Defense is biggest gap in quality between MLS and top leagues

Since the creation of the DP slots, my impression is that, for many obvious reasons (high goal scoring, higher profiles) MLS teams have generally focused on obtaining international strikers and attacking mids, not defenders. Without conducting an exhaustive survey, those that come to mind are Beckham, Angel, Wanchope, Blanco, Barros-Schletto, Emilio, Fred, Pavon, and Dichio. The only arguably quality defender that has been acquired is Xavier, who is undoubtedly well past his prime and, even when on the field, makes little impact on LA's fortunes.

The result is that, while the exciting goals are coming (witness 5-4 goalfest at NY on Saturday), the poor quality of defending in the MLS is made more starkly apparent. The gap in quality between MLS and top flight leagues is most clear when you watch an MLS and EPL game on the same day. In the Premiership, generally speaking, no one receives the ball in the attacking 2/3 of the field without being instantly challenged or holding off one or more players. For this reason, players are forced the think about what they will do with the ball before receiving it. They are forced to constantly move off the ball. They are forced to make one-touch passes and keep close control. You rarely have the kind of breakaways that EJ and Donovan get in the EPL because anytime someone get the ball where there is danger of a breakaway, a defender instantly puts them on the pitch, yellow card be damned. It is these instincts that Beckam brings to the game that are even more important than his bending free kicks.

In contrast, defenders (and I mean anyone on the defending team, not just the back line) in the MLS often can be seen loping around the field, only getting in position after the ball is received and rarely make the well-timed tackle to breakup an impending break-away. The reasons for this I can only guess at, but if you ask me there are several. First, it comes from the coaching. It does not take Brazilian skill to constantly pressure the ball, but only fitness and discipline. These two things come from a coach that instills them in his players. MLS coaches should be telling their players to put high pressure on the ball from kick-off to final whistle.

But it also comes from not having role models. We need more people like Beckham that understand what quality defending means. You must pressure the ball at all times. People should have inches, not feet, between themselves and the man they are marking. In order to create the expectation of this kind of high-pressure defense, which ultimately forces better soccer out of every player on the field, we need to be putting our DP slots towards more central defenders and defensive-minded midfielders. Until this aspect of the MLS game is addressed, it will always remain a level below what is being produced across the pond.

While I understand that the defense in MLS is certainly lacking at times, I wouldn't go as far as to suggest using DP slots on world class defenders.

Note: 0-0 defensive mastery matches don't excite many American sports fans.

It will be quite a while before SportsCenter will applaud a scoreless draw in MLS, EPL, or elsewhere.

Yeah, i'm not sure that making sports center highlights so that we can appease the "American sports fan" is what MLS needs to be striving for, but I am not trying to rehash that well-trodden topic. The point of my thread is that the quality of the entire game, offense included, will be raised by increasing the quality of defense.

A scoreless draw with lots of acrobatic saves by both keepers plus some fancy defending (clearing off the line for a start) might get some play one day. It fits right into the now venerable "Web Gems" model from Baseball Tonight on showing off slick defensive play. Also, it's obviously very athletic and happens fairly often even in ordinary games.

Even that public access show on FSC figured out that keepers are natural highlight reels!

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you probably came to your conclusion after watching last nights game. One thing to remember is that LA's entire starting backline was out of this match, and New York was without several starters as well. It wasn't a very good display of the defending talent in this league.

we're better than J-League at least..

[youtube]jvCTz8Dld8Q[/youtube]

Good keepers, good attackers and crappy defense is the way to go for highlights

Good point and that game did motivate my post, but I watch a fair amount of MLS games and stick to my generalizations.

You are an idiot.

Just a few weeks ago there were something like 4 MLS games on a Saturday and 3 goals scored or something like that.

Did I make a thread called "Offense is the biggest gap in quality....."

No.

Because I am not that stupid.

You think Luciano Emilio, Taylor Twellman, JPA, etc. would score at the same rate they do here in the top leagues?

No. That is why they are in MLS.

Your basing this on one game?

Until the last two games (against 2 of the three weakest teams in MLS), Angel had been figured out and shut down. Truly this is a dumb thread and should be moved to MLS General anyway.

If there's such league wide disparity between attackers and defenders, then why haven't we seen a higher than normal amount of scoring this season?

I think the two games that LA has been involved in recently (and one of them was non-league) that finished 6-5 and 5-4 have skewed some people's perceptions of the scoring rate in this league.

That was post was completely unnecessary....

15 goals in 15 games

and we have to discount his last two games, his first nine games and judge him on the time in between. Interesting. I wonder how Pele would look using similar techniques.

another typical Big Soccer overreaction...

we manage to get a great, high scoring game, on national television and infront of 65,000 fans, and we have to look for a way to find something wrong with it.

I realise there are not a whole lot of data points available yet, but so far the EPL is averaging 2.42 goals/match... MLS is averaging 2.57... that not a terribly huge difference.

Unfortunately, the site I usually look at for goal total stats (gamebookers.com) has 2007/08 stats now, which don't really tell us anything at this point.

However, having looked at the numbers a lot in the past, I can definitively say that MLS is not a high scoring league and it hasn't been since the late 1990s. 2.57 goals a game is fairly typical, and probably a bit on the low side. That's fewer goals a game than you're likely to see in Germany and probably Spain. It's about the same as Italy and England will ultimately end up with. And it's considerably less than leagues like Scotland, Holland, and Portugal have typically had over recent years, but keep in mind those leagues feature a lot of lopsided 5-0, 6-0 scores with the top teams beating up on the rest of the league.

The DP rule could ultimately make MLS a bit more high scoring, but we haven't seen that yet.

Have average goals per match increased this season?

Goals per game. From an old thread.

No.

And it's all moot, anyway. Anyone who's followed MLS and at least one of the top four leagues over the past few years knows that the most significant gap is courtesy of the guy with the whistle. Our refs are almost uniformly terrible. Other leagues have their share of incompetents; we have a glut.

2006 2.62
2005 2.87
2004 2.61
2003 2.89
2002 3.01

I knnew the contention here was silly.

Good point from Matrix aswell.

Xavier has made little impact? Come on, the Galaxy would be losing by a lot more without him.

He doesnt play mistake free ball by any stretch, but he is a terrific defender. Probably, the best passing defender in the league also.

Xavier keeps it simple, be in the right place to make the play, or at least make the attackers work, don't gift them anything.

M Gonzalez in Columbus has been good sometimes when I watch Crew... 3 times per year