Excuse me if someone else has already point this out, but I just noticed that Mathis has a much better scoring record when the conditions for scoring are the worst. That is, if he is playing an away game in front of a hostile home crowd, he is a strong favorite to score. (Important caveat: the stats below ignore the amount of playing time he received in each game and also ignore his assists. I didn't know where to quickly find that info. The major trends will still be valid, though.) His record playing away (stats courtesy of "Carson Galaxy's" webpage): 11/15/00 @ Barbados 4-0 WC Qualifier (1 goal) 3/28/01 @ Honduras 2-1 WC Qualifier (1 goal) 3/27/02 @ Germany 2-4 Friendly (2 goals) 4/17/02 @ Ireland 1-2 Friendly (0 goals) 6/10/02 @ Korea Republic 1-1 WC (1 goal) 6/14/02 Poland 1-3 WC (0 goals) 6/21/02 Germany 0-1 WC (0 goals) He's scored 5 goals in 4 out of 7 (57%) away games for the Nats. Note that 6 out of 7 of these games were against high quality opponents. In those 6 tough away games, he scored more goals than the rest of the US team combined! In the 5 games where he was playing against a home team, he scored in 4 of them (80%). His home record: 11/06/98 Australia 0-0 Friendly (0 goals) 02/21/99 Chile 2-1 Friendly (0 goals) 03/13/99 Mexico 1-2 US Cup (0 goals) 10/25/00 Mexico 2-0 Friendly (0 goals) 01/27/01 China 2-1 Friendly (0 goals) 02/03/01 Colombia 0-1 Friendly (0 goals) 02/28/01 Mexico 2-0 World Cup Qualifier (0 goals) 03/03/01 Brazil 1-2 Friendly (1 goal) 04/25/01 Costa Rica 1-0 World Cup Qualifier (0 goals) 01/27/02 El Salvador 4-0 Gold Cup (0 goals) 01/30/02 Canada 0-0 Gold Cup (0 goals) 02/02/02 Costa Rica 2-0 Gold Cup (0 goals) 03/02/02 Honduras 4-0 Friendly (2 goals) 03/10/02 Ecuador 1-0 Friendly (0 goals) 04/03/02 Mexico 1-0 Friendly (1 goal) 05/12/02 Uruguay 2-1 Friendly (0 goals) 05/16/02 Jamaica 5-0 Friendly (1 goal) 05/19/02 Netherlands 0-2 Friendly (0 goals) So at home, where goals are much easier to come by, he has scored in 4 games out of 18, or in 18% of the games. He scored 5 of the teams 30 goals, or 17% of the teams goals. So, does this suggest that Mathis has that type of personality that is most motivated when he is the underdog fighting against the world? A McEnroe personality, if you will? Is that why he fights with the refs? The "I'll show you jerks who can play." attitude can be the source of a lot of energy for some people. Does he coast a bit during home games (and recent MLS games) -- ones that he may see as less of a challenge? Should Arena play him in tough away games, and use him sparingly at home games. What do you think?
Does he smoke more cigs or drink more beer in someone else's cellar? Has anybody done statistics on this? Or does he score more goals because of the better beer in other countries?
Simple---Mathis needs to be in a competitive situation to get the best out of himself. If he's the best, he becomes uninterested and bored. It's Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development. Too hard and you get frustrated. Too easy and you get bored.
Mathis Needs minuets to score. Plus he is God. But yeah, minuets would really help your argument, cuz right now it has just about as much cred as my argument.
Mathis is still not the player that he was before the injury. He is just not in full form, or full shape. He can get back to where he was, but he needs to work to get there. He has plenty of time, and I suspect that he will look a lot better next season. As far as the adversity theory goes, I wouldn't draw too many conclusions from those stats. I would think that he is always trying to score.
INteresting. I think statistics work (to some extent ofcourse) in all scenarios, including soccer. I guess depending on R square. Arena should put him in the game only if we are winning at the 80th minute.
Bottom line is Mathis is a damn good player who has produced points in the majority of games he has played for the USMNT. In the tough environments his skill and fearlessness has allowed him to produce. There probably is something in him similar to what the Wanderer was refering. I still think he is most effective when playing as the target forward.
the statistics clearly show that mathis scores most when he has the ball and a goal is in his general vicinity
skydog, very good catch. There are three possible explanations. The first is randomness...do we have enough data points? Second is psychological. The third is tactical. The US plays a different style at home than on the road, and so do the opponents. Perhaps what the stats are telling us is that Mathis operates best on the counter.
to carry this theory one step further i did some investigating of my own. i found that when it was actually raining in harrisburg, penn. and the men's team were playing an AWAY game anywhere within 300 miles of DC and eddie pope was on the field with clint, that he had a 78% chance of receiving a pass from agoos. now, 45% of the time this pass would "lead" clint which gave him a 67% of actually scoring. however if the woman's team happened to be playing at the same time in some remote corner of the globe and mia hamm was NOT on the field, then clint's chance actually dropped to a pitiful 32% go figure. but hey it's offseason and we're all bored