Breaking Goals Added

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Breaking Goals Added

As you may have noticed with this week’s rollout of goals added (g+) and the related articles, we at ASA are pretty fired up about our new possession xG framework and player valuation methodology. The journey to get to this point would best be documented by the thousands of messages in the ASA slack chat over the last 9 months, and something I want to highlight is that the exercise of putting together this model would have been worth it in and of itself for all involved even if nothing was ever published.

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2020 Season Preview: Atlanta United FC

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2020 Season Preview: Atlanta United FC

In 2019, de Boer came in claiming he’d “fix the defense” of the MLS Cup winners and leave the attack the same. They started in a 3-4-3, which after some early failings, morphed almost immediately in the opening weeks to a 4-3-3 which after an extended ramp kept Atlanta United towards the top half of the east but angered basically everyone involved. What de Boer brought to the club was a more conservative approach to defense and a more possession-oriented approach to attack, which looked pretty boring until the ball made its way into the final third at which point you’d see some creative interchange and risk-taking by the front 3/4, with the idea that you just had to accept that turnovers would happen and the team would need to “lock on” in those transition moments to win the ball back high or force a clearance and then go again. And there would be turnovers. Or this was the concept at least. Change is hard. Hold that thought.

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Offseason Outlook: Atlanta United Football Club

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Offseason Outlook: Atlanta United Football Club

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.

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Atlanta United FC - Postseason Preview

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In the 2019 Atlanta United Preview for ASA, I worried that de Boer’s preseason stated goal of “keeping everything the same in attack but improving the defense” might be a wild goose chase. After a title-winning 2018 in which Atlanta’s back 3/5 often found themselves in 1v1 duels and won them while putting up some of the best defensive metrics I’ve seen, the team opened 2019 in a 3-4-3 with Remedi and Nagbe holding and struggling to link defense and attack. Brek Shea became involved at left wing back when injuries early in the year basically put a hold on the first team career progression of young George Bello. The team quickly morphed into a 4-3-3 that de Boer seemed more comfortable with, but even after a month or so as the positive results started to show up against a run of weak competition, rifts in the dressing room were apparent to anyone who was even remotely paying attention. If it wasn’t Pity Martinez mouthing off to South American media about disagreements with the manager, and Leandro Gonzalez Pirez and Ezequiel Barco echoing certain of those sentiments at the All-Star break, it was Josef Martinez scoring a goal on the road and immediately and vigorously berating the coaching staff for all to see.

Whether by epiphany, mutiny, or simply good fortune, Frank de Boer permanently shifted the team away from a more “under control” 4-3-3 into a fairly wide-open and pressure-intensive 3-5-2 in July, and for the most part, the team never looked back.

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Atlanta United 2019 Season Preview

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Atlanta United 2019 Season Preview

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).

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Atlanta United FC 2018 Season Preview

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Atlanta United FC 2018 Season Preview

It’s obvious Atlanta United’s expansion year was a success. You’re probably tired of reading about that. Quickly though, and then I’ll get into the more descriptive soccer things and a look to next year. In 2017, ATLUTD finished 4th in a strong East and were inches from 2nd and a first round bye with plenty of weird bounces that could've gone either way. That’s a successful first year (before you even talk about the goals and the attendance and the merchandise sales). It’s the sort of expansion year that a team might just want to consolidate around and make incremental improvements to, heading into the next season (Ron Howard voice: they would not do this).

Key Team Features in 2017

Atlanta United’s most distinctive attribute was the high press. Atlanta disrupted its opponents’ own-half buildups at a rate bested only by the New York Red Bulls. Atlanta’s opponent’s in turn passed the ball in their own half less than any other team in MLS, frequently opting to bypass the press and go long with lower percentage passes and more direct play. Only Red Bulls were forced to defend a higher percentage of long balls relative to other passes.

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