Post-match: Sporting Kansas City - San Jose Earthquakes First Round (Sunday, 11/22) postgame thread [R]

There's a methodology to xG. There are many what-ifs in a game. Many random events happen. xG is an attempt to get a measure the amount of danger a club generates over the course of the game so that one or two random events are not over-weighted. We were fortunate to get a few of those goals, but we had the ball in dangerous positions. Melia was fortunate to get a hand on Wondo's other point blank header to just knock it off the post. xG's been shown to be a better predictor of future success than PPG. It's not perfect, but it's one kind of measurement. If you don't like it, you don't have to pay attention to it.

Over the course of the season, the luck / unluck tends to even out. The important thing is that you create more chances than your opponent. That's why xG is relevant, in my mind anyway.

 

If "smarks" is some kind of mashup of "smarts" and "snark", I approve of this message.

 

So you're a stats guy and your response to those two statements is to point out the xG from a sample size of one game for the second sentence, with no response for the first sentence?

-We finished 8th in the west
-Our goal differential for the whole regular season (that's 30 games) was -16. -16!! That's bottom five in the whole league... even the last place Houston Dynamo were only -10...

 

I don't like statistics. I had 15 credits of stats in college - enough to know that you can't trust statistics...

 

We've been through this many times. "He" bases his opinion of Rios more on the "tactical aspects of the game" than the stats. It's both really. But my main point about Rios is that people underestimate the tactical aspects of his game. So, yeah, kinda the opposite of what you're saying.

 

Not "know it all". More like "knows most" or "knows a lot".

 

I was responding only to "We wouldn't have been in the game if not for two deflected shots...". That's not a particularly great take on the game; the coaches and players would not agree. Lots of random events happened in the game, some good for the Quakes, some bad. I think xG is a better way to evaluate whether the Quakes were competitive in the game. That was my reason for responding to your post.

I wasn't responding to this part of your post. But if you insist, here goes. We are a strange team with streaks of very good and then streaks of like all-time MLS suckage. Fair enough, it doesn't weigh out too good in the end. If Matias is going to stick with the team he's going to have to figure out how to minimize the suckage.

However, I'll say this. One of the features of Matias's managing style is that he is highly dogmatic, meaning he is reluctant to change style of play to fit the circumstances. That has a downside in that when things go south, he won't adjust much. We'll just keep attacking, and getting sliced up and give up lopsided scores. On the plus side of being dogmatic, you keep working on the same way of playing, and so in theory you get better at it over time. I believe this is why we can also go on hot streaks. Kinnear was kind of the opposite, always adjusting and being very conservative to minimize bad losses. We were very, very good at losing 2-1.

For that reason, I'm not that concerned about GD. I'll take the dogmatic coach. Leitch was more dogmatic also, and even said, essentially, I don't care how many goals we lose by, we're going to keep trying to play positive soccer. I think if you stick with a style you have an opportunity to get very good at it rather than always being at the whim of the "genius" of the manager who's going to invent a new way to win every game. I'd want to see a couple more season of Matias before I can say if it worked or not. So far, jury's out.

While it's true our PPG has been about the same over the last 2 years, taking 2 data points and drawing out a linear relation that way is not great science, let me put it that way.

 

I'm going to shoot some rainbows out of my unicorn's ASS...

Next season we'll see a far better Quakes team.

I like teams that fight hard and give a shit. That is exactly what we saw after the rebound. For whatever reason prior to that, this team was not united, and aided with numerous injuries, we face planted in epic style. But we emerged from that a different team with a collective fighting spirit that was undeniable. Fighting spirit is the foundation good teams are built on.

I don't give two shits why it didn't work with Vako, but post Vako, the team is collectively far better...we can add a few quality players to this mix and results will follow.

Yeah, there are a lot of things to address, we overpaid for Rios and Fierro, but I think we will noticeably improve the roster, since a lot of players are coming off the books.

I don't care about 7-1 beatdowns and associated stats. That team, thankfully, is ancient history. This is a new team.... But what about the Seattle game?.... The Seattle game was a toss off with Felipe in place of Yueill....give me a break. But it did show how thin our roster is and how important it will be to add quality depth.

Mark my words, Almeyda will get the higher level players he needs to take this to the next level. I believe there is already an understanding in place for that to happen. Wondo is now publicly asking the question to ownership. Are you ready to step up and improve the competitive level of the team?

I celebrate the fact that we are FINALLY out from under Vako's contract and everything will fall into place for a much better 2021 season.

Start heaving those beer bottles my way...

 

I thought he opted to go back at the end of his loan spell instead of extending, or something like that.

 

I appreciate your optimism. But I'm going to bring up something I brought up in the Wondo thread. People are interpreting Wondo's comments as a call to "step up and improve the competitive level of the team". But right before that he says, " I think the Quakes are doing some amazing things". Add to that the fact that Matias appears to be considering not coming back. Add to that no replacement for Magnus.

Taking these things together, I think it's possible that there is word coming down that Fish is going to go super bare bones next year, largely due to the pandemic, and another season with no fans for some significant part of it, and I'm guessing like around 0 STH. I mean no new big signings, some academy promotions, some cheap depth, etc. So Wondo's concern may be more like, hey can we keep doing what we're going vs. hey, can we ratchet it up another level. IOW, can we at least replace the guys that are leaving at a similar expenditure.

We have to remember - these are not normal times. We're in the midst of a pandemic and the worst days may still be in front of us. Sure, a more forward-looking owner would just take the losses and invest in what they would assume would be a brighter future. But not sure that Fish is one of those owners.

 

Just to clarify, we spend about the middle of the MLS pack. We aren’t high flier spenders, but we aren’t super cheap either. (Although, we defund one part of the organization to feed another, which is a completely different problem.) My second statement is that Wolff and Fisher both said that soccer players were cheap in comparison to baseball players, so it would be no big deal to splash some cash on a player or two. But they have never done that. The most we’ve dropped on one guy is what? $2M? $2.5M? There are plenty of teams in this league paying $4M to $6M for a single player. We have never, ever, done that. We spend enough to be competitive, but we have never spent like our owners said that they would. That’s not contradictory, it’s just two facets of the same stone.

Go Quakesfans!!

- Mark

 

This is a perfectly good idea. Get some inexpensive players where you can. BUT, Jesse and Matías do not rate US or MLS players, so they won’t pick up anyone from inside the league.

 

We need a quality free kick taker too. We’ve improved on throwins finally!! That was a weak point for years under the Yallopian coaching tree, but we’re noticeably better now. Also, we’re better to taking corners (not on defending them), we have a more varied approach, we’re less predictable.

But yes, a PK taker who isn’t named Wondolowski, and a free kick taker, and I don’t mean freaking Alanis, who should never wear our kit again.

Go Quakesfans!!

- Mark

 

Right, it was more of a "they should do this" than a "they will do this".

 

our highest paid player is Vako at $1.5m. Before that it was Innocent at $1m. I don't buy that we're mid pack spenders, more like lower 25% and dropping (if you believe JazzyJ). we never got 2020 salary numbers as far as I can tell so this is somewhat speculative.

 

I think we'll replace the players we lost with better players and add a couple more on top of that.

We are in a pandemic, but we are also potentially 4-6 weeks away from essential workers getting vaccinated. Maybe a large portion of folks over the 7 months get vaccinated. I think we'll have limited capacity seating at some point next season. Who knows what it will actually look like, maybe you will need to document your vaccination to get into the stadium. It will take some time but once people start getting vaccinated, it will positively change the stadium dynamic.

 

you can be sure. as much as I want to believe in chris thebassplayer's rainbows, I expect your bare bones scenario is the most likely.

 

I hope you're right, but I'm reading the tea leaves and starting to get a different vibe.

 

Bingham made 16 saves against the Quakes last year. Does that make him a great goalie. I think that save stat mostly shows that your goal is being battered by shots.

 

So we have two competing predictions:

UnicornAssRainbows™

vs.

BareBones™

We'll see...