*crying emojis*
| Team | Weekly Change | Season Change | |
| Greenville Triumph | 1619 | 9 | 88 |
| Forward Madison | 1546 | -3 | 18 |
| Richmond Kickers | 1545 | 27 | 70 |
| North Texas | 1544 | -8 | -31 |
| Chattanooga Red Wolves | 1528 | -10 | 26 |
| Fort Lauderdale CDF | 1482 | 11 | -18 |
| Union Omaha | 1480 | -18 | -20 |
| South Georgia Tormenta | 1474 | 0 | -14 |
| FC Tucson | 1463 | -6 | -14 |
| New England II | 1449 | 17 | -51 |
| Orlando City B | 1355 | -17 | -54 |
Well that was a real Kick in the heart, huh? I put all my positive talk on this into the podcast, so if you want me to say reassuring things and add perspective, check in there. I’ll skip that and dive straight in to the data.
1) Was it that bad?
I have not rewatched the game yet, with the midweek game I wanted to get this column out. I am actually excited to watch the way we played in the game since we looked as good as we have in months. But, it was a bad time for a loss.
According to sportsclubstats we have a 0.9% chance of making the final playoffs. Two weeks ago at 11am EST (before kick-off against CRW), we had a 47.4% of making the final.
In the last two weeks, our Elo rankings have fallen by 71 points. Kickers have added 70 points this season.
Ok enough of this. Never say never, but *bleep* that hurt.
2) How about that reshuffled midfield?!
I had no evidence of it, but I was curious if Ethan played right midfield at the end of the Revs II game when we were in the diamond. Ethan’s skillset seems very well suited to a winger, but we have two great wingers. Good thing one of them can also play striker pretty well. I LOVED Jay’s choice of Evan up top, Sebas on the left, and Ethan on the right. LOVED IT. But did they actually play in different spots?
This looks pretty close to what our usual average position chart looks like, perhaps a bit more compressed. Our outside backs are up and wide, our wide midfielders are a bit pinched in, and our forwards are stacked. Here is our formation against OCB.
So, I like the way our average positions look against RVA a little better. One interesting thing to note is that Ethan still managed to be our most advanced player in the average positions.
Man that looks good. Too bad we didn’t score.
3) But we dominated though…
Yeah we did. Using FotMob, we won 30 of 36 categories losing only big chances, shots on target, long balls, tackles both attempted and succeeded, and interceptions. I’m going to build off a stat I saw on FotMob, which was that the Kickers completed 47 (said another way: forty seven) passes in our half.
The full chart looks even worse.
The problem with soccer is that sometimes you dominate the game, you throw everything you’ve got at the goal, and you lose the game on a set piece.
In our three game scoreless streak, we’ve taken 48 shots (41 in the last two games), 19 corners (15 in the last two games), and 71 crosses (59 in the last two games). I’m looking forward to the pendulum swinging back our way and us beating Lauderdale 4-0. See you Wednesday!
Welcome back to 3 Questions. Here, we’ve been nursing our wounds after getting one point from the last nine available. It has been an entire week since our last game which hopefully was good for the squad mentally and physically. Reinforcements arrived from Kenya. Our competitors got some results. And it’s GAMEDAY! Let’s dive in.
1) How badly do we need to win?
Let’s put it this way. If we lose, this will be the last game we need to ask this question. According to SportsClubStats if we lose we have a 1.3% chance of making the final. Win, it is at 18%. And if we can get some help from Madison of all teams by beating Chattanooga today, that would be ideal. We’ve now arrived at a potentially climatic “must-win” game.
2) Where does the spark come from?
We need something to snap us out of our funk. Not allowing a goal in the first 15 minutes is probably a good place to start. The last time we didn’t do that, we kept a clean sheet against Orlando City B.
Offensively, EVD’s rescinded red card is huge for us, he is the straw that stirs our drink offensively. Devin Boyce needs to be on the pitch as well since we are a more dynamic offensive team with him out there. But my hot pick for today is Evan Conway (or someone) hitting a banger. We took a lot more shots outside of the box than usual in the last game. I’d kind of like to see that continue.
3) How do we stop Emiliano Terzaghi?
The current golden boot leader is hot off of a midweek brace, and we’ll be starting a rotated back line. Will it matter? Which version of our defense will show up, the one that switches off every once in a while or the clean sheet machine from the start of the season? Join me at Werner Park tonight to see the answer for yourself!
Pretty painful week for Union Omaha fans in the Elo rankings as our team went from +51 on the season to -2. Plus all the other stuff.
| Team | Week 10 | Weekly Change | Season Change |
| Greenville Triumph | 1610 | 17 | 79 |
| North Texas | 1552 | -8 | -23 |
| Forward Madison | 1549 | 0 | 21 |
| Chattanooga Red Wolves | 1538 | -1 | 36 |
| Richmond Kickers | 1518 | 0 | 43 |
| Union Omaha | 1498 | -53 | -2 |
| South Georgia Tormenta | 1474 | 21 | -14 |
| Fort Lauderdale CDF | 1471 | -20 | -29 |
| FC Tucson | 1469 | 17 | -8 |
| New England II | 1432 | 27 | -68 |
| Orlando City B | 1372 | 0 | -37 |
It’s Wednesday morning and half the nights since the game I’ve had dreams about UO being unable to get a goal while down 1-0. I view this level of personal emotional investment as a good sign and hope that we all are feeling as strongly as ever that simply having the opportunity to be furious at a PRO referee is a pretty good win. Let’s dive in.
1) How did Jake do replacing Dami?
Going into the match one of the biggest questions I had was who is our left back? The answer was Jake Crull. Jake seemed to step into all of Dami’s duties including set pieces. Let’s see how he did:
Dami’s passing accuracy on the season is 73.9% and 58.7% while in the opponents’ half. Jake’s numbers compare favorably there. Let’s look at how Dami did vs. Tormenta in these categories.
What jumps out to me is that Dami won 2/3 of his duels and Jake won none of his. One key thing Dami provides for us is offense. How did Jake do there?
Starting with shots, Jake was 1 for 4 in this match which happens to be what Dami’s season long stats are. As for crosses, Jake’s 33% success rate on crosses compares favorably to Dami’s 36.8% rate for the season.
As for chances Dami is averaging a little more than 2 per game. So 4 chances for Jake is good production from a UO left back.
For good measure here is Jake’s heat map for the game.
If anything Jake looked to get into the final third a bit more than Dami usually does. Overall, it seems like Jake may have offered a smidge more offensive firepower at the expense of some defensive stability.
2) Daltyn in the diamond.
Instead of playing the hits here and looking at the center back play on the game, I want to talk about something I speculated could happen a few weeks ago in a column. Daltyn came on as a holding midfielder!
I was pretty sure from where I was sitting we were playing a midfield diamond, which was an interesting look for us and as a Chelsea fan who loved José Mourinho, I loved it. Dalytn’s touches look to be above the backline and through the middle, as you might expect. Coming on at the 74′ limits the amount of data available, but it was an interesting look.
3) Crosses, crosses everywhere.
If you felt like we had a lot of crosses it is probably because we did.
In case it isn’t clear, we’re the team on the right side. We had 25 crosses in the game, almost double our average of 13.8 crosses per game. We average 3.6 successful crosses per game and have a 26.10% crossing success rate on the season. In this game we completed six crosses or 24% of them.
We also took a lot of shots.
We absolutely peppered their goalmouth. And we had a number of shots from distance that were on target which seemed like a new thing for us, but this is a bangers only league, so probably the right thing for us to be doing. Let’s look at our closets shots though.
I’m always hoping to find that one chart that sums up the whole game, and for this game it is this chart. Above you will see that not one single shot we took inside the Revs II box was on target.
Anyway, Viva Buhos friends! See you Saturday night!
Coming off of their first loss of the season against Chattanooga, Union Omaha looked to bounce back against bottom of the table New England Revolution II. This would not be the case as the Owls came up short in a 2-0 defeat for their second consecutive loss.
The Owls have scored only one point in three matches as the playoff push intensifies.
First team player for the Revolution, Justin Rennicks suited up as striker for the USL One side against the Owls in this match.
Rennicks slipped through the Owl defense to score the opening goal for the Revolution II side in the 11’.
The four defenders for Union Omaha had never played together before in a match this season as usual left back Damia Viader is hurt with a rib injury.
Head Coach Jason Mims is not worried though about the concession of early goals in the past few games including the one against the Revolution II.
“We gave up goals in the first 15 minutes for three or four games this year. We weren’t flat, it was just the moment we were bad on,” Mims said. “It’s hard when you have to mix up the back four, I don’t think they’re playing bad, they are just not in synch.”
The Owls dominated possession the rest of the game earning 54% of the ball by creating chance after chance, but the ball would not find the back of the net. Union Omaha outshot the Revs 19-9.
“The stadium felt like it, we felt like it,” Mims said. “The team felt like it that we were gonna get one.”
The goals never came for the home team as frustration mounted and in the 90’ more aggravation ensued.
Owls forward Ethan Vancore-Decker was called for a straight red card for a tackle near the touchline that caused controversy and anger amongst the players, coaching staff and fans of Union Omaha.
“Its a foul, not a redcard,” Mims said. “He didn’t leave his feet. He didn’t go in with his studs, it was a foul. We will certainly if theres a procedure for that, appeal that [red card].”
Moments later the team from Boston would score a second goal with a man advantage on a breakaway in the closing moments of the game.
Union Omaha will need to bounce back quickly as they face fourth place Richmond Kickers at home on Saturday, Sept. 26 at 7pm.
“Saturday becomes big,” Mims said.
1) How badly do we need to win this game?
Another game with major implications for our playoff chase. Win, we have a one in three chance of making the final. Lose, we have just a 12% chance. A shortened season raises the stakes for everything. The single point we earned from the last two games hurt us. Time to get back to our winning ways.
2) Who plays left back?
I would have made this my first question if I hadn’t committed to the making “how badly do we need to win” the first question. Dami, who is still leading the team in minutes, was injured against the Red Wolves.
My love for the game and my desire to play remain untouched. #vivabuhos pic.twitter.com/F8kJFmoYet
— Damià Viader – “DAMI” (@Damiaviader) September 17, 2020
First of all, Dami has a way with words that I love. Second, if you’ve been paying attention you will know that our backup left back happens to be our starting left center back, Jake Crull. So does Daltyn Knutson play center back and Jake play left back? Does Jake play center back and Ferrety, who is very right footed, play left back? Or does something truly crazy happen, like Luke on the left, Ferrety on the right; did one of our midfielders used to play left back?
Whatever decision is made it will be vital for the next few games. Dami is a critical part of our team, and 3 Questions hopes he is getting the rest he needs with that broken rib to make a full recovery!
3) It’s the final game of the rotation cycle, what is our lineup?
Totally predictable question I know, but the we are at the end of the second of three midweek game rotation cycles. These have been challenging for us. The good news is nobody but Tyler David played 180 minutes in the previous two games. The team has been home since Tuesday. We cannot afford to lose points, who plays?
FW: Elma, EVD
Mid: Evan, Devin, JP, Sebas
Def: Jake, Daltyn, Illal, Luke
GK: Rashid
Only JP, Daltyn, and Luke played 90 minutes on Tuesday and none of them played more than 45 minutes in the previous game. I think it works. I think that team will generate a win and some pleasing soccer. But I’ll be at Werner Park, ready to find out when we kick off tonight!
Well, we finally lost. The streak is over, long live the streak. Jay Mims had some good perspective, instead of sulking he said he was “celebrating the almost 20 games counting pre-season and closed door matches and regular season where we have amazingly somehow never felt like this right now. It’s a strange feeling and we don’t like it!” It has been a pretty amazing run and it is hard to not be excited about what comes next. Before moving on to the next, let’s dive into the data from this game.
1) What if we’d played on August 12th?
Let’s start with the most painful part of this, that we should have played this match (or won by forfeit) on August 12th. We were coming off our away win at Tucson, we’d just given up our first goal of the season after three full games and were getting ready to play our first midweek game. The Red Wolves were in the middle of a 1-2-2 stretch and we were catching them between North Texas away and Greenville away. Here is a chart of their Elo progression for the season.
1502 to 1505 (2-2 @TRM)
1505 to 1516 (1-0 TUC)
1516 to 1522 (2-2 @NTX)
*The ill fated UO game*
1522 to 1513 (1-0 @GVL)
1513 to 1491 (1-2 TRM)
1491 to 1510 (4-0 NE2)
1510 to 1513 (1-1 @FTL)
1513 to 1528 (1-2 @NE2)
1528 to 1539 (2-1 RIC)
1539 to 1556 (2-0 UO)
note: all scores are (home team – away team)
We would have definitely been catching them on the way to rock bottom, instead of the hot, hot team we faced today. I want to take nothing away from The Red Wolves here, they clearly out played us today and they are clearly a good team. But they also are a clearly better team than they were a month ago and that did not help us. C’est la vie.
Let’s all take a cleansing breath and move on.
2) Did Illal play left back?
First of all, here is hoping Dami is OK. Without putting on a tin foil hat, I think it is safe to say: a) he took a massive and painful shot to the midsection and b) if Jay had planned to sub him off for rest purposes he would have had Jake Crull on the bench.
Second, Dami is a really important player for us. I will not turn this into a Dami appreciation post, but I do want to share this minutes chart.
Dami is leading our team in minutes played even with missing the second half of today’s game. He’s important.
Illal is important too. Since this isn’t an Illal appreciation post, I’ll spare you all that data as well. But he hasn’t played left back since his freshman year of college. But did he play left back today.
Now that you have a clear sense of where Dami roams as our left back, let’s look at Illal’s heat map.
Illal definitely played more centrally than we usually see out of Dami. Illal’s touches could indicate he was playing the left spot in a three man back line.
The first half heat map for our starting center backs look like our standard center back heat maps. Let’s check out the second half.
Kind of looks like we played three in the back, huh? Instead of showing you six more charts that proves this, I’ll just share that Jay said we were playing the same as the first half defensively, but different offensively in the second half.
3) Should Tyler David have been subbed off?
A question from Tim from the Discord who is “curious about how much impact Tyler had. Was he valuable enough to justify not subbing him out, especially after flirting with that second yellow?” Tyler’s toughness and leadership was on full display today. Had the ref been harsher on some other calls he let slide in the game, he might have sent Tyler off.
Either way, I have the same question. Let’s dig in starting with passing. On the season, Tyler has completed 78.4% of his passes. In this game, he completed *checks Opta data again* 78.4% of his passes. So certainly by that measure he was giving us Tyler David level performance.
FotMob player ratings had him at 6.4, which was the highest of our midfielders, but not as high as others on the team.
He created one chance, two tackles, one interception, one clearance, conceded three fouls, and won four of eight duels. Per game he’s averaging about one chance, one tackle won, one interception, about half a clearance, one foul conceded and I don’t have access to his duel success rate. All in all, this seems like a standard performance for Tyler David.
So nothing pops out in the data, but I would be inclined to say that we needed the on-field leadership, organization on set pieces, and general intangibles that Tyler gives the team. With better planning, I’d have asked Jay about this, but I didn’t. On that unsatisfying note, I’ll see you all on Saturday!
Putting aside, the fact that we even have to play this fixture when it obviously should have been a 3-0 forfeit for CRW, we’re playing at 11am on a Tuesday somewhere in Tennessee. Should be interesting to say the least.
1) How badly does the team need to win this game?
Let’s start with the fact that we are playing one of our two games in hand that we have over top of the table Greenville. That means we need all three points to keep pace. Even if second place is good enough for a chance to hoist a trophy in year one, we need a result to hold that position.
Per sportsclubstats, we sit at 47.4% chance to make the Final. Lose and that goes down to 32.8, but win and our chances are double that of a loss at 65.2%. A draw keeps us about the same with a 45.8% chance. Sounds like a must win to me.
2) What’s the rotation look like?
Jay answered my question by putting out a basically unrotated side. They promptly gave up two goals leading to wholesale changes starting at halftime, making the picture just as murky as it was at 6pm on Friday. Here is my guess for what we’ll see for the game:
FW: Juan Mare
FW: Elvir Ibsevic
RM: Ferrety Sousa
CM: JP Scearce
CM: Devin Boyce (Captain)
LM: Evan Conway
RB: Luke Hauswirth
RCB: Nathan Aune
LCB: Daltyn Knutson
LB: Jake Crull
GK: Rashid Nuhu
Bench: Howard, EVD, Elma Nfor, Sebas, Dami, Tyler David, Illal.
3) What effect will the early start have?
So much strange about this particular fixture it is impossible not to ask the question. It’s not like these players haven’t played in midday before. It’s not like they haven’t been to CHI Memorial Stadium before. It’s not our first midweek game. Despite all of that this feels different. Potentially, it is just the anxiety of another big game and this will be business as usual for the boys. But maybe there is something in the abnormality of it all. We’ll know pretty quickly what is happening. My guess is we’ll be fine, this team is generally unflappable, but I can’t wait to find out!
Time has made this game a lot sweeter. And let’s be serious Red Wolves beating the Kickers Saturday made everything okay. Was it perfect, no. Should be be happy fans? Absolutely. We are rooting for a team that is doing something very special. It was pretty great that we got a third division professional soccer team to call our own, but now we are crushing it. Let’s dive in!
1) Elma Nfor must play.
I know you come to Data Dump for the data not the takes. So let me back this one up. Elma has been on the field for every single goal we’ve scored this season. All eleven of them. Full stop, send tweet.
Elma has played 435 minutes this season, about 60% of all of our available minutes. The entirety of our measurable offensive production has occurred in those minutes (apologies to the beautiful linkup between Sebas and Elvir that got chalked off on Friday). The triple-E offense needs to be together.
So, congrats to Elma for getting his first goal of the season, looking forward to more!
2) Was our center back play bad?
This one comes from friend of the column and Parliament head honcho, Ryan Legrande, who said at 8:23pm CST Friday night: “Can’t wait for your data dump on all of the CB turnovers tonight.” Well, I’m here to give the people what they want.
Let’s start with season stats on passing for the three center backs that played on Friday.
If you recall my previous Data Dump conclusion that Jay views left and right center back as two discrete positions. So, I will use Illal as a point of reference to compare Daltyn and Jake’s performance in this game and you should view Daltyn and Jake has sharing a position for the game.
Jake Crull received a fair amount of criticism for his first half performance and was subbed off at halftime for his troubles. His error at the back led to the first goal. Daltyn came on and knocked down the corner that led to our first goal. Jay looks like a genius.
However, from the data above I think a few things stand out. One, it is hard to argue Jake had a good game (I love you Jake, sorry to write that). His passing accuracy was 20 percent off his season average. He completed 3 in 5 passes instead of his usual 4 in 5 passes. He lost several duels as well. Two, Daltyn, wasn’t particularly accurate either, but did win all of his duels. Three, Illal had another rock solid game.
The unsuccessful passes chart for our center backs shows what the overall passing accuracy numbers do, our left center backs had a rough game.
3) We have an eight game undefeated streak!
Longest such streak to start a season in USL League One history. Now that you’re done laughing at that qualifier, let me point out this is INCREDIBLE. To claim that record for ourselves we became just the second team this season to come back from a two goal deficit to earn points.
For those who are determined to not revel in the moment, we’d need to go undefeated for the next five games to claim the longest ever undefeated streak in USL League One history, snatching the mark from Lansing United.
But ignore that and enjoy the now!
Who Gives A Hoot?