Beckie with the Good Stats
/Janine Beckie Transfers to Portlanada
At the theoretical height of her powers, Janine Beckie, former 8th-overall pick in the NWSL draft, is back Stateside with a point to prove. With her contract with Manchester City ending at the end of this year, Beckie made the move to join the very Maple Leaf-centric Portland Thorns, a move no doubt aided by the obvious Canadian throughlines of Rhian Wilkinson, Karina LeBlanc, and her strike partner-in-crime Christine Sinclair. I’ll save the Thorns tactical breakdown for our preseason previews post Challenge Cup (keep your eyes peeled), but who exactly are the Thorns getting?
The NWSL Years
Beckie profiles as a super weird player who does lots of *stuff.* I realize that isn’t a very helpful description, but I’m not sure how else you describe someone who played three NWSL seasons straight out of college (where she destroyed the Big 12 Conference with the Texas Tech Red Raiders as a striker) and spent those seasons playing striker, then center midfielder, then winger. She logged solid minutes as a young player, but never really kicked on and shone in her first NWSL stint. As a striker, her shot volume was never really high enough, as a winger she didn’t really create, but as a midfielder bursting from deep she was able to get lots of shots and create enough for others without giving up too much defensively and became an effective piece for the Dash in 2017.
Data courtesy of ASA
If we look at our possession value metric, goals added, which evaluates every action on how much it increases the chance the player’s team scores on this possession or decreases the chance the player’s team concedes on the next possession, we see a similar trend. Not getting on the ball in dangerous areas as much as her counterparts at striker or winger, but a perfectly serviceable midfielder (which at 22-23y is nothing to scoff at).
Checking the tape, it’s the same again. In both clips here, the striker shows off the front line or makes a run wide (first Hagen, then Daly), Beckie either breaks the line with a run, or arrives late to fill the box. High quality shots, high quality goals.
A Move to Manchester
After a brief interlude with RIP Sky Blue, Beckie made her way to a different kind of Sky Blue in Manchester, and just… popped. She joined in September 2018, but found it difficult to crack the team with only 300 minutes for the Citizens that season. Nonetheless, a very respectable 0.55 xG+xA for club and for country (the 2019 World Cup), represents a near doubling of her highest output in NWSL. The 2019/20 season started out much the same, before Beckie found a temporary home as an outrageously attacking right back. Nick Cushing’s City reel off eight wins from nine, with their lone defeat coming away to Champions Chelsea. Then… COVID-19 hit.
The 2020-21 season picked up where she left off, on a tear and in the team. Beckie returned to the forward line and took another jump. She had 1.1 xG+xA per 90 minutes, a mind bogglingly large number, all while playing less than 1000 club minutes. Now, club minutes in the WoSo world are *weird.* Players are constantly jetting off on international duty, and sometimes games continue, but sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they get dropped for going away, sometimes they don’t. This has been the Janine Beckie story. Play well, don’t play anymore. 2021-2022 season, sometimes right back, sometimes winger, mostly not playing. While Beckie has consistently put up good numbers in England, she has also consistently not played more than a bit-part role.
The last year of Beckie-ball in Manchester. Seems good!
Step 1: Play Beckie, Step 2: ???, Step 3: Profit
It’s not clear to me where Beckie is going to play in Portland. It could be as a wingback in place of Natalia Kuikka, could be as one of the strike partnerships with Sinclair, Smith, and Weaver, or could be as a third midfielder bursting forward to join the attack. What is clear, though, is that Beckie has been a consistently productive player when she has gotten on the field for the past three seasons. At 27, with a plethora of fun, young Canadians nipping at her National Team heels, now is the time to get on the field and stay there. In the meantime, enjoy Janine Wingbeckie with some wicked crosses.