USMNT IN Switzerland: Beyond the Score

By Jared Young (@jaredeyoung)

The USMNT took on Switzerland Tuesday, their 9th friendly since the World Cup, and in the process relinquished their 6th second half lead. The 1-1 draw wouldn't have been as much of a disappointment if the result didn't tell the same story about a team unable to hold a lead against top competition. The USMNT is now eleven goals against and just one goal scored in the second half of these friendlies. And that’s all I’m going to say about that. Here are three other stats to take away from the latest International weekend.

9: Is Klinsmann too conservative? Jurgen Klinsmann’s team didn't escape Europe with double digit shot attempts, as they finished with just nine. Is the team too conservative when it comes to shot selection? Three goals in nine attempts is an excellent conversion and there were a few shots that could have easily been converted, Michael Bradley’s sitter against Switzerland being the most notable. But are there too few shots taken? Consider that eight of the nine attempts were taken inside the box and even more crazy, inside the area of the spot. There was only one shot attempted from outside the 18-yard box, and that was Brek Shea’s laser goal off of a free kick. In other words, the team didn't attempt a shot outside the box in the run of play. Pause on that one for a moment.

This weekend the USMNT attempted 18.7 passes in the final third for every shot while their opponents attempted 10.8 passes in the final third per shot. Considering the US was playing a more direct style on offense that does imply they may be too picky once they get the ball in position. The results this weekend weren't terrible, especially offensively, but it does beg the question: does the US have the right shot selection balance offensively? More in part III of this post.

19.8: High energy, low team pressure. Colin Trainor has been publishing work on a metric that attempts to measure how much a team employs the high press. The metric takes opponent passes attempted in their defensive half plus about 20% of the offensive half of the field (so about 60% of the field that is the farthest away from their goal) and a team’s defensive actions in that same area. The lower the passes per defensive action, the more intense the high press. A measure of mid-single digits would indicate a consistent high pressure strategy. Here is the PPDA metric chart by team and area of the field.

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You can see from the chart that Switzerland was much more aggressively defending up the pitch than the US. When the action was in the defensive end, both teams employed similar pressure. This resulted in the possession being strongly in favor of Switzerland at over 60%. The US did have high individual energy in their opponent’s offensive half but mainly that running around was just to disrupt the Switzerland offense as much as possible. The team as a whole was willing to wait to employ significant pressure. We didn't see a particularly aggressive US team this window and it makes you wonder if Klinsmann isn't perhaps going for results instead of pushing his team to be proactive like he was doing during the last World Cup cycle in these friendlies.

2: Blocked shots against UEFA teams. I now the late game defense is the big issue, but I’m not done harping on the shot selection. In this nine game stretch the USMNT has taken to the road against four European foes and have managed a 1-1-2 (W-D-L), but could easily have been 3-0-1. They did this attempting just 29 shots in the four games, an average of 7.3. The crazy stat is that only two of those shots were blocked, or just 6.9% of the total shots. A typical blocked shot percentage is roughly 25%. You can’t argue with the 17% finishing rate in those four games, but it does make you wonder the team is too picky on offense. 

Let’s do a little thought experiment to see if this trend is something that should change. Back to the latest window and games against Denmark and Switzerland. What if the US took shots as frequently as their opponents but also finished their shots at their opponents’ lower rate. The numbers would look like this:

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The US would have only scored 2.6 goals had they been as selective as their opponents, and so while the sample sizes are clearly small, at least it looks from here that Klinsmann isn't too crazy.

Next up for the US is the rowdy rivalry with El Tri in what will hopefully be a Gold Cup Final preview (said by the guy living in Philly, home of the Gold Cup Final).

MLS Week 8: Top 50 Shots

Okay, shots. We talk a lot about shots because, well, shots lead to goals. Obviously you can't have a goal without first attempting a shot. I know that was a deep thought, but just go with me here. We put a lot of emphasis on shots here and have dug into their expectation leading to goals. It's backed by the belief that shots are important statistics in correlation to team success. Now there are plenty of caveats to shots and we use them to influence our ideas of what is good or bad. Matthias has taken time to explain at least some of them.

So with all that said you can't read too much into all of these numbers. Take for instance the fact that Frederico Higuian creates 7.03 shots per 90 minutes. That's nearly a shot and a quarter more than Brad Davis at 5.79. Is Higuian a better shot creator because he creates one additional shot over the course of a single match? If that shot is from zone 4 or even 5, the value of that single shot becomes marginalized in that specific instance.

Despite all of those various acknowledgements of how this is marginally interesting, and yet mostly a useless exercise, I put together a follow-up of last week's top 50 individual shots creators in Major League Soccer. I decided it was best to cut up this data and present it via a tiered system to make it a bit more palatable and to highlight the players that have set themselves apart from their peers. Also, this allows me to be a bit creative in the tier process.

IBC Root Beer Tier - "The Best of the Best."

	Player	Club	POS	MINS	G	A	SHTS	Key Passes	Sh-C	Sh-C p90
1	Marco Di Vaio	MTL	F	326	1	1	24	4	29	8.01
2	Clint Dempsey	SEA	M	393	6	3	23	7	33	7.56
3	Federico Higuain	CLB	F	538	4	2	20	20	42	7.03
4	Robbie Keane	LA	F	450	4	1	22	12	35	7.00
5	Pedro Morales	VAN	M	472	1	2	19	15	36	6.86
6	Thierry Henry	NY	F	449	2	0	23	9	32	6.41

Oh, yeah... Marco Di Viao. He's also pretty good at this whole soccer thing. I guess we can all say that we could have guessed every singl--what the hell is Pedro Morales doing in there??? I guess that probably explains a lot about what's been happening in Vancouver. He's second overall in total Shots Created and he could very well be a shoo-in for MLS Newcomer of the Year.  He's like the offensive equivalent of what Jose Goncalves was last year to New England. I only have one question: who is this Camilo guy everyone was talking about?

Stewart's Root Beer Tier - "You don't have IBC? Who doesn't have IBC?"

	Player	Club	POS	MINS	G	A	SHTS	Key Passes	Sh-C	Sh-C p90
7	Landon Donovan	LA	M-F	450	0	2	13	14	29	5.80
8	Brad Davis	HOU	M	311	0	2	3	15	20	5.79
9	Graham Zusi	KC	F-M	450	1	3	9	16	28	5.60
10	Diego Valeri	POR	M	579	1	0	19	16	35	5.44
11	Dom Dwyer	KC	F	427	4	0	22	3	25	5.27
12	Leo Fernandes	PHI	F	436	2	1	13	11	25	5.16
13	Lloyd Sam	NY	M	621	1	3	12	20	35	5.07
14	Mike Magee	CHI	F	450	1	2	15	8	25	5.00
15	Giles Barnes	HOU	M	527	0	1	22	6	29	4.95
16	Justin Mapp	MTL	M	585	0	3	11	18	32	4.92
17	Michael Bradley	TOR	M	433	1	0	6	17	23	4.78
18	Mauro Diaz	DAL	M	604	2	3	13	16	32	4.77
19	Quincy Amarikwa	CHI	F	548	4	1	16	12	29	4.76
20	Felipe Martins	MTL	M	626	1	2	18	13	33	4.74
21	Gilberto	TOR	F	423	0	0	13	9	22	4.68
22	Cristian Maidana	PHI	M	425	0	2	11	9	22	4.66
23	Deshorn Brown	COL	F	448	1	0	19	4	23	4.62
24	Chris Wondolowski	SJ	F-M	450	3	0	20	3	23	4.60
25	Fabian Espindola	DC	F	531	2	2	11	14	27	4.58
26	Michel	DAL	M-D	401	3	2	11	7	20	4.49
27	Lamar Neagle	SEA	F	506	2	2	16	6	24	4.27
28	Obafemi Martins	SEA	F	620	2	4	13	12	29	4.21
29	Erick Torres	CHV	F	603	6	0	22	6	28	4.18
30	Javier Morales	RSL	M	527	0	2	7	15	24	4.10

Justin Mapp has the same amount of total Shots Created as Mauro Diaz in almost 20 minutes less field time. Try thinking about that next time you're frustrated by Mapp's hair line. Try.

Dom Dwyer does not go away. This guy could be someone that we may need to start legitimately talking about in the coming weeks. You should probably add Leo Fernandez and Lloyd Sam to that obnoxious hype list too.

Speaking of Sam, I added him to my MLS Fantasy Roster for tonight, hedging the bet that he finally scores a goal. At last look, the guy currently holds the highest xGoal predictor score without actually scoring a goal. If there was ever a guy that was "due" to score a goal, it's him and I'm virtually betting on it happening.

On the note of not scoring goals, "Hi, Landon Donovan". Who, in case you didn't notice, is still a good player even when not putting the ball in the back of the net. Because, you know, skillz.

Barqs Root Beer Tier - "Old Reliable"

	Player	Club	POS	MINS	G	A	SHTS	Key Passes	Sh-C	Sh-C p90
31	Dwayne De Rosario	TOR	M	254	0	0	10	1	11	3.90
32	Mauro Rosales	CHV	M	626	0	3	10	14	27	3.88
33	Kenny Miller	VAN	F	537	3	1	14	8	23	3.85
34	Bradley Wright-Phillips	NY	F	358	1	0	12	3	15	3.77
35	Darren Mattocks	VAN	F	580	2	3	13	8	24	3.72
36	Jack McInerney	MTL	F	436	2	1	13	4	18	3.72
37	Will Bruin	HOU	F	539	3	1	14	7	22	3.67
38	Baggio Husidic	LA	M	344	1	1	7	6	14	3.66
39	Bernardo Anor	CLB	M	497	2	0	16	4	20	3.62
40	Hector Jimenez	CLB	M	523	1	2	9	10	21	3.61
41	Teal Bunbury	NE	F	630	0	1	14	10	25	3.57
42	Diego Fagundez	NE	M-F	584	0	0	19	4	23	3.54
43	Sal Zizzo	KC	F	433	0	2	10	5	17	3.53
44	Kenny Cooper	SEA	F	358	2	1	12	1	14	3.52
45	Benny Feilhaber	KC	M	539	1	1	8	12	21	3.51
46	Juninho	LA	M	448	0	2	8	7	17	3.42
47	Andrew Wenger	PHI	F	528	2	0	14	6	20	3.41
48	Eric Alexander	NY	M	451	0	3	7	7	17	3.39
49	Alex	CHI	M	512	0	0	12	7	19	3.34
50	Saer Sene	NE	M	355	0	0	8	5	13	3.30

There are roughly 19 names here and I'm not going to go through them all. But key surprises are Jack McInerney, who everyone continues to think is "slumping" when he's not scoring goals. Baggio Husidic is making waves in that flashy new diamond attack in LA. Husidic is filling the hole that once upon a time existed out wide and makes the Robbie Rogers-trade look worse and worse, as he likely won't make it past a bench position upon return. Bernardo Anor has been doing a lot for Columbus out of the midfield but, perhaps, the bigger story than Anor--or even the LA trade for Rogers--is that fact that Gregg Berhalter pretty much stole Hector Jimenez who is looking brilliant in his new Crew colors.

Lastly, three other off season moves are having impacts with their new clubs.

1. Teal Bunbury is finally being "the other guy" and taking shots in New England. Lord knows they need to start converting those opportunities.
2. Sal Zizzo wasn't exactly a headline move this off-season, but since being let go by Portland this past off-season he's been a gold staple in the Sporting KC line-up.
3. Kenny Cooper is having himself a quietly productive first season in the Emerald City. Yes, it's towards the bottom of the line-up and it doesn't really mean much of anything. But he's been reliable and fits in with Clint Dempsey and Oba Martins, playing the third/fourth fiddle and doing whatever needs to happen. Great role for him and he's doing it well.

There are a lot of things to take away from this. Like why didn't I just make two tiers: IBC Rootbeer and Barqs, which is basically all you're going to go with unless there is some local brewed Root beer that you want to try for funsies. Anyways, some information here. Not necessarily good information, but at this stage of analysis and data when it comes to MLS, and really soccer in general, what is "good" information?