Data Dump: Chattanooga

If you only looked at the highlights and the data you’d be stunned we got anything but a drubbing from the so-called “Sad Wolves.” If you were, say, chatting with all your friends on an incredibly beautiful night at Werner Park, you’d feel like we lost a very winnable game. I think the truth is somewhere in between, but we can find out if we dive in.

1) The Late Goal

In the 90+1′ we gave up a goal. In club history, 27 matches, this was the third stoppage time goal we’ve conceded (2020: at Tucson, NERevs II). But the first one that changed the outcome of the match.

For the Red Wolves, this season alone, this was the 3rd match they’ve scored in stoppage time to change the outcome of the match and the 5th time they scored after the 80th minute. They rescued a total of 9 points from these games for a full half of their 18 points total on the season. (1 point loss to a draw, 2 points draw to a win).

In all of club history, Union Omaha has rescued at total of 8 points after the 80′. 6 points last season, 2 points this season. If you factor in the 2 points we lost in stoppage time Saturday night. We are +6 all time.

2) Superlative Worsts

Reviewing the numbers after the game, I winced repeatedly. I’ve been tracking about a dozen metrics for each game and we stunk in many of them. Here is a list of the season worst marks we set in those metrics.

Metric	Amount	Previous Worst	Opponent
Opponent xG	2.49	1.46	at Greenville
Our xG	0.34	0.54	at Greenville
Crosses Attempted	11	11	Tormenta
Opponents Cross Percentage	45	27.3	at Toronto II
Chances Created	5	6	at Madison (#1)
Passing Accuracy	65.1	70.4	Tormenta

There are number of things I don’t track that possibly were relevant too. For instance, I can’t remember an opponent ever hitting the woodwork twice in a game. I have no qualms about calling this our worst offensive performance of the year.

3) But we still got a point!

There is no doubt the red card affected the match. Chattanooga had 8 chances better than our 2nd best chance and 6 of them came after the red card. But we have to give credit to individual brilliance from our guys for scoring a goal.

Jay Mims: credit to him and the staff for drawing up the corner kick routine that we’ve now used successfully twice. (The goal at Toronto was a very similar setup.)

Dami Viader: credit to him for putting a lovely cross and fighting for the league lead in chances created, while keeping his stranglehold on crosses attempted. We stan our Cross King.

JP Scearce: He dug deep and leapt high to put Dami’s cross back into the middle of the box. JP’s expected assist value for the game was 0.15, which was fifth best in the match behind 4 Chattanooga players, even though he provided the only assist in the game.

Greg Hurst: Man, this guy is on fire. That’s 5 goals in the last 3 home games for Greg. And he is finishing tough chances. His xG for the game was 0.26 and the chance he finished was less than 0.20. The data strongly indicates that his finishing skill is high. Goals minus expected goals (G-xG) is a good measure of finishing skill and since the start of 2019 (aka all of League One history) Greg has the 2nd highest mark according to American Soccer Analysis. He is behind only Ronaldo Damus in that category. Greg also ranks 3rd in goals scored all time in League One. (Reminder: we signed him on a free.)

This is the second game we’ve played against a top team in the league that we had less than perfect performance and still got a result (at Greenville). I think this bodes very well for the rest of the season. We can grind out results against good teams when we aren’t at our best, which is what teams that win trophies do. That said, while I love the bad blood that is brewing between these teams I’m not looking forward to playing Chattanooga again.