How YOU Doin’? | NYCFC 2022 Season Discussion
- Thread starter Gotham Gator
- Start date
I cannot recommend FBRef enough. Way back in March 2015 I remember asking if there was a soccer equivalent to Baseball Reference and there just was not. I'm not sure when fbref started. But they seem to be busy back-filling a lot of older data and becoming more comprehensive and useful all the time.
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I'm a huge fan of it and use it all the time.
I just about ignore any stat from 2015. So another way of stating Soup's observation is:
Our current goals allowed streak is tied for worst in club history (excluding our dumpster fire first year).
OR
We are in our worst goals allowed streak since the Red Wedding.
Our current goals allowed streak is tied for worst in club history (excluding our dumpster fire first year).
OR
We are in our worst goals allowed streak since the Red Wedding.
Strange because I just used some of my credits for the campeones cup , Ticketmaster site never stopped me
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If it's not in writing then I wouldn't trust it.
Here is a DP Games Played update, with 30 games done and 4 left:
Talles Magno has played in every game.
Maxi has played in 25.
Martins has played in 23.
We know Martins is suspended against Charlotte. If he can manage to appear in 2 of the last 3 games, it will be the first time ever that NYCFC has not had a DP miss at least 10 games during the regular season.
Who says you need promotion and relegation to find excitement in the late season of a playoff league.
Talles Magno has played in every game.
Maxi has played in 25.
Martins has played in 23.
We know Martins is suspended against Charlotte. If he can manage to appear in 2 of the last 3 games, it will be the first time ever that NYCFC has not had a DP miss at least 10 games during the regular season.
Who says you need promotion and relegation to find excitement in the late season of a playoff league.
Clear as mud right?
People who hate xG can skip this post. For the rest, let's discuss xGoal Differential and "Goal Differential Minus xGoal Differential." xGD measures how well a team is performing measured by adding up both quantity and quality of shots taken and allowed without regard to whether those shots went in. GD-xGD measures how much a team's actual goals scored and allowed performance differs from its xGD. A positive number is good or lucky, negative the opposite. My personal view is that GD-xGD is not 100% luck, but it probably is >50% luck.
Over sufficiently many teams, leagues and seasons, composite GD-xGD will approach zero. That's how the system is built. In smaller numbers, even an entire season for one team, you can have pretty big variances, but outliers rarely repeat year-over-year, because IMO, it's mostly luck.
Things what I noticed while looking at this:
Over sufficiently many teams, leagues and seasons, composite GD-xGD will approach zero. That's how the system is built. In smaller numbers, even an entire season for one team, you can have pretty big variances, but outliers rarely repeat year-over-year, because IMO, it's mostly luck.
- The NYCFC coach with the best per game GD-xGD is Jason Kreis at +0.25 per game. Keep that in mind if you are tempted to believe that good coaches find a way for their teams to outperform their xG. Kreis has the worst GD and worst xGD but his actual GD was significantly better than his xGD. And it's not because Villa was a great finisher (nor that Saunders an amazing shot-stopper). Vieira and Torrent also had DV and Torrent's numbers improved the year without him. PV also had a G-xG magician in Frank Lampard.
- Here is the per game xGD and GD-xGD for the rest of the NYCFC coaches:
- Vieira +0.17 / +0.20
- Torrent +0.36 / +0.13
- Deila +0.59 / +0.08
- Cushing +0.42 / -0.58
- 2022 breakdown xGD / GD-xGD
- 2022 Ronny +0.81 / +0.42
- 2022 next 8 +0.87 / -0.25
- 2022 last 10 +0.05 / -0.85
- Until the injuries hit, Cushing kept the team xGD up very high, but NYCFC and opponent finishing took a wrong turn. Team still went 4-1-3. Then the xGD over the last 10 games dropped - by a lot - to mediocre. Not good, but far from terrible. The team should probably have 8-10 more points than it does in that period as the GD-xGD fell off a cliff.
- For comparison, Torrent's breakdown is +0.17 / -0.21 in his first 25 games and +0.54 / +0.42 in his last 28.
- Cushing has had 18 games, roughly half of those dealing with major injuries.
Things what I noticed while looking at this:
- Is Philadelphia lucky or good this year? Both. Per game xGD +0.72 / GD-xGD +0.70
- Austin is very, very fortunate. Per game xGD -0.20 / GD-xGD +0.70
- Only 2017 Atlanta finished a full season at +0.70 or better on per game GD-xGD.
- Counting both 2022 Union and Austin, only 11 teams have had a full season of +0.50 per game or better GD-xGD. This is based on 228 team seasons from 2013 to present on ASA.
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This is really good stuff Mark
I wonder if there is a wonky statistical way to tease out luck vs skill in GD-xGD. E.g., I'd expect Messi, Ronaldo, etc to have positive GD-xGD. I'd expect Berget, Javier Calle, et al to have negative.
GD and xGD are team stats. For individual scorers you probably want to look at G-xG. There's always a debate as to whether great scorers shoot better or get themselves into better positions to score more often. One problem is lack of sufficient numbers. I just ran a screen and only 9 players have taken at least 500 shots in MLS since 2013. and none more than 700. FWIW in that limited set Villa had the highest per game G-xG at +0.09, which means, taken at face value, that over his MLS career he added 1 extra goal every 11 complete games as a result of superior finishing. He obviously added more goals above average than that, which means finishing was a pretty small part of his scoring results. But 540 total shots is still a small enough sample you can't really trust it.
In single seasons you get higher variances, but those don't repeat because it really is chance and small sample sizes. See my discussion of Heber's 2019 season in this post.
Follow Messi or Ronaldo for their entire careers across leagues and you probably get close to 2,000 shots. It's hard for me to say exactly how many due to lack of data. FBRef has stats for their entire careers but Shots Taken go back less than a decade. There are professional analysts with access to the full data and they write up the articles about luck vs finishing. Anyone can find them. I'm not convinced there is a clear answer, though I haven't kept up with the latest theories. John Muller probably knows where the debate currently stands.
For team GD-xGD I'm confident at least it is less than 100% luck because, for example, it does not account for goalkeeper play. xG and xGD measures everything based on number and quality of shots taken or allowed. When you have Matt Turner or Andre Blake you have a built in GD advantage that is not reflected in xGD.
Two completely unrelated items:
NYCFC has a better record in the secondary kit than the primary right now.
Despite it all, NYCFC can clinch the playoffs this weekend. NYCFC has clinched with respect to Toronto and DC. A win over Red Bulls and/or a loss by Atlanta, Charlotte and Chicago handles those teams. Miami and the Revs each require a result on their end in addition to a NYCFC win: for Miami a loss and the Revs a draw or loss.
NYCFC has a better record in the secondary kit than the primary right now.
Despite it all, NYCFC can clinch the playoffs this weekend. NYCFC has clinched with respect to Toronto and DC. A win over Red Bulls and/or a loss by Atlanta, Charlotte and Chicago handles those teams. Miami and the Revs each require a result on their end in addition to a NYCFC win: for Miami a loss and the Revs a draw or loss.
Paul Harvey on Twitter has noted some of the outliers in terms of statistically bad or good finishers. Would take some time to find it, but there are very, very few.
One of those outliers that I do remember is Christian Benteke. He is a historically and statistically horrible finisher.
It's looking like 46 points is going to be the cutoff again this season, yikes
Add-on to the clinching post. Most of those teams play 2 games this week, and mostly not against each other. I think it's possible to clinch without even a NYCFC win, though it does require a lot of results to fall the right way, and a win is preferable for all sorts of reasons.
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