Welcome to From The Upper Deck, my blog about RSL and soccer in general. I have a lot of passion for the beautiful game. I am just a fan that likes to sit in the upper deck and take it all in.

Monday, June 3, 2013

Crunching the Numbers- San Jose

What a difference a couple of weeks can make. Going into the Chivas match Robbie Findley had played 328 minutes. During that time he was on the field the team had only scored once. Since then, he has played in three MLS matches and five goals have been scored while he was on the field. He played great against San Jose and hopefully can continue his elevated play. Lets jump into the numbers of interest for the week.

  • With the three goals against San Jose, RSL has now scored 21 goals this season. They are averaging scoring a goal every 64.29 minutes.
  • Findley's MpTG rating for the season has dropped down from 139.00 last week to 82.00 this week. Over the past three MLS matches, his MpTG is a killer 32.8!
  • Ned Grabavoy continues his hot shooting streak. After his goal against San Jose, 27% of the shots he is taking are going in the back of the net. The next highest player is Findley at 16.67%.
  • Counting the Open Cup match against Atlanta, Khari Stevenson has played 104 minutes the last two matches. Over that time, the team has scored 5 goals for an amazing MpTG of 20.8. 
  • Going into the San Jose match, Findley and Joao Plata had played together for 145 minutes. The team had not scored during that time. Now the Findley/Plata pairing has a MpTG of 73.33.
  • Luis Gil has now played 1016 minutes with a MpTG rating of 92.36. The team has played 343 minutes without Gil on the field. During that time, the team has scored 10 times for a MpTG rating of 34.30.
  • Last year, when Alvaro Saborio was not on the field, the team had a MpTG rating of 95.85. This year, without Saborio on the field the team has a MpTG rating of 52.33.
So what do these numbers tell us? I think the first thing is that a high number of goals in a match can swing some numbers pretty drastically. Since the team is still not half way through the season that is somewhat to be expected with smaller sample sizes. 

I think the Gil's numbers stand out the most to me. The difference between his MpTG ratio and the team's ratio when he is not in the match is 58.06. That means that it take the team 58.06 less minutes to score a goal when he is not in the match than when he is in the match. That difference is pretty staggering.

The number most encouraging above is the team's MpTG when Saborio is not on the field. With him leaving for World Cup Qualifying plus the Gold Cup on the horizon, the team will probably not have Saborio on the field for large amounts of time for the rest of the summer. It is good to see the team will be able to score at a high rate while he is gone. 

No comments:

Post a Comment