MLS Week 2: Expected Goals and Attacking Passes
/Truth be told, last week was kind of a failure on my behalf. I trusted the data and information that was supplied by Golazo, and I'm not sure it really worked out as intended. A few mistakes have been pointed out to me, and while in general that could have been avoided by double checking the MLS chalkboard, I'm not sure that I really wanted to double check their work. This week I went straight to the Chalkboard for the data and then verified the total amount based off MLS soccer numbers. The result of the total numbers this week were a bit surprising.
| Team | shot1 | shot2 | shot3 | shot4 | shot5 | shot6 | Total | xGF |
| San Jose | 0 | 15 | 1 | 8 | 2 | 1 | 27 | 3.231 |
| Colorado | 1 | 8 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 18 | 2.228 |
| Portland | 2 | 5 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 21 | 2.219 |
| New York | 1 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 11 | 1.667 |
| Sporting KC | 1 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 18 | 1.654 |
| Philadelphia | 2 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 13 | 1.465 |
| Chicago | 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 14 | 1.446 |
| Chivas | 2 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 4 | 0 | 15 | 1.351 |
| Seattle | 1 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 1 | 13 | 1.263 |
| Houston | 1 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 14 | 1.2 |
| Montreal | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 8 | 0 | 16 | 1.15 |
| RSL | 0 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 12 | 0.942 |
| Toronto | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 9 | 0.653 |
| New England | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 0.635 |
| Vancouver | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 8 | 0.582 |
| FC Dallas | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 7 | 0.577 |
| Total | 22.26 |
*Expected Goals 1.0 used for this table.
It's weird the last couple of games (talking the CCL match against Toluca midweek); San Jose has done an incredible job at generating shots against talented opposition. First, against a very talented Deportivo Toluca that currently sits second in the Clausura 2014 table, the Quakes managed to put together 20 shots. Liga MX isn't what they once were to MLS, but this is a very efficient showing. With that they barely squeaked by with a draw. This weekend was a much different story as they put the pedal to the floor and crashed through Real Salt Lake to draw a game they really had no business even being in to that point.
Portland is another team that stood out, but for less good things than bad. As Chris already alluded to this morning (he stole my thunder!), they've had an incredible amount of shots that have been blocked even before they get to the keeper. They're obviously getting into advantageous locations and taking shots, but their opponents are getting out in front and deterring those attempts. Which, if you were going to deploy a method for the stopping the Timbers' offense, that would seem to be it. Stay in front of them and prevent as many shots from occurring as possible. Portland has shown itself to be a terribly direct team.
| Team | xGF | Goals |
| San Jose | 3 | 3 |
| Colorado | 2 | 1 |
| Portland | 2 | 1 |
| New York | 2 | 1 |
| Sporting KC | 2 | 1 |
| Philadelphia | 1 | 1 |
| Chicago | 1 | 1 |
| Chivas | 1 | 1 |
| Seattle | 1 | 1 |
| Houston | 1 | 1 |
| Montreal | 1 | 0 |
| RSL | 1 | 3 |
| Toronto | 1 | 2 |
| New England | 1 | 0 |
| Vancouver | 1 | 1 |
| FC Dallas | 1 | 1 |
| Total | 22 | 19 |
As you saw last week, our metric predicted under the total amount of goals scored and this week we were actually over. Again this speaks to the strength of long-term averages, and you're frequency going to be bouncing around the total amount. But the important thing is that we're close, and that we understand where we came up short and where we went over. New England, Vancouver and FC Dallas are all clubs that were lucky to even make the "50%" cut off because they just barely projected for a goal. But that was because we round up to the nearest whole number.
New England was surprisingly the highest of the three clubs. I say surprising because they tallied the least amount of shots. Despite that they managed a couple of better shot locations.
| Team | Comp. Passes | Inc. Passes | Total | Pass% | KeyP |
| Philadelphia | 76 | 35 | 111 | 68.47% | 5 |
| New England | 44 | 22 | 66 | 66.67% | 1 |
| New York | 53 | 38 | 91 | 58.24% | 6 |
| Colorado | 26 | 20 | 46 | 56.52% | 5 |
| Seattle | 59 | 54 | 113 | 52.21% | 6 |
| Toronto | 15 | 19 | 34 | 51.72% | 2 |
| Sporting KC | 38 | 29 | 67 | 56.72% | 5 |
| Dallas FC | 26 | 11 | 37 | 70.27% | 4 |
| Houston | 40 | 26 | 66 | 60.61% | 8 |
| Montreal | 49 | 25 | 74 | 66.22% | 8 |
| San Jose | 54 | 36 | 90 | 60.00% | 10 |
| RSL | 50 | 15 | 65 | 76.92% | 3 |
| Portland | 46 | 41 | 87 | 52.87% | 5 |
| Chicago | 31 | 30 | 61 | 50.82% | 7 |
| Chivas | 48 | 33 | 81 | 59.26% | 8 |
| Vancouver | 31 | 22 | 53 | 58.49% | 2 |
Lastly we have attacking third passing data. As you see, there were only two clubs over the "100" mark this week. Seattle and Philly both collected a large percentage of the total possession, which as we have talked about previously isn't necessarily what's important. It's about WHERE you possess the ball. Well, for Philadelphia it worked out well as they pretty much dominated New England. Pushing the ball into the attacking third, the Zolos limited the total touches of New England in dangerous locations and created plenty of opportunities for themselves.
However, Seattle is a different story. As shown in PWP, they dominated a lot of the raw numbers and even managed to finally produce a goal despite shot frustrations. But Toronto preyed on the counter attack and mental mistakes by Marco Pappa. They didn't need many chances, but in the future we'll have to see if they can continue to finish as efficiently as they did on Saturday. They sported the least amount of attacking touches in all of MLS with only 34 and while that obviously doesn't correlate 100% to goals scored, the more opportunities you have the more likely you're going to find the back of the net.