With the new MLS season about to get under way, I thought it'd be interesting to take a quick look back at the last season to generate some baseline information for putting the league and teams in a little bit of a soccermetric perspective. Without too much ado, here are some basic stats on the league from last season to put you in the mood for soccer made in the U.S. of A.
First, here are average numbers of shots, shots on target, and goals per match and team. On average, teams took 9.3 shots per match, of which 4.1 were on target, yielding 1.22 goals per team and match or about 2.44 per match total. So that's about one shot on goal every five minutes of match play and one goal for every 37.5 minutes of play.
Which teams led the league in scoring? Were they the teams that ended up making the playoffs, or did defense win points? To see this, I calculated the average number of goals per match for each team individually. Take a look.
As you can see several teams clearly stood out, offensively speaking. Real Salt Lake led the league with 1.46 goals per match, but FC Dallas, Colorado, and the LA Galaxy were not far behind. At the other end of the distribution, DC United cut a truly pitiful figure with .76 goals scored per match. In other words, it took DC United - one of the great teams in MLS history - twice as many matches to score an equal number of goals as Real Salt Lake. Obviously, DC United's season was one of the truly forgettable seasons in MLS history.
What about other common metrics, such as the Reep Ratio (or the number of goals per number of shots taken)? Take a look to see if your favorite team is where you think it should be.
For the league as a whole, the ratio is 1.53, or roughly a ratio of 1 goal for every 6.5 shots taken. Clearly, MLS teams score at a good clip, provided they can generate shots. Chicago led the league with an impressive .223 or about 1 goal in 4.5 attempts. Chicago's offense was, soccermetrically speaking, on Fire (pun intended). Several other teams did well, including the teams making the playoffs, but also the Houston Dynamo. One surprise looking at the goal and yield totals is the New York Red Bulls who posted mediocre statistics (at least on offense) but made the playoffs relatively comfortably.
Here's another one of my favorite offensive metrics: the combination of creating and taking chances (thanks to Onfooty.com).
Here we can see which teams truly and consistently stood out. The teams in the upper right hand corner both generated chances and took them (measured by the conversion rate or the number of goals as a proportion of the number of shots on target). Here, the eventual champs, the Colorado Rapids, but also the other high performing teams like Dallas and LA, stand out. In contrast, Houston shows up as a team that converts, but rarely got the chance to because they didn't create enough shots.
What about defense? A great metric is the value of clean sheets. So how much do clean sheets matter in MLS? Quite a bit, as the next graph shows.
Clean sheets give a team about 2.5 points from a match; not keeping a clean sheet yields slightly less than 1 point. But not all defenses are created equal, so here's a breakdown of the value of clean sheets in 2010 for each of the teams.
Clearly, clean sheets earn some teams significantly more points than others. They guaranteed the Union and Colorado 3 points, and gave teams like Chivas, New Engand, Houston, Seattle, Kansas City, and Dallas 2.6 points per match or more. Unfortunately for most of these teams, clean sheets were relatively rare events (the Union only had 2 all year). The exceptions were Dallas, Kansas City, and Colorado who had 10 or more. The clean sheet champs of the year were Real Salt Lake with 15 shutouts.
Finally, what do we see when we put offensive and defensive yields together (again on a team level)? Here, yields are defined as the ratio of goals per shots taken. In this graph, you want to be in the lower right hand corner; this is the place where teams reside that do not yield goals on defense but that generate high yields on offense.
And lo and behold Colorado, LA, RSL, and Dallas hang out here. The outlier? Clearly, it's Chicago, who soccermetrically speaking had a much better record than their eventual league finish would lead you to believe.
The other quadrants show you what teams' particular weaknesses were last year. Houston did well on offense but got killed on defense. In contrast, San Jose played great defense but couldn't score to save their lives. DC United? They played terrible defense and they had a lousy offensive year (the worst in the league).
First, here are average numbers of shots, shots on target, and goals per match and team. On average, teams took 9.3 shots per match, of which 4.1 were on target, yielding 1.22 goals per team and match or about 2.44 per match total. So that's about one shot on goal every five minutes of match play and one goal for every 37.5 minutes of play.
Which teams led the league in scoring? Were they the teams that ended up making the playoffs, or did defense win points? To see this, I calculated the average number of goals per match for each team individually. Take a look.
As you can see several teams clearly stood out, offensively speaking. Real Salt Lake led the league with 1.46 goals per match, but FC Dallas, Colorado, and the LA Galaxy were not far behind. At the other end of the distribution, DC United cut a truly pitiful figure with .76 goals scored per match. In other words, it took DC United - one of the great teams in MLS history - twice as many matches to score an equal number of goals as Real Salt Lake. Obviously, DC United's season was one of the truly forgettable seasons in MLS history.
What about other common metrics, such as the Reep Ratio (or the number of goals per number of shots taken)? Take a look to see if your favorite team is where you think it should be.
For the league as a whole, the ratio is 1.53, or roughly a ratio of 1 goal for every 6.5 shots taken. Clearly, MLS teams score at a good clip, provided they can generate shots. Chicago led the league with an impressive .223 or about 1 goal in 4.5 attempts. Chicago's offense was, soccermetrically speaking, on Fire (pun intended). Several other teams did well, including the teams making the playoffs, but also the Houston Dynamo. One surprise looking at the goal and yield totals is the New York Red Bulls who posted mediocre statistics (at least on offense) but made the playoffs relatively comfortably.
Here's another one of my favorite offensive metrics: the combination of creating and taking chances (thanks to Onfooty.com).
Here we can see which teams truly and consistently stood out. The teams in the upper right hand corner both generated chances and took them (measured by the conversion rate or the number of goals as a proportion of the number of shots on target). Here, the eventual champs, the Colorado Rapids, but also the other high performing teams like Dallas and LA, stand out. In contrast, Houston shows up as a team that converts, but rarely got the chance to because they didn't create enough shots.
What about defense? A great metric is the value of clean sheets. So how much do clean sheets matter in MLS? Quite a bit, as the next graph shows.
Clean sheets give a team about 2.5 points from a match; not keeping a clean sheet yields slightly less than 1 point. But not all defenses are created equal, so here's a breakdown of the value of clean sheets in 2010 for each of the teams.
Clearly, clean sheets earn some teams significantly more points than others. They guaranteed the Union and Colorado 3 points, and gave teams like Chivas, New Engand, Houston, Seattle, Kansas City, and Dallas 2.6 points per match or more. Unfortunately for most of these teams, clean sheets were relatively rare events (the Union only had 2 all year). The exceptions were Dallas, Kansas City, and Colorado who had 10 or more. The clean sheet champs of the year were Real Salt Lake with 15 shutouts.
Finally, what do we see when we put offensive and defensive yields together (again on a team level)? Here, yields are defined as the ratio of goals per shots taken. In this graph, you want to be in the lower right hand corner; this is the place where teams reside that do not yield goals on defense but that generate high yields on offense.
And lo and behold Colorado, LA, RSL, and Dallas hang out here. The outlier? Clearly, it's Chicago, who soccermetrically speaking had a much better record than their eventual league finish would lead you to believe.
The other quadrants show you what teams' particular weaknesses were last year. Houston did well on offense but got killed on defense. In contrast, San Jose played great defense but couldn't score to save their lives. DC United? They played terrible defense and they had a lousy offensive year (the worst in the league).
Can't wait to see how things change again this year and how the new teams will do on the various dimensions of performance. Let the games begin.
