Atlanta United 2019 Season Preview

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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Little Things from Week 31: Dallas’ Quiet Dominance & Villalba’s Tact

Little Things from Week 31: Dallas’ Quiet Dominance & Villalba’s Tact

FC Dallas, slowing things down

I don’t know how one would go about measuring a soccer team’s pace of play. It’s possible, even easy, in basketball, where you can measure possessions per 48 minutes and generally find out how fast teams play. Soccer does not have the defined possessions of basketball; every possession is not created equal, so there’s no easy way to generalize them.

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Setting the Table Week 29: Gressel, Guttierez, and getting ready for the playoffs

Setting the Table Week 29: Gressel, Guttierez, and getting ready for the playoffs

Welcome to Setting the Table. Each week we take some time to focus on the best chance creators in MLS from the last weekend. If you want to see the best chances that were wasted check out Lowered Expectations. Here we focus on chances that ended with the ball in the back of the net.

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Setting the Table Week 21: Villalba, Edwards, and Rzatkowski

Setting the Table Week 21: Villalba, Edwards, and Rzatkowski

Welcome to Setting the Table. Each week we take some time to focus on the best chance creators in MLS from the last weekend. If you want to see the best chances that were wasted check out Lowered Expectations. Here we focus on chances that ended with the ball in the back of the net.

#5 Hector Villalba to Josef Martinez, Atlanta United, 30th minute, 0.434 expected goals
Passes in sequence: 4

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Lowered Expectations: Week Five

Lowered Expectations: Week Five

Welcome to Lowered Expectations, the week five edition! Each week, we go about posting chalkboards and GIFs of the weekend’s five best open play shot attempts that did not quite live up to expectations. We’ll take each one and not only evaluate the results, but also the process that led to these chances.

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