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Goal Differential Minus xGoal Differential – Spoiler: It’s About Cushing

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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.

  • 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.

Disclaimer – yes I do see things worth criticizing in how Cushing has the team playing even with all the allowances. But he’s very much not had a fair shake yet and did fine before the injuries went exponential. I expect the team sees this as well, and that unless we miss the playoffs he returns in 2023. If they don’t qualify, I’ll be curious to see if they follow the Kreis rule or not.

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.

NYCFC May 30, 2022 – Odds’n’Ends, Shapes and Contrasts

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  • 26 points is the most NYCFC has ever had after 13 games.  In 2018 they had 24, and they had 20 points after 13 games 3 times: 2017, 2019, and 2021. Charts show 2018 and later, skipping the extremely anomalous and short 2020 season.

  • +15 is the highest Goal Differential after 13 games.  Previous high was 7 in 2018.   The earliest NYCFC ever reached +15 GD was in 2021 when they had +16 after 20 games.

  • 22 points in 8 games is the best 8-game stretch in team history. Previous best was 20 points, achieved twice in August-September 2019 (games 24-31 and 25-32).
  • NYCFC’s longest undefeated streak is 12 games in April-July 2019, then a 9 game streak also in 2019 (see previous bullet).  Current streak of 8 is tied with season-straddling streak in 2017-18.
  • The six game scoreless streak coincided perfectly with May. Counting Cup games, NYCFC played 8 games across all competitions and allowed one goal, to a third division team.
  • Deila has coached 70 regular season games, behind only Veira (83), and will pass him in August barring a major shock.  He ranks third in career PPG.

The bottom 2 lines reflect Veira’s numbers excluding his first 8 games, and Deila’s excluding his first 6.   I figure Veira deserves a break to get settled given he took over a dysfunctional team, and Deila’s first 6 entailed a CCL distraction, then pandemic, then the weird Orlando return, then almost another month off, followed immediately by an Away Derby.   Their records both are what they are, but I find this useful context.
  • For Domé fans, he had the best 28 game stretch with 59 points at the long back end of 2019.
  • An odd trademark of Ronny’s teams is that they score a whole lot or very few goals.  I calculated the team’s goals per game standard deviation for each year. We’ll have to see where 2022 ends up when it has a full season – it’s currently no surprise it is an outlier with just 13 games, as was 2020 with 23 games.  But Ronny also has the 3 highest years, meaning NYCFC has a lot of games scoring very few or very many goals away from the average.

  • Here’s another way of looking at it.  This table shows how many games the team scored 0-1 goals, 2-3  goals, or 4+ goals under each coach.  NYCFC scores 0-1 goals under Ronny almost as often as they did under Jason Kreis, has the lowest percentage of 2-3 goal games, and accumulates 4+ goal games roughly twice as much as under Torrent or Vieira.
  • NYCFC has played the third easiest schedule to date based on opposing PPG adjusted for H/A at 1.12. DC United and Shield rival LAFC had slightly easier schedules. The good news is NYCFC has a fairly easy remaining schedule at 1.33 PPG, which is not even in the top half of difficulty. LAFC’s remaining opponents come in at 1.54.
  • Here are some sample records that get NYCFC to various point totals. The team could collapse, get just 1.29 PPG the rest of the season, and still be all but guaranteed to make the playoffs at 53 points.  Finishing at 60 or higher is not a lock but not too hard. 70 is a stretch.

  • Finally just because I always included one of these here is a PPG table.

NYCFC 2020 In Review By The Numbers

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What follows is a somewhat scattershot series of observations on NYCFC’s rather odd 2020 season now that all the numbers are in. There were 23 games, three home sites (one in Florida and shared with the entire league), the MLS Is Back Tournament, of which some games counted as league games and some did not, two midseason breaks, one for pandemic lockdown and another for the league to plan things out after tournament, a terrible start, a failure to score more than 1 goal in 14 of 23 games, the loss of the team’s leading scorer of 2019 to injury, and the midseason transfer of a Designated Player to accommodate personal circumstances.

History Lessons

If you want to sharpen the differences and not be bound by seasons or coaching changes, here is  a good way to break up NYCFC’s history (regular season games only):
First 42 Games: 1.088 PPG – This includes 2015 plus Vieira’s First 8 games
Next 81: 1.815 PPG – This includes the remainder of Vieira’s time plus the first 6 Torrent games before his slump.
The last 70: 1.657 PPG – Everything from the start of the Dome slump to date
If you’re willing to fine tune it some more:
The last 58: 1.828 PPG – All games after the Dome slump, from the final game of 2018 to today.
Ronny Deila currently has a higher PPG than Vieira but is below Torrent.  The team’s 1.686 PPG this year just beats Vieira’s 2017 1.676 for second best season PPG ever.

Notes on 2020

Since starting  0-4-0 the team played  2.05 PPG pg over 19 games, much of it without 2 of its best scoring threats, and even a good chunk without Maxi.
Thru the first 19 games in 2020, NYC scored 1.26 G/Gm and allowed 1.00 G/Gm. The 2015 NYCFC team scored 49 goals for 1.44 goals per game, easily the lowest G/Gm in club history. To exceed that ratio and avoid being the worst scoring team in club history, 2020 needed to score at least 10 goals in its last 4 games. It scored 13 and ended at 1.61. That was still low enough to be the second lowest Goals per Game ratio the club has achieved.
2019 NYCFC  gave up 42 goals for 1.25 GA/Gm. 2020 had to allow 9 goals or fewer over the last 4 to be the best defensive team (as measured by that single metric) in club history.  They yielded 6 and finished at 1.09 The next best season was 2019 at 1.24 Goals Against per Game.
On Goal Differential, 2020 ended with the second best GD per game at 0.52.  The 2019 team is the best with 0.62.

2020 Home/Away and Uniform Breakdowns

Excluding MLS is Back
Home 7-2-0 2.33 PPG
Away 4-4-3 1.36 PPG
With MLS Is Back
Home 7-4-0 1.91 PPG
Away 5-4-3- 1.50 PPG
Home is Where You Make It
“Home” in Orlando  0-2-0   0.00 PPG
“Home” in RBA  4-1-0   2.40 PPG
Home in Yankee Stadium 3-1-0 2.25 PPG

Uniforms
Primary Kit 9-6-3 1.67 PPG
Secondary Kit 3-2-0 1.80 PPG

DP Play/Absence

NYCFC has never had a season in which at least one designated player did not fail to appear in at least 10 games. With a 23 game season, and 3 DPs on the roster from Day One of camp, the team has never been better positioned to end the streak. Certainly, I anticipated that you would have to pro rate to the 23 game season equivalent of 10 games over 34 to claim to extend the streak.  But NYCFC will always NYCFC, and managed to have not just one but two DPs miss 10 actual games in just 23 opportunities. Maxi Moralez was hurt, and missed 10 games. Mitrita left for personal reasons, and missed 11.  It was the first time NYCFC had 2 DPs miss at least 10 games since 2015, and that season started with just 1 DP on the roster.  This was quite a performance. However, 2015 remains the worst DP participation season ever, measured by both percentage of games played and of minutes played. 2020 was second worst.
2015 DPs played in 47.07% of possible minutes, and 52.94% of possible games.  In 2020, they played 49.42% of available minutes and 68.12% of games.

Advanced Stats

All of the below is  gleaned from and with thanks to American Soccer Analysis.
On a net basis, NYCFC’s true  Goal Differential outperformed xGD by 0.84 cumulative over the season, which is pretty close to on point.  So according to xG, NYC was exactly what their record said it was. Still, NYC had the 4th best xGD in the league, but only 6th best  Actual GD, because Columbus, Philadelphia and Orlando strongly over performed.
NYCFC had 39.14 xG and scored 36 excluding one own goal gift. -3.14
NYCFC conceded 28.97 xG and real 25 for + 3.97
NYC had 39 points and 37.84 xPts, and so over performed by 1.16, which seems roughly in line with the G-xG differential.  In the East, Philadelphia outdid its xPts by 11.36, Columbus by 10.37, and Orlando by 6.76 and each had fewer xPts than NYCFC.  But before you curse the fates, also know that Toronto and New England had more xPts than NYCFC.  Toronto also overperformed, but New England trailed its xPts by 6.98.
On the newer Goals Added stat (“g+”), NYC had a For/Against differential of +12.55, second only to Seattle’s 13.72.  If that stat really is all that the ASA gang claims, there’s a case to be made that for all of the struggles, NYCFC had the second best performance of any team in MLS.

The Best of Times, The Worst of Times

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The 2015 NYCFC team scored 49 goals for 1.44 goals per game, easily the lowest G/Gm in club history.  To exceed that ratio and avoid being the worst scoring team in club history, this team — currently at 1.26 G/Gm — needs to score 10 goals in its last 4 games.

On the positive side, last year’s team gave up 42 goals for 1.25 GA/Gm. This year NYCFC sits at 1.00 GA/Gm and need allow 9 goals or fewer to be the best defensive team (as measured by that single metric) in club history.

Short season disclaimer, but new club records seem are certainly within reach and seem likely.

NYCFC 2020 – 15 Games In – 8 To Go

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Avenue of the Americas, New York City, Wednesday May 20 at 9:20am.
Though I’m not posting much and certainly not planning to resume weekly roundups, I thought this a good time, with 15 games played and 8 games left, to help put NYCFC’s place in the standings and likely finishing range in context.
As a reminder, the East playoffs work like this in 2020: 10 teams make the playoffs. Teams 1-6 get a bye from Round 1.  Teams 7-10 play in Round 1 and the 2 winners join teams 5 and 6 as visitors in Round 2.  NYCFC currently sits in 5th place. There’s a decent gap between the top 4 and the 5-6 teams.  If those teams stay on pace, it will require 43 or more points to crack the top 4.
Getting there would require a near perfect finish.  Of course it will not take a major slump for one or more of those top 4 teams to fall off and make it more reachable.  One obstacle, however, is that NYCFC has a remaining schedule that comparatively is pretty tough, and the 4th place team has an extremely easy remaining schedule.  Toronto has benefitted from an easy schedule to date, and various advanced stats say  Columbus has been lucky and/or pluckily overachieved (take your pick). But their 8 point leads over NYCFC will be pretty tough to overcome in 8 remaining games.
Those opposing PPG figures are H/A adjusted. I’m a bit surprised at how much the Home/Away advantage has held in a season where games are mostly played without fans, some “home” games are being held in different cities (and even different countries) and each team had 3 games where the H/A distinction was entirely theoretical. This year Home teams are getting 1.58 PPG and Away 1.17.  Last year, those figures were 1.79 and 0.98 respectively.  It is a diminished effect, but still quite potent.
On the good news/bad news front, NYCFC’s schedule includes games against Orlando, Columbus,and Toronto, all Away and all in the space of 2 weeks (with a Home game against Montreal mixed in). The opportunity to move up is there but that’s a tough road.
So, making top 4 is not out of the question but seemingly a long shot. On the other hand, if NYCFC can outperform the simple projection by one win and get 38 points, it becomes almost as hard for the Red Bulls to catch NYCFC as it is for NYCFC to catch the top 4.  So though nothing is certain by any means, I suspect it is solidly more than a 50% chance that NYCFC stays in the same playoff bucket, with a bye in Round 1 and an Away game in Round 2.
As a final NYCFC note, prorated for a 23 game season, NYCFC just extended its streak of having at least one Designated Player miss at least 10 games in every season of its existence. In a 23-game season, the proportional equivalent of 10 games is 6.7, and Maxi has now missed 7 games.  With 3 games scheduled in the next 10 days, unless Maxi gets better very quickly he is likely to miss 10 even in the shortened season, which would be quite the dubious achievement extended for NYCFC.
As a final MLS note, I can’t help but think we’re headed to another Toronto-Seattle matchup in the MLS Cup, and if a global pandemic can’t shake us out of that rut then it really isn’t good for anything, is it?

A Story About NYCFC History, My Birthday, and How I Might Be Responsible for the Pandemic

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I was not much of a soccer fan until 2014.

I flirted with the Cosmos phenomenon in the late 1970s, and intermittently watched World Cups every 4 years, but basically had a typical US disinterest in the sport. But then something clicked during the 2014 World Cup. When it ended I was hungry for more, but I have never been able to care much about foreign leagues, despite the high quality play. I’ve tried and even now, as much as I love the sport, I cannot care about La Liga, or the EPL, or Bundesliga or even Champions League.

In 2014 my focus was even more on local options. Where could I go watch some live games? I knew so little about Major League Soccer.  I had a slight awareness that the local team for New York played in New Jersey, and maybe were once called the MetroStars but not any more? Researching that led me to discover that the MetroStars had indeed become the Red Bulls, which was both a team name as well as a sponsor and owner. But, as it happened, I also learned that NYCFC was going to begin play in 2015 at Yankee Stadium, pending a new stadium of their own.

Which is , of course, its own sad unending story, but that’s not this story. Anyway, I was very taken with the idea of getting in on the start of a new team, and put down a deposit on season tickets, not sure if I would stay a ticket holder for more than a year or two. As it happened my daughters enjoyed coming to games, and I made some friends via the team. I became very active in a forum community & started this  website to analyze each season’s playoff push week to week.

Plus, the team has an odd habit of playing, and winning, on my birthday.

It began that first year, when they beat Orlando 5-3. Playing on my birthday itself was not remarkable. It was a Sunday, and ignoring days of the week any given date has an even 1/7 chance. More fine-tuned, the bulk of games take place on Saturday or Sunday.  But winning that year was rare in itself, when the team won just 10 of 34 games. They then did not play again on my birthday until 2018, skipping 2 years. But in 2018 they played and beat Orlando City SC  again on a Thursday night, and beat  Sporting KC on a Friday night in 2019. That’s 3 games, all wins, on my birthday in 5 years.

Given that MLS teams play on average one game per week during the season, and the vast bulk of those are on Saturday or Sunday, having three NYCFC games on the same date, in 5 years, and only one of those on a Saturday or Sunday was against the odds, to be sure. When the time came for MLS to announce its 2020 schedule I was cautiously optimistic of another birthday game, which fell on a Sunday this year. I figured there had to be at least a 40% chance or so of having a birthday game.

But, when the 2020 MLS schedule was announced on December 19, 2019, I was disappointed to see a Saturday game for that weekend; not my birthday. I mean, it didn’t ruin my day or anything, but I did think “Damn, I wish they woulda scheduled a game for my birthday this year.”

Now, I’m closer to 60 than 50 at this point. I’ve made a lot of birthday wishes, and as far as I remember none have ever come true, including all the ones made more traditionally on the birthday itself while blowing out candles and eating cake.And in December 2019, nobody was thinking about a pandemic. Not WHO, not Dr. Fauci, or the CDC, or the CCP, or Trump, or whoever you prefer to blame (or praise) for their response. That’s not what this is about at all, but I do need to stress that nobody had it on the radar then.

And then, in a twist worthy of any good Monkey’s Paw story variation, by birthday wish magic did its thing. Which in addition to all the more important negative effects it cancelled the MLS season, and led to the  MLS Is Back Tournament and a new schedule for every team. But it doesn’t end there. NYCFC’s 3 group stage games were scheduled for July 9, 14 and 20, all days before my birthday. NYCFC would have to qualify for the knockout round to have a chance, and then end up somewhat randomly in a pre-set matchup scheduled for my birthday.

After losing the first 2 games, it seemed grim, and the team looked a bit flat finally winning over a winless Inter Miami FC team in the third game. But with that record and a -2 goal differential, NYCFC would need a lot of help to advance. It was one of those things where I think 4 of 6 other results had to go a certain way, and in the end it came down to the next to last group stage game between the Houston Dynamo and the LA Galaxy, and then it required a penalty kick being awarded to the Galaxy in the 90th minute to allow them to tie the game, knock out Houston, and put NYCFC in the next stage.

And then, sure enough, the fates put NYCFC against a strong Toronto FC team in the first knockout round, on my birthday. Toronto was favored. They have been stronger this year in the tournament, and have a history of beating NYCFC in playoff and tournament style competitions. But, my NYCFC Birthday Magic came through again, and NYCFC roundly dominated Toronto, won 3-1, and advance to the quarterfinals.

To sum up, NYCFC has now played 4 times in 6 years on my birthday, despite playing on average just 1 game any given week. The odds of that are tiny by itself. But they have also won every time. Overall, their W/L/T pcts are about 44/31/25.  So NYCFC wins are not uncommon — they happen more often than either ties or losses — but Wins alone account for fewer than half of the results overall.

So I’m very happy that the team has this odd little quirk in both its schedule and results. And I’m sorry it took a pandemic this year to make it happen. I would, of course, never actually trade dealing with a pandemic and global recession just to get a NYCFC game and win on my birthday again.

But given all that bad stuff happened on its own, I’ll take this small upside, one of the few positive surprises 2020 has thrown at me. And I hope everyone gets, finds, and can enjoy your own little moments this year as well.

Thanks NYCFC and MLS.

It’s A Long Way To The Top – NYCFC Weekly Update MLS Week 27 September 9, 2019

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On Monday April 15, after playing 6 games, NYCFC had 5 points and no wins. Five Thirty Eight gave them a 4% chance of coming in first, and a 54% chance of making the playoffs. The team got better quickly, and for the past few weeks the biggest obstacle to them sitting in first has been a low number of games played.  Comparing all East teams based on points through the same number of games played, as we have been doing here for several weeks, NYCFC has had more points at each point for 9 out of 13 games since Game 16, including the last 5 in a row. But it was just this week when NYCFC ever held or shared first place in the East, in Week 27 and after 28 games played.

Now NYCFC has clinched a playoff spot, and 538 says they have a 66% chance of finishing first. With 6 games remaining nothing is guaranteed, and the game against Atlanta could decide the issue, but this has been quite a turn around already.

 

In 5 of NYCFC’s last 10 wins (PHI, COL, CIN, RB, and NE), the opponent scored first. In another (Houston), NYCFC trailed 2-1.  I’m not sure this is a positive overall. It did not happen once in the first 5 wins, largely because of a lot more clean sheets, though of course it is good to know the team can come back from negative game states. On the flip side, NYCFC led in 2 of its 5 losses (RB and RSL).

The rolling 5-game PPG has hit the maximum of 3 for the first time.

The 10-game rolling PPG has hit 2.4 for just the second time. The first was 16 games into this season.

We’re hitting the trail end of the season when the PPG standings mean less, but here it is.

At the same time, this table is everything now:

The magic number for New England and DC is 2. For Red Bulls and Toronto it is 4. All could happen this coming week with 2 win and/or those teams dropping  points, and would guarantee finishing no lower then third.  Philadelphia and Atlanta are both at 14 so still a ways off.  Looking West, NYC has clinched over Colorado, Houston and Vancouver, and at worst a draw on points with SKC.  The remaining numbers are Dallas 6, Galaxy 8, RSL, Portland and Seattle 9, San Jose 10 and Minnesota 11.

Thoughts On The Race For First In MLS Eastern Conference 2019

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If Philadelphia wins the Division with their remaining schedule I will be both impressed and shocked. They have only 5 games left, compared to 6 for Atlanta and 7 for NYCFC. Philadelphia has only 2 home games left against the 2 best road teams in the league (LAFC and NYC), and visit solid home teams RB and SJ, plus Columbus. They could very well manage a couple of wins, but there are no near-certain wins in that set of games. Maybe they shock and beat LAFC, but more likely let’s say maybe a draw there, a win in Columbus and draws in the other 2 road games. That’s 6 (57 total) points going into Decision Day, 60 max at season end, and frankly all that is somewhat optimistic.

Meanwhile Atlanta has 4 extremely likely wins. Atlanta, a great home team, gets to host Columbus, SJ and New England, none of whom are great road teams (though the Revs improved a bit since Arena took over), and are Away to Cincinnati, NYC and the Impact. That’s 4 very likely wins at least. Then let’s say NYC beat them (not a given but quite likely chance) and they draw the Impact. That’s 13 points and 61 total at season end. Their decision day game is home to the Revs and I already gave ATL that win.

That has us aiming for 62 points. It has to start with winning all the home games, including Atlanta. That is 62 points right away, but it does require beating Atlanta and maintaining a 7-game win streak. All else the same, a draw against Atlanta drops us to 60 and Atlanta up to 62, which requires winning a remaining road game to overcome that. Dallas and the Union are both excellent, above 2 PPG at home. New England is 1.60 including the pre-Arena days.

My bottom line is if NYCFC wins out at home including Atlanta, then the rest probably takes care of itself. Alternatively any 4 wins as long as 1 is Atlanta does it. Disclaimer: no guarantees, etc., etc, but these are reasonable possibilities. If the Union beat LAFC or Atlanta drops points at Home or in Cincinnati, then everything changes, for worse or better.

Weapon Of Choice – NYCFC Weekly Update MLS Week 21 July 29, 2019

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NYCFC has never had more than 4 players score 5 or more goals in a season. It managed this twice before this year, in 2016 and again in 2018. This year, with 14 games remaining, NYCFC has 4 already (Heber, Moralez, Castellanos and Mitrita), plus a fifth poised to do so once he gets healthy (Shradi). Even Ring has an reasonable chance with 3 to date.

Meanwhile, in the summer transfer window, the team added an additional player, Gerard Mackay-Stevens, who seems very capable of putting up at least 5 given a full season of work.

Two years ago in 2017 NYCFC finished with just 3 players at the rather modest 5-goal threshold (Vila, Harrison and Moralez). This did not go unnoticed, and it now seems clear that team management noticed as well, having obtained Castellanos, Heber, Mackay-Stevens, Mitrita and Shradi all since the end of the 2017 season, and the team now has one of the most (if not the single most) balanced and deep attacks in MLS.

And having used this attack to drop 3 goals on a struggling SKC defense, NYCFC again sits with the second best PPG in the league (though only 9th best by points and 4th place in the East conference due to games in hand).

The biggest gap in the East table is between Montreal at 8 and Orlando at 9. The conference is shaping up to have 8 teams vying for 7 playoff spots down the stretch. In addition, with the much smaller gaps between all of the top 8 teams, there will likely be a true competition for every spot on the table at the end, though both 538 and the Playoff Status website both give NYCFC a better than 50% chance to finish first.

With 2 straight wins after a pair of disappointing losses, NYCFC is as good or better than every team in the East after 20 games, and is poised to take the lead once it plays its additional games, as long as it does not suffer another late season slump.

The Revs have managed one of the more impressive in-season turnarounds in MLS. They now sit above the playoff line in 7th Place in the real standings, and hold 6th Place by PPG. The are undefeated at 6-0-4 in the last 10 games after starting the season a dismal 3-8-2.

The toughest part of the Revs season is coming up, with games at Home against LAFC (next) and NYC.  Away they still have Seattle, the Red Bulls, NYC, Portland and Atlanta. Their H/A adjusted Opponent’s PPG to date is 1.26 (with no real difference between when they were terrible and the undefeated streak). The upcoming adjusted Opponents’ PPG is 1.53. They do have some quality, impressive wins during the streak including San Jose at Home and the Galaxy Away, but they are facing an upcoming series of tests the likes of which they have not yet faced.

New England also has an impressive record of 6 wins against 0 losses and 2 Ties against the West, but they arguably have 3 of the toughest West games remaining.

On that note, it is worth mentioning that 4 of the 8 top teams in the East still have to play Portland in Portland: Atlanta, DC, the Revs, and Red Bulls.

On the table showing how NYC gets to various levels, we are close to dropping some of the lower possibilities.

Before closing, a word on the NYCFC defense. They have a league 4th best Goals Against per Game of 1.20 based on 24 goals conceded in 20 games. They started the season allowing 11 goals in the first 6 games, then tightened up considerably to allow just 13 in the last 14 games with 5 shutouts.  

But there still is some cause for concern, as the more medium-term results are 12 goals allowed and just 1 clean sheet in last 9 games. NYCFC seems to be in that mode where there is at least 1 mistake in each game that is not forgiven by their opponent.  In the last 4 games, a review of how they gave up those goals shows that the team defense in the regular run of play remains excellent, while concentration and/or execution in specific moments fail. With 5 goals conceded in the last 4 games, they came off of (1) in the regular run of play, (2) a PK, (3) a free kick, (4) a throw in signalled as a corner, and (5) a corner kick.

Finally, let’s note that DC United, Vancouver and Chicago now have 9 Ties each and NYCFC no longer leads the league in that oddity.

Break, eject, eject, eject

NYCFC 2018 With and Without David Villa

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It was easy to notice that Villa’s extended injury break in 2018 coincided – roughly– with the first half of Dome’s tenure when the team won.
Dome coached 19 games. Villa started 11 of them. Ten of those starts came during the 13 points in 13 games stretch to close the season. Under Dome, the team did much better without Villa in the lineup.

So I set out to look into this further. First, I divided the games into With Villa or Without Villa. Villa games are games in which he started and went 50 minutes or more. There were 19 of those. That leaves 15 where he either didn’t start or failed to go at least 50 minutes. I got the following lines:

With Villa (19 games)
Goals For 28
Goal Diff -1
Goals Against 29
Points 26
GPG 1.47
GAA 1.53
PPG 1.37

Without Villa (15 games)
Goals For 31
Goal Diff +15
Goals Against 16
Points 30
GPG 2.07
GAA 1.07
PPG 2.00

The Scorers in non Villa Games were
Shradi 7 of his 11
Maxi 6 of 8
Berget 4 of 4
Medina 4 of 6
Tinny and Ring 2 (each), that is 4 of their 6 combined
1 each for Mata, Ofori, Castellanos, Wallace, and Lewis
Also Villa scored a PK in a game he did not start that ended in a draw

The team won more, scored more and gave up fewer goals without Villa. By a lot.
Together, Shradi, Maxi, Berget and Medina scored 21 of their 29 goals in the 15 games without Villa. Holy crap.  It is one thing to step up when the team’s star is unavailable. It is another to disappear when he is playing.

By the way, the H/A splits for with Villa/without Villa games is
With Villa 9H 10A
Without Villa 8H 7A
So that is a very slight advantage for the non-Villa games but also is as close as it can be given the odd number split.  The difference is not explained by the Home advantage. It is also worth noting that the better performance without Villa was true both Under Vieira and Torrent, and that the worst subset was with Villa under Torrent, which is not surprising as it largely coincides with the 13 point in 13 game period, which caused me to delve into this in the first place.

There is still a lot of correlation/causation to tease out here.  Did the coaches alter the team to favor Villa too much? Was Villa too demanding of getting the ball near goal? Were other players too deferential to Villa?

This is the untold story of 2018.