What the numbers tell us so far about 2020 Orlando City SC
/by Mark Asher Goodman; graphics by Eliot McKinley
There’s so much to like when it comes to Orlando City SC this season. The upbeat, exciting soccer that Oscar Pareja has his boys playing; the fluid and exhilarating wing work of Chris Mueller; Nani doing Nani things. Add to it some strong d-mids and fullbacks with afterburner speed, and it has all started to come together for the Lions.
Orlando had home field advantage for the MLS is Back tournament. But also, did they? They were the only team that didn’t really have to travel, but they left their homes and had to check into a hotel and stay there for the duration of the tournament. Whatever they were doing worked, though, as they rode a 2-0-1 record in their group into the knockout stages. From there, they beat Montreal 1-0, got past LAFC on penalties after a 90th minute equalizer from Joao Moutinho, and had their way with Minnesota United before ultimately falling to Portland Timbers in the final.
What the tournament revealed was something that we at ASA already suspected: despite terrible years in 2018 and 2019, the foundations for ORL were there. Before the season started, we wrote that they had “an aging wide midfielder who can shoot the lights out, some young wingers that can do some things, big questions at striker, and a totally unproven central midfield.” We knew Nani, Mueller, and Ruan were solid pieces, but there was a lot of uncertainty other than that, especially with midfielders Mauricio Pereyra and Sebastian Mendez. They came highly touted, but so did Frank Lampard and Rafa Marquez.
Turning to the numbers, after 12 games and a 6W-2L-4T record, we have learned a few more things about Orlando to date.
Note: the data viz wheels from Eliot McKinley are updated to the matches that finished September 13, but the stats I’ve pulled are from ASA’s G+ database as of September 22. It was Rosh Hashanah - I had a busy week.
1) Yes, you really should be excited about what Chris Mueller and Nani have been doing
Up until this week, the best one-two tandem of MLS wingers by G+ was Alberth Elis and Darwin Quintero with Houston Dynamo; ‘La Pantera’ carried a stunning, tops-in-MLS 0.451 G+ per 96, while new-to-Houston Quintero picked up right where he left off in Minnesota with a 0.134 G+ mark, good enough for 7th amongst wingers. But now that Elis has flown off to Boavista FC in the Portuguese Primiera League, the new kings of the wings are Nani and Mueller.
Mueller’s 0.113 G+/96 comes due to his eye-popping receiving numbers - perhaps pro soccer’s most undervalued skill. The ability to get to a ball and settle it on the dribble can be the difference between sustaining an attack, improving an attack, or completely losing possession. Mueller’s receiving g+ of 0.12 is 7th best among all MLS players.
Observe: on this play, the game winner against Inter Miami, Mueller takes not one but two perfect first-touches, and passes to set up this ‘just-how-they-drew-it-up’ tiki-taka fast break goal.
Mueller’s just the kind of smart player who calculates what he wants to do when he receives the ball in such a way that he will not only cleanly receive the ball on the run, but use it to open up the attack or place the defender at a disadvantage. Focus your gaze here on #5: Nicolás Figal is drawn into midfield by Mueller, overcommits, gets left behind, and concedes the devastating assist. This is not a fluke, it’s just Mueller being Mueller.
Nani on the other side is making his mark by skinning dudes, same as he ever has. Here he is humiliating Nicolás Figal (again), to which the Argentinian can only reply by going to a hip-throw.
That’s a three-point takedown in high school wrestling, but in soccer, that’s a no-no, kids.
Nani’s dribbling also opens up better than average passing opportunities like this one:
Nani is 8th among MLS wingers in Key Passes with 19, despite not having great g+ numbers (a just-above-average +0.01) in terms of his actual passing.
Nani and Mueller are just out there making fullbacks quake with fear. The effect is obvious: Muller’s got 7 goals, 4 assists to date, while Nani’s on 4 goals, 3 assists. And none of these numbers are counting the 4 matchs ORL had in the knockout stages of the MLS is Back Tournament, where Nani added 2 goals and an assist. The tandem is the driving reason why Orlando City have the 3rd highest goal total in MLS.
2) The new midfield of Pereyra, Mendez, and Junior Urso aren’t setting the world on fire
In my pre-season article on Orlando, I described the midfield three of Sacha Kljestan, Will Johnson, and Cristian Huiguita as “clunky and underperforming” in 2019. How bad? Johnson tallied a -0.03 G+/96 over his 1847 minutes, Kljestan’s had a -0.07 in 1530 minutes, and Higuita was at a +0.01, but in just 696 minutes played.
That wasn’t the worst troika in the league in 2019. Of players with 500 or more minutes, Montreal’s Ken Krolicki, Shamit Shome, and Samuel Piette were putridly bad, costing their team a total of -0.31 goals per match. By comparison, a -0.09 isn’t that terrible, but it does indicate where the trouble spots were for the Lions.
Orlando’s swapped in Pereyra as the attacking mid, and Mendez and Urso are the d-mid’s in Oscar Pareja’s 4-2-3-1, but none of them are impressing ASA’s g+ system.
Currently, the three collectively produce a -0.06 G+/96, or only a smidgeon better than the work of their predecessors. You’d think with Mueller and Nani creating so much action on the wings these three would either have more time on the ball or easier situations to produce exciting results, but somehow, a ball in the midfield for Orlando doesn’t produce goal-scoring situations at the desired rates. And defensively, they’re just league-average, and not just in terms of the g+ expectations: their 14 Goals Against has them 6th amongst MLS Eastern Conference’s 14 teams.
Is this going to be enough? I mean, they’re in 3rd place in the East now, with 22 points through 12 matches sporting a +9 goal differential.
On the other hand, there are signs that Central Florida’s finest might be overperforming expectations.
3) What does the team’s cumulative G+ indicate for the future?
We’ve been using g+ now for about three months, and different members of the ASA staff have started to see some interesting connections with the new data. Zach Beery has discerned when players are statistically at their best, and what they are best at. John Muller has used G+ to demonstrate the difference between accurate passing and meaningful passing.
Numbers are neat-o. But you need to be able to use numbers to make sense of something, and you need to be able to explain why a number describes a soccer situation, or else you leave yourself open to the kind of anti-analytic lowbrow Luddite criticism that certain top MLS coaches have been known to shout from time to time.
I wanted to know how Orlando’s cumulative teamwide raw G+ numbers compare with other MLS Eastern Conference teams, and whether they might indicate anything about future performance. Is Orlando due for regression? So here’s a comparison of six Eastern Conference teams:
Orlando: slightly worse than they appear…
In short, g+ indicates that, with the MLS season now at the roughly the midway point:
Columbus and Orlando are slightly over-performing expectations.
New York Red Bull are slightly under-performing expectations.
Nashville are performing poorly, as the g+ model would have predicted.
New England and Chicago are far under-performing expectations.
It seems, based on my observations about Orlando’s midfield being a little ‘meh’, Orlando might be due for some regression - they’re good, but maybe not top-of-the-East good.
There’s also the issue that a short and unbalanced schedule may have skewed results. Until last week, Orlando, Miami, Nashville and Atlanta had been involved in a Southern menage a quatre in which Orlando was the best overall team, with a 3W-1L-2T record. Once teams in the Eastern Conference start facing a wider variety of opponents, perhaps the g+ numbers will square better with the Win/Loss records.
Orlando’s next 11 games include 3 matches against the New York teams, a game against Columbus, and even two matches against Western Conference teams, all of which should prove a mighty test. The Lions proved themselves to be an exciting team with a ton of talent so far this year. They probably can’t sustain their phenomenal success all the way through the November 8 MLS Decision Day. But they look like a playoff team, and they’ve already proven that, in a short tournament, they have what it takes to go the distance.