Just wanted to share a link to some photos from an American photojournalist I saw on BigSoccer. Some great stuff.
US Men's National Team vs. Mexico at Azteca - Douglas Zimmerman
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
So, how bout them gnats?
Well, I never thought I'd live to see that... okay, that's not true. I thought someday I'd see the US get another result from Azteca. I was around in 1997, but I wasn't really following soccer much, despite playing in high school. Well, riding the bench in higschool. Shut up.
Anyway, I'm not shocked that the US got a point from Mexico, but I am really, really glad it happened.
I won't go into a lot of detail here, but Dan Loney, love him or hate him, nailed it, I think.
http://www.bigsoccer.com/soccer/dan-loney/2013/03/27/stolen-one-point-last-seen-fleeing-mexico-city/
In the mean time, I decided this would be a good time to actually dig a little bit into stats. Awesomely, MLSsoccer.com provided the Opta stats and chalkboard for this match, so I crunched the numbers to come up with ratings, much the same way I've been doing for SKC. Here's what the performances for each team looked like.
Maybe a little surprising to see Cameron ranked higher than Besler, but other than that, I think the ratings play out well. Great game from Gonzalez and maybe, just maybe, new CB pairing for the US has been found. Mexico with the slight edge ratings wise, which should be expected. In all honesty, they really took it to the US and were unlucky not to get the Edu penalty call (I think the Bradley "push" in the first 10 minutes was the correct non-call, hand checking a runner off the ball who goes down easy shouldn't be a PK that early in the match).
And still, a point from Azteca, while rare, shoudln't be cause for full blown celebration. This isn't the prize. The US is still only sitting on 4 points from 3 games, with 7 to go. I've seen 16 as the magic number, which would mean the US needs 4 wins from 7 games. With 5 at home, that's gotta be seen as doable, but at this pace the US is looking at aboiut 13-14 projected points. The next home match is going to be big. Bigger than this all told.
However, the best part about beating (edit - well, drawing... okay, now I've fallen into the "US beats Mexico 0-0" trap...) Mexico, in Mexico, is it takes away another home game of theirs and now might force them to get some road results, something very hard to do in CONCACAF.
I've been very skeptical/critical of Klinsman, but every time I'm ready to write me off, he pulls me back in. I really hope he proves me wrong this cycle.
Anyway, I'm not shocked that the US got a point from Mexico, but I am really, really glad it happened.
I won't go into a lot of detail here, but Dan Loney, love him or hate him, nailed it, I think.
http://www.bigsoccer.com/soccer/dan-loney/2013/03/27/stolen-one-point-last-seen-fleeing-mexico-city/
In the mean time, I decided this would be a good time to actually dig a little bit into stats. Awesomely, MLSsoccer.com provided the Opta stats and chalkboard for this match, so I crunched the numbers to come up with ratings, much the same way I've been doing for SKC. Here's what the performances for each team looked like.
Maybe a little surprising to see Cameron ranked higher than Besler, but other than that, I think the ratings play out well. Great game from Gonzalez and maybe, just maybe, new CB pairing for the US has been found. Mexico with the slight edge ratings wise, which should be expected. In all honesty, they really took it to the US and were unlucky not to get the Edu penalty call (I think the Bradley "push" in the first 10 minutes was the correct non-call, hand checking a runner off the ball who goes down easy shouldn't be a PK that early in the match).
And still, a point from Azteca, while rare, shoudln't be cause for full blown celebration. This isn't the prize. The US is still only sitting on 4 points from 3 games, with 7 to go. I've seen 16 as the magic number, which would mean the US needs 4 wins from 7 games. With 5 at home, that's gotta be seen as doable, but at this pace the US is looking at aboiut 13-14 projected points. The next home match is going to be big. Bigger than this all told.
However, the best part about beating (edit - well, drawing... okay, now I've fallen into the "US beats Mexico 0-0" trap...) Mexico, in Mexico, is it takes away another home game of theirs and now might force them to get some road results, something very hard to do in CONCACAF.
I've been very skeptical/critical of Klinsman, but every time I'm ready to write me off, he pulls me back in. I really hope he proves me wrong this cycle.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Roll on, Oblivion
Okay, ratings starting to come together again. Still a group of teams lagging a bit at 3 games, which is throwing off the comparison somewhat, but I think it's starting to gel nicely. Columbus may feel a little hard done actually losing points even though they won, but no ranking drop, and its hard to argue the other teams don't belong up there as well.
Full table. Click to embiggen.
LA still flying high and Montreal is making their case. Chicago stuck down in the basement, and look at little Chivas go. GO CHIVAS, GO!
Seattle and New York still with plenty of time to figure it out, but definitely not how they wanted to start the season. And who thought Philly would get it together after their three goal first half meltdown against SKC?
Edit - And, what the hell, never too early in the season for a graph, right? As always, click for pops.
SHFR trends for the first four week. Note that the y axis is a log. LA's high rating makes a linear chart hard to read. Should clear up in a few weeks once LA levels out a bit (assuming they lose a game or two...).
Full table. Click to embiggen.
LA still flying high and Montreal is making their case. Chicago stuck down in the basement, and look at little Chivas go. GO CHIVAS, GO!
Seattle and New York still with plenty of time to figure it out, but definitely not how they wanted to start the season. And who thought Philly would get it together after their three goal first half meltdown against SKC?
SHFR trends for the first four week. Note that the y axis is a log. LA's high rating makes a linear chart hard to read. Should clear up in a few weeks once LA levels out a bit (assuming they lose a game or two...).
Not how to draw it up...
So a lot of people seemed upset at the performance in Boston this weekend, and I'll agree, it was one of the uglier 0-0 draws youll see, but I'd disagree with the notion that it was a throw back to the early years of the league. Back then you'd see a 5-4 defensive meltdown performance. This game, I feel, was the result of two teams without big offensive weapons (Zusi and Bengstrom) trying to not make mistakes. Cold, windy conditions and a small, plastic field didn't help thing. New England basically came out in a 4-5-1 that became a 4-6-0 when Barret came out.
All that said though, I'm always of the opinion that a road point in MLS is fine, and it's only Week 4. SKC has played 3 out of 4 matches on the road and earned 4 points. If they can keep up that pace and find their home form I think things will be just fine this season.
Now then, ratings.
New England with the slight advantage ratings wise, and I think the stats would reflect that. SKC has many fewer passes than New England, and that's concerning, but holding a team to 0 shots on goal is a great accomplishment none the less. Collin and Opara tied for Man of the Match. Let's give it to Opara. I thought Collin had the better game, but always fun to credit the new guy.
All that said though, I'm always of the opinion that a road point in MLS is fine, and it's only Week 4. SKC has played 3 out of 4 matches on the road and earned 4 points. If they can keep up that pace and find their home form I think things will be just fine this season.
Now then, ratings.
New England with the slight advantage ratings wise, and I think the stats would reflect that. SKC has many fewer passes than New England, and that's concerning, but holding a team to 0 shots on goal is a great accomplishment none the less. Collin and Opara tied for Man of the Match. Let's give it to Opara. I thought Collin had the better game, but always fun to credit the new guy.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
GODDAMMIT ITS STILL NOT WORKING
Actually, it's staritng to shake out okay. The teams with only two games played still throwing a little wrench in everything though, hence LA still ranked #1 despite their bummer draw with Chivas. And by bummer draw, I mean hell yes Chivas, you beautiful bastard goats you.
Chivas is totally my #3 MLS team.
Anyway, as I said, numbers are starting to shake out well I think if you take the 5 teams with only two games played with a grain of salt. Here's how the table looks.
We'll see how LA looks after another game or two. Same deal with Seattle. Also, this in no way incorporates CCL performance into it, so don't ask.
Chivas is totally my #3 MLS team.
Anyway, as I said, numbers are starting to shake out well I think if you take the 5 teams with only two games played with a grain of salt. Here's how the table looks.
We'll see how LA looks after another game or two. Same deal with Seattle. Also, this in no way incorporates CCL performance into it, so don't ask.
Ready... aim...
Not the greatest game, especially considering how poor Chicago have been lately, but definitely some silver lining in the clean sheet and the defense seems to be coming together. Still, same old story of SKC dominating possession and shots, but being unable to turn shots into goals (see previous post).
The trend of teams coming in and playing sloppy matches for a draws worries me a little, and PV and co are going to need to figure it out.
Here's some player ratings for the match. Lots of positives for both teams back lines.
The trend of teams coming in and playing sloppy matches for a draws worries me a little, and PV and co are going to need to figure it out.
Here's some player ratings for the match. Lots of positives for both teams back lines.
Joint man of the matches to Collin and Zusi, Collin for some great defensive work and a good pass or too, and Zusi for being Zusi. I really hope he likes it in Kansas City, because I've got to think his performances over the last year and the way he's started this season have caught many a scout's eye...
And, while I'm pulling em off my phone, here's some shots from yesterday's game.
Shots shots shots shotsshotsshots
I thought I had posted about this last season, and maybe I had, but it came up again after last night's game, so I thought I'd formalize it here, if only so that I could reference it later instead of having to dig up last years spreadsheet.
Just how bad is SKCs shots:shots on goal and shots on goal:goal percentage? Fairly bad.
Kansas City was second worst in the league in finishing last year, with a shots:SOG ratio of 29.15%, and a SOG:Goals ratio of 26.58%. This results in a shots:goals ratio of 7.75%. The only team worse than SKC was Chivas, and that is not good company to be in. Conversely, San Jose and New York lead the league at 13.9% and 14.4% respectively.
The league average was 10.25 goals scored for every 100 shots.
SKC lead the league in shots last year with 542. If they were just "average" i.e. scored on 10.25% of their shots instead of 7.75%, they would have scored an additional 13 goals last year... And I can think of 13 games where I could have taken an extra goal...
edit - Here's the full table. You'll notice Kei Kamara is included in this. His number is excluded from the league average. I was curious to see how he stacked up against SKC as a whole as well as to other teams in the league. Click to embiggen.
Just how bad is SKCs shots:shots on goal and shots on goal:goal percentage? Fairly bad.
Kansas City was second worst in the league in finishing last year, with a shots:SOG ratio of 29.15%, and a SOG:Goals ratio of 26.58%. This results in a shots:goals ratio of 7.75%. The only team worse than SKC was Chivas, and that is not good company to be in. Conversely, San Jose and New York lead the league at 13.9% and 14.4% respectively.
The league average was 10.25 goals scored for every 100 shots.
SKC lead the league in shots last year with 542. If they were just "average" i.e. scored on 10.25% of their shots instead of 7.75%, they would have scored an additional 13 goals last year... And I can think of 13 games where I could have taken an extra goal...
edit - Here's the full table. You'll notice Kei Kamara is included in this. His number is excluded from the league average. I was curious to see how he stacked up against SKC as a whole as well as to other teams in the league. Click to embiggen.
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