Superliga 2018/19 Review: San Martín de Tucumán

Superliga 18/19 RecordWon 4, Drawn 11, Lost 10 (23 points)Superliga 18/19 Position26thRelegation Average0.920 (23 points/25 matches)Relegation Position26th (Relegated)Copa de la Superliga ResultLost in First Round to Unión (4-1 agg)Goals Scored25 (12 open, 10 set-piece, 3 penalty)Goals Allowed37 (27 open, 4 set-piece, 6 penalty)Leading Goal ScorersClaudio Bieler, Lucas Acevedo, Luciano Pons, Alberto Costa (4 goals)Leading xGClaudio […]

How often does an XI appear on the field?

Team Performance

River Plate pre-kickoff photo, Argentine Superliga 2018/19. One question that pops up from time to time in football punditry is the following: How often does a manager’s preferred eleven appear on the field? It may take a while for that preferred eleven to reveal itself, but the idea is that once it is known, it […]

Racing Club: Champions on the Field and in the Data

Player Performance, Team Performance

Racing Club are the new champions of the Argentine Superliga, and have returned to the summit after winning the Primera División four years ago. Like outgoing champions Boca Juniors, Racing were never headed in the league table after the very early rounds. Unlike Boca, they faced a challenger who applied increasing amounts of pressure until […]

So what era of Major League Soccer are we in?

Conferences and Symposia

Last weekend, I attended the Carolina Sports Analytics Meeting at Furman University, and I had to pleasure of being one of the oral presenters at the conference. The meeting has a history that goes back more than a decade, but has been revived in the last two or three years after taking a hiatus. Most […]

SSAC 2019: The Show Goes On!

Conferences and Symposia

I have attended the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference (SSAC) since 2010. I’ve witnessed the growth of the conference from a one-day intersection of nerds, jocks, and suits that was just approaching critical mass to the slickly polished two-day sports conference behemoth that now gets visited by a former President of the United States of […]

Goalkeepers of Superliga Argentina 2018/19: Andrada and Aguerre thrive in new environments

Goalkeeping Analytics

As Superliga Argentina returns to competition from its summer break, who were — statistically — the best goalkeepers in terms of actual and expected saves and goals allowed? For this analysis I consider all goalkeepers who appeared in a minimum of 630 minutes in the league, or seven full matches. Goalkeepers in general play a […]

The State of Play in Superliga Argentina 2018-19: Back from the Break

League Competitions

Argentina’s Superliga returns from its short summer break in earnest this weekend. (It had a return of sorts last weekend with a couple of matches from its backlog of postponed matches due to international commitments.) What does the league table look like, who have been the major performers, and what is likely to come after […]

Analyzing the goalkeepers of Copa Libertadores 2018: Brazilian over-30s lead the way

Goalkeeping Analytics, Uncategorized

The recently concluded 2018 Copa Libertadores saw a pair of Argentine goalkeepers in the media spotlight: River Plate’s Franco Armani and Boca Juniors’ Agustín Rossi. Both ‘keepers made their share of howlers and brilliant saves during the tournament, but they weren’t dominant figures of the competition. The expected goalkeeping statistics provides some support for this […]

Which MLS clubs are benefiting from the draft class of 2017?

Draft Analytics

Last year I wrote about the performance of previous MLS SuperDraft classes, including a way-too-early look at the performance of the 2017 draft class. Now that another year has passed since they entered the league, let’s revisit that class again. I’ve written about the evolution of draft pick value in Major League Soccer before and […]

The 2019 MLS SuperDraft value card

Draft Analytics, Uncategorized

Last year I created a draft value card for the 2018 MLS SuperDraft that purported to give a rough estimate of the relative value of each draft slot. With the SuperDraft approaching on Friday, it’s time to update that card, so here it is: Relative values of draft position in the 2019 MLS SuperDraft. With […]

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Soccer from First Principles

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