The original concept behind Data Dump was that I wanted some data to back up my assumptions about what I’d seen with my eyes. In large part this was because I don’t trust myself to make educated conclusions about what I’d seen. I only mention this because Saturday night was one of those nights. We’ve had a lot of 1:1 draws, this was our 6th, a lot of those felt like losses. To me this one felt different, let’s see why and dive in.
1) What does xG think should have happened?
To me the draw wasn’t so surprising based on the game I watched, I was much more surprised that each team only scored one goal.
Expected goals back this up. We had 2.31 xG to our opponents 1.45 xG. Each team had 3 chances with more than 0.2 xG. We actually had our highest xG in all 30 matches in club history at 2.31. And our opponents had the 3rd highest xG we’d allowed in club history according to American Soccer Analysis.
We clearly outperformed our opponents, and created better chances for sure, but once again, we drew. I feel much differently about this draw given that we could have given up more goals than we did, but we also could have scored more.
2) Their goal was a bit of fluke
One of the issues with the Berm is you can’t see the goalmouth very well. When Bernard Kamungo came streaking toward our goal having beat Daltyn in the 49′, things looked bad. But then Kamungo lost control of the ball, Dalytn caught up, and I was relieved. I was then very surprised he had scored. Sure he was close to the goal, but he had a defender on him and Rashid had the goal well covered.
Watching the goal again in 1/4 speed, it seems like perhaps Daltyn screened Rashid a bit on the goal.
The numbers back this up to, the chance was decent, but it was about as likely to score as JP’s header in the 90th minute that went straight at the keeper. North Texas certainly looked very likely to score in this game, but this was a fairly unlikely chance to go in.
3) The formation discussion continues.
The league had us listed as a 4-2-3-1 as follows:
Hey, that’s something I advocated for recently! But early in the game, it sure looked like the ol’ 4-4-2 to me. So how did the average positions work out?
Ope, that’s our 4-4-2 again.
Check out this 4-4-2 we threw out against Toronto II.
Oh well, at least it was a highly entertaining match. There will be no Data Dump for the Bellevue game because I’m doubting we’ll have statistics for it. I will be excited to see who Jay rolls out, I’m thinking Malone, Molina, Pedrehidta, Nfor, Panchot all will start, but I’m hoping they are joined by some unfamiliar faces. We need it after all!
Who Gives A Hoot? 