Over the last few years, analytics in MLS has been turned on its head. Five years ago, if a team had one person “doing analytics,” it was a big deal. Now, questions are asked if a club doesn’t - and it is not uncommon for clubs to have multiple people on staff. The Tiers of MLS Analytics are now based upon the number of full time analytics staff members a club employs.
Read MoreIn May, I took a look at pressing data, trying to assess where teams had shifted from last season to this one. Considering most places where MLS is played are experiencing summer weather, I figured it was time to check back in on how MLS clubs handled the heat and more than half a season of minutes on players’ legs. Part of the impetus for digging into pressing data now is to try to understand how things have changed since May.
Read MoreThis is the seventh article in a series of articles and videos in the Where Goals Come From project from Jamon Moore and Carl Carpenter.
Now that we have inundated you with progressive passing data, videos, and presentations, now comes the time where I provide examples of how to create these types of opportunities in matches by applying these attacking principles to training. This is the part which is the most important to me personally: it’s easy for us to theorize and analyze what successful teams do well and identify these as the top levels of the game, however, the goal (no pun intended) of the Where Goals Come From project is ultimately to impact clubs and coaches to incorporate this framework into their strategy and game models.
Read MoreFrom video games, to board games, to athletic competitions, having a well thought out strategy is vital to winning a game. In soccer, a major part of this pre-game strategy is deciding upon the formation, shape, and structure for a team to play. A variety of different factors would persuade a coach to structure their team into different offensive and defensive structures on a game to game basis. Some of these factors include, but are certainly not limited to: strength of squad, opposition strengths, squad availability, perceived space available, and more. Moreover, formations often are fluid and can change at half time or during the game based on a coaches instruction.
This article will analyze certain formations and shapes that are more spatially beneficial to offensive teams than defensive teams, and vice versa, and will be validated through both original metrics and metrics already used within the field.
Read MoreI will start this with a disclaimer: this is not how Borussia Dortmund or Manchester United incorporate analytics into their coaching workflow, it’s not even how the Colorado Rapids incorporate data into their coaching. It is a look at the opposite side of the same coin Carl Carpenter examined earlier this week, only for a smaller school without access to the biggest and baddest equipment.
Read MoreThe year 2019 brought a new Crew. Anthony Precourt got his wish and slithered away to Austin, while head coach and sporting director Gregg Berhalter began his rehabilitation of the US national team, leaving behind five years of solid results in Columbus. Replacing them was a new ownership group and front office led by the Haslam and Edwards families. Toronto FC’s Tim Bezbatchenko came in to lead the Crew’s soccer operations and former MLS Champion Caleb Porter took over as the head coach. With the smallest offseason turnover of a perennial playoff team, expectations were that Porter would provide a steady hand for continued success this season. However, that hasn’t happened and Columbus remains third to last in the Eastern Conference with only a game left in the season. Did the transition fail to succeed because Porter couldn’t implement his vision, or because that vision just didn’t work?
Read MoreIn addition to being one of the most storied rivalries in MLS history, the California Classico has an extra flair to it in 2019. New San Jose manager Matias Almeyda played for and managed Argentinian giant River Plate, and new LA Galaxy manager Guillermo Barros Schelotto played for and managed their hated rival Boca Juniors. In addition to that, Almeyda managed Banfield for a period, the rival of Lanús, where Schelotto managed his first side. So on paper the coaching matchup should be about equal. In reality, it hasn’t been.
Following San Jose’s 3-0 win in the first edition of the 2019 California Clasico, LA Galaxy manager Guillermo Barros Schelotto and captain Zlatan Ibrahimovic dismissed the win, claiming that the scoreline was not reflective of the close nature of the match. After all, the Galaxy were missing key players Jonathan dos Santos and Uriel Antuna, who were away on Gold Cup duty. Earthquakes homegrown player Tommy Thompson was dismissive of the comments, remarking that “there’s always a scoreboard, after the game and it said 3-0.” For the rematch only two weeks later, the table was set for a very interesting tactical matchup between two new managers trying to implement their philosophy into their clubs. In actuality, Almeda’s side came out on top again, this time by a score of 3-1.
Read MoreMaking the step up from the NASL into Major League Soccer can be extremely difficult (commiserations Cincinnati fans), and Minnesota’s first two seasons in MLS are an excellent example of this. Defensively, the Loons struggled to keep the ball out of the net consistently (Statistically the worst defense in the league in 2017, and tied for third worst in 2018). Adrian Heath’s insistence on playing a high-risk/high-reward brand of soccer was seen as extremely foolhardy considering the construction of his roster, and his history of “brand over results” which ultimately cost him his job at Orlando City.
Read MoreIn a previous article, I looked at the effect of roster consistency on overall team performance. There were enough interesting trends in the data that I wanted to look a little closer and try to see if there is a “right” number of changes that teams should make on a week-to-week basis.
After looking at each squad’s rotation and how it affected their performance over the past three years, it makes sense to look at how changing lineups from one week to the next effected team’s performances in that week. That is to say, given a team’s roster changes from the previous week, how likely were they to perform well?
Read MoreI’m a die-hard San Jose Earthquakes fan. Please don’t leave yet. In case you aren’t paying attention to MLS much this year, the Quakes have been…underperforming, even by their less-than-lofty standards. I was preparing data for an article about the Quakes troubles with defending the opposition Zone 14 (or are you #TeamZone5?) discussing why they have given up a league-high 6 goals there so far this season, when – you may be aware – Matt Doyle (@MattDoyle76) and Bobby Warshaw (@bwarshaw14) publicly blasted the Quakes for the very same issue back on May 27.
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