Thank you to: Arielle Dror, Lydia Vandenbergh Jackson, Kieran Doyle, Jay Carter and the many NWSL aficionados within ASA for letting me bounce ideas off of them for this biweekly series.

This is the second of a series of biweekly articles on American Soccer Analysis analyzing interesting tidbits across the season - both at a team and individual level. As the season continues to heat up, these articles will come at all angles of the game: tactical information, fascinating data quirks, and as well just basic match reports. The NWSL, as is the case with American soccer across the board, is a wild ride - hopefully this series will provide everyone with things to keep an eye on throughout the year!

Trinity Rodman - Goals Added’s Favorite Player

In the first article of this series, I touched on how our in-house metric at American Soccer Analysis “valued” Jennifer Cudjoe’s contributions in her defensive midfield role for the NJ/NY Gotham - specifically, how I disagreed with its interpretations of her role within that position. For this edition, I’m going to look at one of the stars of the NWSL Challenge Cup, and one of the brightest stars in the league - Trinity Rodman. Prior to the start of the season, most of the focus on her was regarding her famous father. She was highly regarded by those who watched youth international games, but without any college games on her resume, very little was expected of her in year one. However, she’s blown all those expectations out of the water. Compared to Cudjoe, Goals Added rates the Spirit attacker as the best player in NWSL. Video highlights of her on the ball beating defenders 1v1 have been trending across Twitter, but I feel her quality deserves a more nuanced look. In the “spirit” of numbers and nerdery, I’m going to frame it around the various aspects g+ takes into consideration when formulating its output for a player: shooting, receiving, dribbling, passing, interrupting, and fouling.

All data utilized in the visualizations is courtesy of my employers at StatsBomb

Shooting - Goals Added: .36

Trinity takes a LOT of shots - more than the normal attacker: 26 shots in 6 games. The issue with that, at the moment, is that she’s not scored any of them. For sickos who love G-xG underperformance, she’s up there, having only scored one goal despite these high shot numbers. This has earned her 2.9xG in the process. Despite not having put one in the back of the net, Goals Added values her contributions highly in front of goal for the Spirit: placing her at .36 on the season. In the context of traditional video analysis and scouting, we can see why: Her shots largely come through two scenarios - Actively creating her own shot off the dribble or clever movement to position herself off the shoulder of the last defender. These are point aspects to her game that are sustainable for various phases of play (i.e. against lower blocks, in transitions, etc.) and make her a threat wherever the Spirit looks to play her across the front. In the long term, while shooting and being able to get off shots is a good thing - she eventually needs to find the back of the net. A few of her shot locations are “speculative” to say the least - may I interest her in a stirring introduction to expected goals?

Receiving - Goals Added: .64

Thus far in the NWSL, Richie Burke and the Spirit have played Rodman in a variety of positions in the front three: Primarily off the right, but also as a traditional #9. Her job in these different roles has been to either: Create space in behind (making runs to receive in space), or connect with teammates supporting her underneath. Both of these things she is good at, and Goals Added agree: .64 so far, which is her best sub-attribute according to the metric.

Hold up play: Trinity Rodman isn’t a traditional “target forward” of course, but when playing on the final line, there will always be situations when you have to get on the ball facing towards your own goal. These situations require the ability to recognize when a sparsity of touches are required, and holding up defenders to find teammates who are facing up field - Rodman balances these two well. Most defenders in the league will outmuscle her if she wants to get in a physical battle, so wherever possible she quickly moves, plays on, and spins in behind. These receptions with her back to goal lead to passes that play supporting teammates who are facing up field. By finding her well-placed teammates, the Spirit can attack quicker vertically, or switch play horizontally into other areas of the pitch. As Goals Added is a metric that takes passages of play into account these receptions which lead into passes, and so on, are important to note.

Receiving in behind: These are the types of ball receptions which Rodman is more comfortable with: times she can receive a pass while facing the goal with space to run into. When she times her runs well (and she CAN be too overeager at times) she’s quicker than most of her opponents, and has the body position advantage as she doesn’t have to turn to get on the end of passes while defenders do. What Goals Added rates highly for Trinity Rodman is the sheer quantity of these types of ball receptions she logs.

If there’s one area I would like to see her develop in terms of locations to receive the ball, it’s her decision of when to come short and when to come long: Does she look to receive with her back to goal and play in front of the defense, or does she make runs in behind to drag opponents away? This depends upon multiple factors, of course: Where the ball is located in relation to her (when it’s in one channel, she needs to move on the same vertical plane to support passes) her teammates movements around her (not doubling up in spaces needlessly), and her team’s depth while defending (not being to high up the pitch when they are deeper - isolating herself on an island).

Passing - Goals Added: .19

Trinity’s ability to find teammates is obviously twinned with her ability to receive passes, but outside of the connections touched on previously, what kind of passer is she? For one, she doesn’t overcomplicate things. This could obviously be a bit of “shyness” within her game (not wanting to make mistakes) but based on how she takes on opponents off the dribble, I think it’s more of a feature of her game. This works in two ways: for one, it means she doesn’t kill attacking moves while trying to hit huge switches of play, thread passes through lines when it’s not appropriate, etc. This is not to say she doesn’t have more expansive balls in her locker - she has shown a few times that she can get her head up and switch play or find a target that isn’t as obvious. However, as much of her game is played at 100 miles per hour, her ability to do this can be limited at times. With her head down, in wide areas, etc. she is at her very best when she gets the ball off her foot and creates space. This is not a criticism! Every team needs a balance of passers and players capable of going “off the cuff” in 1v1 scenarios. Trinity Rodman has been arguably the best in the latter category thus far.

We see how that straightforward approach is beneficial to her in the final third (see above). Primarily playing off the right for the Spirit, when Rodman gets in and around the box, she LOVES cutbacks (the importance and quality of which are discussed in more detail here): finding players in attacking spaces around the penalty spot as the opposition’s defense is dropping onto their line.

Dribbling - Goals Added: .18

If you asked the casual NWSL fan what Rodman was good at/notable for, her ability on the dribble (i.e. highlight moments) would likely be the default answer. Clips have flown around social media of her sitting down defenders, nutmegging opponents, etc. but other than these plays, what makes her dangerous on the ball? For one, she is a high volume dribbler in the final third. When it comes to building a dangerous attacking team you need to have a system of coherent, and stable patterns to get you into the final third. Once you do get into the final third, that’s where the shackles can come off (within reason) and allow players to show their creativity. Anytime Rodman has a chance to do just that, she takes it without hesitation: Squaring up to her marker, taking a touch forward and making the dominoes fall by committing supporting defenders onto her, and opening space up for others.

This is a double-edged sword of course, and Rodman is not perfect with this. She sometimes bites off more than she can chew and either: A) takes on multiple defenders at once, or B) delays the pass which negates her threat. Considering this is only a few weeks into her first professional campaign (and coming from a player who never played in college either!), this is a minor grievance and something she will develop with time. However, it’s likely one of the reasons why her Goals Added numbers are not stellar in this category. On the other hand, if the Spirit wants to consistently make sure she’s dangerous, they would be wise to create situations within their system to make her more of a threat - ways that lean into her strengths. Some examples of this: finding ways to isolate her 1v1 with defenders more often, getting the ball to her feet when she has the momentum/speed advantage, etc.

Interrupting - Goals Added: 0.08

The defensive side of the ball is important for an attacking player - These players are the ones who initiate the press and act as a trigger for the rest of the team to close off options behind them, the defense to step up, etc. One thing that Trinity Rodman has in her favor is her work rate to close down opponents. When doing so from wide areas, she uses the touchline to her benefit: the space in these areas for opponents to work in is naturally halved with these restraints, so she can help the Spirit win back the ball (in conjunction with teammates helping behind her) and look to transition to goal, or maintain it, depending on the scenario.

When Rodman has played up front, it’s been so largely with two wingers flanking her. In this role, Rodman is tasked with making the game “directional” - i.e. not allowing the opposition to switch the ball from side to side, and forcing them down blind alleys at the back. Alongside the previously mentioned work rate, this requires an understanding of angling ones run - more so than in wide areas. If you approach a player you are pressing straight on, this makes their job much simpler to bypass you through combinations with teammates. On the other side, angling your run denies them this ability (cutting off opposition players behind you) and shapes their own movement in such a way that makes their next pass predictable. Rodman, despite her age, is very adept at doing this. There are a few hiccups every now and then of course - sometimes she does needless running when her teammates are not positioned to provide assistance: leaving her easily passed out of the equation. For the most part though, she picks and chooses her moments well.

One of the reasons why g+ likely looks so favorably on this is quite similar to why high pressing systems have become so en vogue across soccer in recent seasons: It leads to turnovers in dangerous situations and helps create goal-scoring scenarios. When Rodman creates turnovers or pressures an opposition defender, she’s doing so in their half. If the ball is regained, the number of passes required to get a shot on goal is minimal compared to starting from your own GK. Goals Added looks at the share of actions in a passing/attacking move, so helping your teammate create shots quickly is rated highly.

Fouling - Goals Added: -0.04

This is a metric within g+ which goes both ways: both considering fouls earned and fouls suffered. As noted in the explanation for our Goals Added wheels, this aspect of a player’s game is weighted very differently to the others - while getting fouled is a side effect of a dangerous player, to say it is as important as something like shooting or passing would be untrue. However, I will touch on it briefly as it applies to Rodman. Generally, the fouls she’s won in the league this season have been a result of her beating an initial defender through her explosiveness and ability in 1v1 scenarios. A prime example of which you can see in the clip below.

Attacking players who are on the ball often, and create danger off the dribble are more prone to getting fouled: either by design (tactical fouling), or due to how quick they are to maneuver away from opponents - Trinity Rodman is both of these things. While she is a negative in this category according to g+, it’s more down to the specific of the metric itself compared to anything specific to her game on the pitch - each foul committed and earned zeros out on net, which is another mechanism put in place to make sure fouls are scaled appropriately. Without getting too deep into the weeds - you earn a foul and then commit a foul later on, the value within g+ is essentially zero. Looking at Rodman’s value in this (-0.04) backs this up.

Coming Up Next!

By the time article two comes out, we’ll have had a full week of NWSL regular-season matches to look at! The first two articles, as you would’ve noticed have taken a less analytical perspective to team’s tactical schemes or forecasts for how they will play: with such little sample size to pull from, it’s hard to make sweeping conclusions about what is wrong with a system - this is especially the same for the NWSL, where the Challenge Cup was filled with international players absent, little preseason matches to draw from, etc. However, by the time article three drops, we should be well on our way to getting more of a feel for how teams will shape up this summer (or not, it's the NWSL - chaos reigns!)