At the end of January, many members of our ASA Community headed down to Rice University in Houston to talk a whole lot of soccer analytics. ASA Slack was buzzing around so much we figured we’d convene the round table. If you want to hear a podcast version of the conversation around the conference, Ben, Kieran, and Harrison spoke to Arman Kafai about some of the cool stuff going on there.

By Akshay Easwaran

Every soccer data analysis group has had the same jump-scare: they sign data provider contract #2, and suddenly, they need a solution to link teams, matches, and players across their data ecosystem. Individual data sources are easy to ingest: you can tuck them in their own little schemas, write code specific to their little universes, and rest easy that changes won’t come thick and fast without proper notice from your providers. But with those individual data sources come individual standards for tracking objects (players, teams, or matches). In most (if not all) major American sports, working across providers is easy: just use an object’s single source of truth identifier from the league itself. But as every analyst finds out very quickly, there is no public single source of truth identifier for teams, matches, and players in international soccer.

By Lucas Morefield

Goalkeeper evaluation has always been one of the thorniest challenges in soccer analytics. The position is defined by small sample sizes, high variance, and context-driven outcomes. In Major League Soccer, where roster rules magnify the impact of every marginal dollar, understanding goalkeeper value is especially important. With clubs often operating near budget ceilings, a single overperformance or underperformance in goal can shift playoff probability, alter roster-building timelines, or change the financial implications of a season.

It’s that time of year, where the world’s best women’s soccer academy system drops 100+ prospects onto the world’s clubs. Fortunately, there is no longer a draft in NWSL forcing the best players to play somewhere they don’t want to play, so you as a fan can dream on anyone in this list! As always, this dashboard is put together by Paul Harvey and we thank him for his efforts.

Before we start, some notes.