Football Can Be Unfair

We've all watched matches where the result doesn't fit with our sense of how the game played out.  A team that dominated possession, outshot their opponent 8 to 1 and hit the woodwork a few times somehow lost 0-1.  Check out this feature on Nate Silver's fivethirtyeight blog.  I draw your attention to two items - shot based expected goals and non-shot expected goals.  There's more detailed explanation at the site but they are basically an analysis of how many goals the team could have been expected to score based on the chances they created.  The authors like the metric but caution that they've only been collecting the statistic for about six years and are not willing, at least for public consumption, to fully stand behind it yet.  But it can serve as a good reality check.

Remember a few weeks ago I suggested the Union were more than just a little lucky to come away with a 3-0 win over the Red Bulls.  These metrics suggest at best a close match and indicate that maybe the Red Bulls were the better team.  Looking at the DC United, Houston and Colorado data suggests those were reasonably fair results.  Same for Real Salt Lake and the NYCFC scores (discussed below).

Looks like a fun site to check in with after you're left scratching your head when a result doesn't match what you just saw.


Get Real

Damn Real Madrid.  One minute we were having a competitive Champions League final, the next minute it was a blow out.  Quite an offensive display by Real Madrid, including two from Ronaldo (who took some criticism from the female viewers at 6911 for the frosted tips - see right).  Even if we count Mandzukic's incredible goal at triple value, Juventus still loses 3-4.  But the goal was truly awesome and the context (leveling the final at 1-1) makes it even better. We'll make it this week's (year's?) YouTubeable Moment.  Hard to deny that Real were by far the better side though.


Union in the Big Apple

Didn't Mick Jagger say something like playing soccer in this town must be tough, tough, tough, tough?  The Union were bad for about 85 of the 90 minutes but were lucky enough to be holding a 1-0 lead into the 80th minute thank's to a quick moment of brilliance involving C.J. Sapong and Fafa Picault and some more fine goalkeeping from Blake.  For a moment I thought about how good it would be to steal out of Yankee Stadium with all three points.  Then I realized that was greedy, especially given how they were playing, and admitted that even sneaking home with one point was a pretty good thing.  Of course they got neither, surrendering two goals within 5 minutes off of NYCFC corners.  The result was an absolutely fair reflection of the match.


Sliding Into Second Base

Separating it from the result so as not to make it look like an excuse for the loss, I still have to comment on the ridiculous idea of playing soccer in Yankee Stadium.  It's bad enough that they play on an 8 v 8 sized pitch but the number of players that slipped on the grass laid over the infield dirt was possibly a bigger issue.  Why don't they just play their home games at Red Bull Arena until they get something better?  Oh right, we can't have two "New York" football teams playing in the same New Jersey stadium.  That would be unprecedented.  Based on this article, sure doesn't look like there's an alternative coming in the near future.


Silly Season

The stories coming out about possible Newcastle transfers are too numerous and often baseless rumors anyway so we'll just wait until there are real signings.  It does appear that the Magpies lost out to Villarreal on one target and Arsenal are possibly going to snatch another one away.  So at this point, other than signing Christian Atsu, there's nothing new.

Sad news that Cheick Tiote died of an apparent heart attack on the training ground of his club in China.  The former Magpie defensive midfielder was just 30 years old.  In remembrance here's a video (love the announcer's "boom, boom, shake the room!") of what was easily Tiote's most memorable moment with Newcastle, as he completes the Magpies comeback from 0-4 down against Arsenal.


USMNT

Serious business afoot for the US in World Cup qualifying.  Thursday night they are in Colorado to take on Trinidad & Tobago (7:50 FS1) and Sunday night they are in Mexico (8:30 pm, also FS1).  The T&T match is in the must-win category.  Mexico?  If we get a point out of that, I'll be thrilled.

Looking at the other matches, at the end of this round the US could still find themselves sitting in the uncomfortable fourth position in the Hex table.  Recall that spot doesn't get you to the World Cup final, just to a play-in series versus the fifth place side from Asia. We get a bit of break in that the two teams just ahead of us, Costa Rica and Panama, have to play each other Thursday.  But their second matches in this window are against the bottom two sides.  One will probably get a minimum of three points and the other possibly a maximum of six.  I think I'd prefer to see Costa Rica take all three against Panama.  That way, if we do eke out a point in Mexico, the US could move into the third spot based on goal differential.  You can look at various scenarios in this Soccer America Daily update.

TV coverage is pretty good so you can follow other key matches in the Hex.  On Thursday you can see Costa Rica-Panama (beINSports at 9:50) and Honduras-Mexico (FS1 at 10 pm).  Tuesday you can watch the Panama-Honduras contest at 9:25 on beINSports.

You can also catch a smattering of the European qualifiers, including Sweden-France (Friday at 2:45 on FS2), Scotland-England (Saturday at noon on FS2) and Serbia-Wales on Sunday at 2:45 on FS2.

Just a heads up - BFS will take a week or two off after this international window is done.