game-by-game statistics for “open-play crosses” can be found in all boxscores on mlssoccer.com. An open-play cross is just one that occurs during the run of play, as opposed to free kicks and corner kicks. Crosses can be dangerous, as we’ve seen during the last decade from the German national team specifically, but not every team is the German national team.

To isolate the effectiveness of crosses, I started by dividing a team’s crosses by its scoring attempts—scoring attempts being just any shot or attempt in the general direction of the goal. The ratio of crosses to scoring attempts serves as a decent proxy for the fraction of a team’s offense that comes from crosses rather than direct play through the middle. Is it perfect? Of course not, but I hope that this generates some discussion about how to better evaluate the role of crossing in MLS. On to the results!

For every game played up through April 6^th, I took the home and away teams’ ratios of crosses to goal-scoring attempts. As an example, in the Timbers-Sounders matchup on March 16^th, Portland recorded 20 open-play crosses and 13 scoring attempts. Seattle played 9 crosses in, and had just 7 scoring attempts. In both cases, we see that the fraction is actually greater than one. So while this not really a percentage at all, dividing by attempts still helps to control for a teams’ overall offensive production.

Portland = 20/13 = 1.54

Seattle = 9/7 = 1.29

Then I take the home team’s ratio and divide by the away team’s ratio.

1.29/1.54 = 0.84

The fact that this number is less than one simply suggests that the home team, the Sounders, used crosses as a smaller proportion of their open-play tactics. Next, I ran a simple linear regression between this final ratio and the goal differential in all matches. Here is the formula:

Goal Differential = –0.31 x Ratio + 0.82*

So what does this mean? Well basically, it says that the more often an MLS home team utilizes crosses, the lower their goal differential tends to be. There are tons of other variables at play in soccer, but let me take a stab at explaining this correlation.

Crosses are valid goal-scoring opportunities, and any team would almost always rather get a cross in than, for instance, play the ball all the way back to the defense. But in that same vein, a team would rather attack through the middle and earn a more direct goal scoring opportunity than just whip crosses in all day. So I think what this regression tells us is something that just about every soccer player knows. If a team is forced to constantly play from the wings—if it is forced outside more often than not—its goal-scoring potential will be reduced. Crosses are a necessary part of most offenses simply because a team cannot always get a perfect opportunity in front of the net.

Teams that cross a lot may be doing so as part of team tactics, or in any given game it could be an efficient defense that forces the offense to play from the wings. Either way, a weak-but-existent correlation exists that suggests teams should not settle for crosses if possible.

I’m sure we haven’t learned anything new here, but I’m a firm believer in attempting to quantify phenomena in sports in an effort to better understand the effect, and to actually measure the size of the effect.

*P-value was 8%, and R-square was 0.05. So this was definitely a weak relationship, and there is more than enough room for certain teams with the right personnel to thrive on crosses.

SSAC13: Soccer Analytics Round Table

It's finally here! If you didn't get the opportunity to get out to the Sloan Sports Conference in Boston two months ago--though I was in town for business, I wasn't fortunate enough to get to go--the videos from the round table discussions have been posted to YouTube.

This is great stuff from some great minds, take a look.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ye-mvV9ELI]

ASA Podcast: Episode I

The site is largely undone, and still in need of a lot of love. But that will come in time. Until those moments arrive, and in effort to hold you off, here is Episode I of our podcast. It's a bit rough, and it's the first time either of us have done this, so be easy. Things will get better. Right now, podcasts record on Saturdays and will be released sometime Sunday or Monday with a running time of roughly 30 - 60 minutes. Enjoy!

[audio http://americansocceranalysis.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/american-soccer-analysis-podcast-1.mp3 ]

(and just in case you aren't using Google Chrome)

American Soccer Analysis: Podcast I

The First Post

We're here, we're loud, we're here to make a difference. There is a lot to be said within the world of soccer or "futbol", especially when concerning analysis and analytics. Using what is available is kind of the name of the game. But the thing about American Soccer is that more than ever there is a lot out there that allows for--in the very least--a better way of achieving a whole picture.

None of us here have the answers, nor do any of us think we're going to come up with them. But there are a lot of smart people out there that sometimes go without being heard and our self proclaimed job is finding those people and try to give them a voice and have some fun doing it.

We're going to do a lot of things wrong, moreso than right. That's cool. You're going to make mistakes. The point in that is that you make the public you show what you...or we... did wrong and you show you correct or fix that mistake. Giving the process some transparency. Something sorely lacking in American Soccer and Analytics within the beautiful game.

For now this is just a site to host our podcasts and generally collect the little bits of wisdom that we've scoured the internet for. If you have find something good give me a shout.