How It Happened: Week Two

I'll be frank: either week two of the MLS season was much less exciting than week one, or I did a poor job of picking games to watch and analyze this week. My bet is that both are true. Anyway, onto the show in which I take a look at three games from the weekend and pick a stat or Opta chalkboard image for each team that tells the story of how they played (last week's version is here if you missed it):

Sporting Kansas City 1 - 1 FC Dallas

Stat that told the story for Dallas: outpassed 418-213, including 103-41 in the game's first half hour

A thought occurred to me when watching this game: Sporting Kansas City has to look a lot like a prototype of what Oscar Pareja wants out of his teams. From the formation to the high-pressing, KC has long made their money by manhandling opponents as soon as they get on the ball and not letting them get comfortable. In this game, Sporting came out fired up at home and simply punched Dallas in the mouth (not even completely a figure of speech - this game was brutally physical). The high-pressing from KC's entire team had FCD out of sorts for most of the first half, particularly the first 30 minutes, when they mustered only 41 completed passes.

But the Hoops managed a road draw against the defending champs, so the game wasn't completely a story of getting worked over. As the game wore on and Sporting found it difficult to keep up the constant pressure, Dallas was able to grow into the game a bit. They certainly were never dominant, but another very good game from Mauro Diaz and some smart counter-attacks allowed Pareja's team to stem the tide for the majority of the game. In the end, it was fitting that the slugfest of a game saw just two goals, both from set pieces, but Dallas should feel good about how they played as the game progressed and were able to steal a point.

Stat that told the story for Kansas City: lack of production from forward line: 15 offensive actions in attacking third

Sporting KC won MLS Cup last year and has unquestionably been one of the league's best teams for the last few seasons. But few would argue that this success is built on a very strong defense and midfield. The forward line has often been sort of an Achilles' heel for this squad, especially now that Kei Kamara has moved on. In this game, Graham Zusi was held out so he could stay fresh for CONCACAF Champions League action, and DP forward Claudio Bieler only came on for the last 13 minutes. But the five players who saw time at a forward spot for KC (Bieler, Dom Dwyer, Sal Zizzo, CJ Sapong and Jacob Peterson) combined to register 15 offensive actions in the attacking third. 

To be clear, that 'offensive actions' stat that's illustrated above might have been made up by me just now, but it encompasses successful passes, dribbles, and all shot attempts. Too often on Saturday, and really for the last few years, Kansas City has dominated the game until the last thirty yards of the field, where they lack ideas. Getting Zusi back will likely help, as would playing Claudio Bieler for a full 90 minutes, but Sporting will need some more creativity and production from their forwards if they hope to lift another trophy this season.

Chivas USA 1 - 1 Vancouver Whitecaps

Stat that told the story for Vancouver: only 53 passes in the offensive third (23 of which were after Kekuta Manneh came on in the 60th minute)

I tuned in for the Chivas-Vancouver matchup excited to see an offensive battle between two sides that combined for 7 goals in week one. Instead, I saw an early red card to the Goats' Agustin Pelletieri followed by a lot of dull possession for Vancouver against a surprisingly organized team in red and white stripes. After looking so deadly in attack against New York, the Whitecaps looked completely lost for ideas on Sunday, with the only forays into the offensive third seeming to come from chips over the top from the superb Pedro Morales. That all changed when Kekuta Manneh came on, as he attacked the Chivas defense with and without the ball, causing fits for Eric Avila and eventually scoring the equalizer for the 'Caps. Still, after playing 87 minutes against 10 men, Vancouver has to be rightfully disappointed at only earning a point.

Stat that told the story for Chivas: Mauro Rosales turning back the clock: 151 actions

The Seattle Sounders traded Mauro Rosales to Chivas this offseason because he was too expensive and too old to fit into the club's plans for 2014. Nobody even really argued with the decision, though Rosales is undeniably a classy player and won the league's Newcomer of the Year award in 2011. So far in 2014, playing in the red and white of the Goat Zombies, Rosales has looked a lot like the 2011 playmaker that Sounders fans knew and loved. Playing down a man, Rosales was everything you could hope from a smart, skilled veteran; he hoofed it up field when in trouble so his team could get organized, he led smart counter-attacks and he kept the ball when possible (with the help of Erick Torres, who also played very well). All in all, he registered 151 actions in Opta's chalkboard, 12 more than any other player and a whopping 47 more than his nearest teammate. Not bad for a washed-up 33-year-old.

Houston Dynamo 1 - 0 Montreal Impact

Stat that told the story for Montreal: Marco Di Vaio's non-existant heat map

I've watched about 120 minutes of Montreal Impact soccer in the season's first two weeks, and just about every one of those minutes has been more impressive than I expected from the Impact this season. Despite having zero points from their first two games (both on the road), they've actually looked pretty good on the field. Justin Mapp is doing Justin Mapp things (like this awesome run & assist from week 1), Hernan Bernardello and Patrice Bernier are pinging beautiful balls to open up space, and Felipe and Andrew Wenger are getting in pretty good goal-scoring spots. So what's the reason behind the zero points? Well, not putting chances away against the Dynamo killed Montreal. ASA's shot numbers had their xGF at 1.15 this week, but there were plenty of other times that they wasted dangerous opportunities (one particular Wenger near-breakaway early in the first half stands out). If All-Star Italian striker Marco Di Vaio wasn't suspended, I have a hard time believing the Impact gets shutout last week.

Stat that told the story for Houston: 8 fouls conceded in the defensive third

This was another game where what I ended up watching did not line up with the expectations I had going in. After an open, attack-filled opening game with New England, Houston came out and didn't really do much offensively against Montreal. It was actually sort of a gameplan of old-school Dom Kinnear, as the Dynamo got an early goal thanks to a deflected Will Bruin shot, and then packed it in and made themselves hard to beat. They sat in two organized banks of four so that only the perfect ball from Montreal would be enough to beat them, and when it looked like they might get beaten, they did the professional thing and took a foul. Eight of Houston's 14 fouls conceded were in their defensive third, and while I can't offer much perspective on whether that's a high proportion compared to league average, I can tell you that many of them occurred when Montreal players were breaking away and getting ready to provide a scoring chance.

Agree with my assessments? Think I'm an idiot? I always enjoy feedback. @MLSAtheist or MLSAtheist@gmail.com

Season Preview: Montreal Impact

The newest franchise in Major League Soccer, the Montreal Impact, has carved out its niche pretty distinctly since inception in 2012. With strong ties to Serie A through multiple Italian players, Montreal has seen decent success for such a new franchise. They just missed the playoffs in their expansion year, and sneaked in as the five seed last year. But with the success has come another reputation: they already seem rather fond of changing coaches. Entering their third season of play, Montreal’s owner Joey Saputo is already onto his third manager, with Frank Klopas taking the wheel in 2014. 2013 Finish: 49 Points, 5th in Eastern Conference, Qualified for MLS Cup playoff, lost in conference play-in round.

Name	Position	Acquired from:	Player Lost	Position	To
Eric Miller	D	SuperDraft (Creighton)	Alessandro Nesta	D	Retired
Santiago Gonzalez	F	Free (Sud America)	Paolo DelPiccolo	M	Option Declined
			Maximiliano Rodriguez	M	Option Declined
			Sinisa Ubiparipovic	M	Option Declined
			Davy Arnaud	M	DC United
			Zarek Valentin	M	Transfer to Bodø/Glimt

Roster Churn: 82.98% returning minutes (4th highest in MLS)

2013 started out about as perfect as any Impact fan could have hoped. But the team then coughed, sputtered, and wheezed its way into the wildcard round of the postseason, where the coughing and wheezing turned to seizing, and Montreal's campaign met an early demise. Marco Schallibaum's tenure started with a bang, as Montreal won each of its first four games by one tally each, all of them by a scoreline of 1-0 or 2-1. Those close, low-scoring victories figured to set the tone for the season---Montreal was a stout defensive team who would get bodies behind the ball and look to finish swift counter-attacks through Marco Di Vaio. This formula helped them to win the Canadian Championship for a second year running, qualifying them for next season's CONCACAF Champions League. Unfortunately, their tactical secret wasn't particularly well-kept throughout the league, as opposing teams figured out how to counter the Impact's strategy after about the first third of the season. The regular season's final 20 games saw only five Montreal victories, as they earned just a point per game during that span while simultaneously crashing out of last year's CCL.

Still, their hot start was enough to squeeze into the Eastern Conference knockout round, as they slipped into the five seed thanks to a superior goal difference to Chicago. But the luck would run out for Schallibaum and the French-Canadian club in a hurry, as they were beaten and outclassed by the Houston Dynamo in the do-or-die playoff, 3-0. The game was as damaging to Montreal's reputation, too, as Nelson Rivas, Andres Romero and Di Vaio were all ejected for various infractions. The last moments of the match devolved into more of a cat-fight than a soccer match, with the men in blue performing the side of jealous aggressors. In the end, not only was the season over but so too was Schallibaum's tenure in Montreal; he was fired a few weeks later.

I’ll be frank: it’s hard to imagine that this year’s Montreal Impact is much improved over last year’s iteration. And with seemingly every other team in the Eastern Conference signing big name Designated Players, it would follow that Montreal’s stagnation would see them drop a few rungs in the standings this season. Don’t take my word for it – just ask central defender Matteo Ferrari. Here’s a clue for the future expansion sides in MLS: it’s never a good sign when your club has to release a statement clarifying that one of your top players is in fact on the same page as your technical director.

With that bit of harshness out of the way, Montreal does still have some pretty good players. Troy Perkins is still a quality MLS goalkeeper, the aforementioned Ferrari is a good back line anchor along with Hassoun Camara, and Di Vaio is arguably the best pure goal scorer in MLS. They also return the very good Justin Mapp, Patrice Bernier and Hernan Bernardello in midfield. But there remain holes for this club, largest of them being how they might set up tactically.

As outlined above, Montreal's plan A, B and C last year was to get behind the ball, make it hard for opposition to score and then counter through Di Vaio and squeak out low-scoring victories. But other teams figured that out, and the Impact’s effectiveness waned as the season continued. With a new coach on board in Frank Klopas (formerly of the Chicago Fire), it’s likely that the side’s tactics will undergo an overhaul. What type of overhaul remains to be seen: Klopas’ teams in Chicago were, for lack of a better word, bleh.

They weren't a particularly high pressing team or an all-out possession attack, nor did they sit deep and only look to attack on the counter. They did a little of each of these things, but often did none of them well enough to be a real contender. I suppose from a Montreal fan’s standpoint, it might be better to have a team that can give multiple looks than the one-dimensional side last year, but I’m still not sure Klopas is the one to bring the club to the top.

Turning to the players, there are some holes to be filled from last year. All-world defender Alessandro Nesta retired, leaving a combination of Nelson Rivas and Adrian Lopez to fill his shoes. Despite Nesta’s pedigree, he had lost a step or eight at his age, so replacing him shouldn't be too huge of a concern – if those other guys can stay healthy. Also departed from last season was versatile midfielder, Davy Arnaud, whose leadership will be missed. Felipe Martins and Andres Romero both return and should hope to build on seasons in which they showed flashes of quality, if not consistency, in MLS.

When it comes to conclusions though, it’s hard to be optimistic about Montreal’s season. They added basically no one of impact (no pun intended), and all of their best players are a year older, and in most of their cases, a year further past their prime. Not to mention that our expected goal differential statistic suggests they were one of the worst teams in all of MLS last season. Frank Klopas may find more success in Montreal than he did in Chicago, but I think it’s safe to say he’s not expected to be a coach of the year candidate. Unless the Impact have more moves up their sleeve, or some of the unproven youngsters become stars this season, I can’t see Montreal winning a playoff berth.

Crowd Sourcing Placement: 9th place in Eastern Conference; 65 of the 404 9th-place votes (16.09%).

*ExpGD is the same as our statistic xGD under the shoot table.

A Closer Look At The MLS MVP Race

Editor's Note: This was the first of many articles by Jacob, who can be found at @MLSAtheist on twitter. It's quite amazing, and I encourage you to read it. He's one of several wonderful writers that we are adding to the site in the coming weeks. Please give him a follow and good feedback, as you have for Drew, Matty, and me. This is all part of putting together newer, better site content.

Not long ago, I saw a piece on ESPN handicapping the MLS MVP race, featuring the one and only Alexi Lalas. Say what you will about Lalas, but what he said on this topic got my mind jogging. The season was still a couple weeks from being complete, but the Redhead tipped Marco Di Vaio over Mike Magee for the award, based mostly on his higher goal total. He explained that goals are the rarest and most important event in soccer, so the guy who scores the most (and in the most games, giving his team a better chance to win) is the best candidate for the award. But here at American Soccer Analysis, we know that just because a guy puts the final touch on a goal doesn’t necessarily make him the most valuable component of that play, let alone that season.

Anyway, Lalas had a point: goals are important. And whether you like it or not, goal scorers and creators are always going to be the award winners in this sport. But still, looking solely at goal totals seems far too simplistic when handicapping the race for MVP. So, as we are wont to do around here, I tried to delve a little deeper.

First of all, you can contribute to goals without being the one to actually kick it into the net. I’ll do the most obvious thing possible, and just add assists to the equation. Additionally, not every player gets to play the same amount. Especially in MLS, where some of the top players are constantly called away for international duty, some MVP candidates only play in two-thirds of his team’s games. But if the premise here is that the award is intended to go to the most prolific goal creator, we should really look at how many goals they create when they’re actually on the field.

Here are the ten top MVP candidates (I know they probably aren’t all that deserving, but ten is a good round number and I’m a little OCD), and how many goals they’ve created, as well as their per 90 minute rate.

Player	Goals	Assists	G+A Per 90
M. Magee	21	4	.806
M. Di Vaio	20	2	.698
R. Keane	16	11	1.22
J. Morales	8	10	.710
Camilo	22	6	1.04
D. Valeri	10	13	.909
F. Higuain	11	9	.694
D. Fagundez	13	7	.742
T. Cahill	11	5	.642
G. Zusi	6	8	.535

It’s no surprise to see Keane and Camilo leading the way with over one per game, as they have the highest sum of goals and assists, and Keane did his work in fairly limited minutes. But again, goals and assists are a little too superficial for us here at ASA. After all, some goals are the fault of terrible defending, goalkeeping, or just some really fortunate bounces; instead it’s preferred to look at chance creation. If a player is consistently creating chances, it’s nearly inevitable that it should lead to more goals. Now rather than just the shots that actually end up in the net, we’ll run the numbers regarding shots, as well as passes that lead to shots (key passes) for the same players:

Player	Shots	Key Passes	Shots Created Per 90
M. Magee*	114	65	5.77
M. Di Vaio	89	25	3.62
R. Keane	54	53	4.86
J. Morales	33	94	5.01
Camilo	95	37	4.91
D. Valeri	55	59	4.51
F. Higuain	69	115	6.39
D. Fagundez	43	27	2.60
T. Cahill	47	19	2.65
G. Zusi	41	75	4.43

This time we’ve got a couple of different leaders, as Federico Higuain and Mike Magee take the lead thanks to their trigger-happy styles. Higuain’s incredible number of key passes, despite playing for a middling Crew team, should raise some eyebrows---the dude’s an absolutely fantastic attacker.

Still, I have an issue with just looking at shots created. After all, we know not all shots are created equal. Without looking up the shot location data of every one of the shots in the above table, I think there’s still a way to improve the statistics: add in a factor of accuracy.

For Higuain, creating over six shots a game is terrific. But from watching a lot of Columbus games, I can tell you that plenty of those shots were low percentage bombs from 30 yards out, and plenty of others were taken by other fairly inept Crew attackers. To try to factor this in, I’d like to look at how many shots on target each player creates - the ones that actually have a chance at becoming goals. While shots on goal stats for individual players are easy to find, it’s tougher to decipher when key passes lead to shots that test keepers rather than boots into the stands. To compensate, I used each player’s team percentage of shots on target to estimate how many key passes turned into shots on goal, leading to the final following table:

Player	Shots on Goal	Key Passes	Team Shot%	SoG Created Per 90
M. Magee*	50	65	48% / 51%	2.68
M. Di Vaio	56	25	54%	2.21
R. Keane	31	53	48%	2.56
J. Morales	19	94	52%	2.68
Camilo	56	37	49%	2.76
D. Valeri	31	59	49%	2.36
F. Higuain	36	115	43%	2.96
D. Fagundez	30	27	50%	1.57
T. Cahill	22	19	48%	1.25
G. Zusi	21	75	42%	2.00

There we have it. My endorsement for MVP this season, based on a combination of Alexi Lalas’ inspiration and my own twisted statistical mind, is Federico Higuain of the 16th-best team in the league, the Columbus Crew.

Just kidding, guys! Obviously the MVP debate should take more into account than who creates shots on goal. Defense, leadership, your team actually winning---all of these things should and do matter. But still, I think this was an interesting exercise and hopefully opened at least one set of eyes to how prolific Higuain is.

Finally, a few thoughts/takeaways in bullet form:

• Higuain was held back by his team’s terrible shooting accuracy, but not as much as Graham Zusi. Now I understand why analytic folks like Sporting Kansas City’s chance creation so much, yet the team hasn’t always seen the results.
• Diego Fagundez is incredibly selective about his shooting - almost 70% of his shots hit the target.
• Javi Morales doesn’t shoot much for being so prolific at creating others shots. Reminds me of this post by Tempo Free Soccer---really interesting as far as categorizing attackers as shooters vs. providers.

*Since Magee was traded mid-season, his season total stats were harder to find. While I used Squawka for everyone else’s stats, I ended up having to tally Magee’s game-by-game stats from Who Scored. It’s possible that the two sites have different standards for what constitutes a shot or key pass, and that could’ve skewed the data for Magee. I’m not sure any of them look too far out of whack that I’m too suspicious, but it’s possible so I thought it should be noted.