I think Ben should get another look. He is not just a work horse. That dude can play. He has great skill and holds the midfield together. I would love to see him and Dempsey running around more than Zavagnin or Mastreoni in the midfield.
I think you guys are seriously underrating Esky. He may not make it at the international level, but he efficiency, creativeness and overall nose for goal is exactly what should get him future looks. He has scored some unbelievable goals (goal of the week material) this year and is full of confidence. No sophmore slump here. This year he delivered for DCU.
from an online chat today at: http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/zforum/04/sports_goff110804.htm Alexandria, Va.: Apart from Nielsen and Adu, is there any foreign interest in other D.C. United players? I imagine Esky must be getting some looks with his play this year. Steven Goff: Certainly Adu and Nelsen. Esky will attract some attention, but I'm sure he'll be back in DC next season. Until he becomes a national team regular, it will be difficult for him to go overseas. Incidentally, if DCU had lost on Saturday, Esky probably would've been called in to the national team for the Nov. 17 qualifier vs. Jamaica. Rimando and Olsen were also under consideration.
Some very good points, Nut. It made me look back at what most of the main forwards in MLS did, specifically the # of shots against minutes played. I looked at that, which is slightly different than what you did, to get a little picture on the service that these guys got. (I realize that you can't se that entiurely with these stats but it would be interesting to se how it lines up with your shots/goals thingy. So taking the players you listed plus several others I got: Twellman: 1870 minutes, 69 shots: 27 minutes per shot Glen: 966 minutes, 42 shots: 23min/sht Wolynec: 2051 minutes, 56 shots: 37min/sht Peguero:1389 minutes: 42 shots: 33min/sht Buddle: 1721 shots, 65 shots: 26min/sht Wolff: 2252 minutes, 59 shots: 38 min/sht Eskandarian: 1627 minutes, 58 shots: 28min/sht Ruiz: 1587 minutes, 63 shots: 25min/sht Ching: 1954 minutes, 51 shots: 38min/sht Noonan: 2365 minutes, 73 shots: 32min/sht Cunningham: 1721 minutes, 63 shots: 27min/sht Johnson: 2269 minutes, 75 shots: 30min/sht Arnaud: 2636 minutes, 61 shots: 43min/sht Donovan: 2018 minutes, 51 shots: 40min/sht Moreno: 2279 minutes, 39 shots: 58min/sht What stands out here (without reading too much into it)? 1) It's interesting that the forwards almost all fall into either a high 20's min/sht ratio (Glen, Twellman, Ruiz, eskandarian, Noonan, Johnson, Buddle, Cunningham) or a high 30's/low40's ratio (Ching Donovan, Arnaud, Wolf, Wolynec. Only Nonan, pegero fit in between. Then theres.... 2)....Moreno is in a class by himself and paired with Eskandarian you see a defining of roles. Still I wonder what would have happened with Esky this year without Moreno. 3) The KC and SJ forward tandems are both very selective in shooting as compared to the NE or C-bus pair. But probably there is a lot to see in all four of these pairings. I'm not gonna comment on it now, but others might... If you were talking about the Rongen-led DCU I'd say you're spot on, but not with Nowak's DCU. Throughout the year, I've only seen Nicol adjust well to DCU's style when DCU was near to full strength and he was helped in this playoff game with the absence of Nelsen and Kovalenko, both of whom are much better defensively than their subs, Hendrickson and Gros. (This is one area that Gros needs to improve in rather drastically.) Still it will be very interesting to see how Gansler attacks this game.
Ching is 26, Ruiz is 25, Buddle is 23, and Eskandarian is 22. Obviously, Eskandarian has some national team potential. If you had a poll that said, "Who is older Buddle or Eskandarian," I bet 90% would have said Eskendarian. Eskendarian seems to be more mature, and I've always thought of Buddle as the new young kid on the block. By the way, we should definitely keep an eye on Quaranta in the next couple years. I had forgotten how young he still is (20) because he's been around DC United for so long. If he can get his injury woes behind him, he could be one of the league's best in 3 years. P.S. Rimando for a callup? My 3 keepers for that camp would be Tim Howard, Joe Cannon, Johnny Walker. I guess you could substitute Walker for another guy, and it might as well be Rimando. I wish Bruce would take another look at MH at Reading at some point still, also.
It's worth pointing out that for the 2003 Fire, Razov went only 19 minutes per shot and Ralph only 22 minutes per shot. They still had enough leftover offense for Beasley to shoot once every 44 minutes Another important note is that we shouldn't read too much into finishing ratios for a single season. In 2003, Landon Donovan had a league-leading 4.42 shots per goal. This year, his ratio of 8.5 wasn't even good enough for the leaderboard. What's more, the difference between the two years could easily be a result of random variation. The appropriate baseball analogy is looking at the batting leaders a couple of weeks into the season.
I don't know, numerista. Maybe Landon's finishing struggles help explain at least in part why San Jose is at home watching the MLS Cup this year. For whatever reason, his finishing is down this year. I don't know if it is because he's been pulled back into the midfield, so the shots he's taking aren't of the break-away variety, a concentration/confidence/mental thing, or what. What I do know is that San Jose burried teams last year. They didn't this year. And after watching the Quakes outplay KC even in the 2nd game, I would say that again, it came down to finishing. KC finished, SJ didn't. Game, set, match, and season for the Quakes. The ability to finish the few opportunities you get are what separates the winners from the losers in big, pressure-packed matches. And I maintain that teams, and especially forwards, who have a strong finishing ratio in the regular season will carry that over into the more pressure-packed playoffs. For whatever reason, this is one aspect of the game that you can't just "turn on." You've either been consistently good, or you haven't. And I like this discussion because it carries over well to the MNT, especially during WCQ. In the Hex, pressure packed situations and very few real scoring opportunities means that whoever lines up as a forward in the US jersey had better be ready to put the 1-3 legitimate shots they get per game away. There will be no 7.78 shots for TnT to get his goal. Won't happen. And since he isn't as good at setting up teammates as others in the US pool, he probably won't be suiting up in the Hex, at least until he gets his finishing straightened out next season. If you can make the team better in other ways besides scoring, either by being an aerial outlet or setting up your teammates, then perhaps you can get away with a subpar finishing ratio. Even then, watch your back. The US pool is deeper than it's ever been, and especially in the forward pool there are likely 3-4 guys not that far behind you ready to take your spot should you slip a little. Great for Arena, challenging for the US playing pool.
Tell me about it. I screemed "Oh My God!" so loud in my room that my roomates came up stairs to ask me if everything was alright...such caring friends I have.
I honestly don't know what to make of the minutes/shots ratio. Is it a sign of how effective the midfields are at setting up shots for fowards? Not sure. The re-entry of Dema and Nelsen will be key for DCU. I actually think DC loses something in the attack with Gros out, but they definitely have more of a defensive bite. And Nelsen is a class MLS defender. I think this is a fascinating game as far as coaching comparisons go. Nowak is the poster-child for systemmatic coaching. DCU's playing style is the same today as it was in Week 1 versus the Quakes. Their execution is better, but the system hasn't changed. Gansler, OTOH, has had to make so many adjustments the Wizards should exchange their mascot for a Chameleon. Preki out, and KC morphs into more of a total football type midfield. Everyone defends, everyone attacks. And Chris Klein is without question in my mind the MVP of the 1st half of the MLS season. Then Klein goes down. More adjustments. Jewsbury becomes a key presence for the Wizards. Gutierrez quietly steps up as the league's best left-sided player. Gansler has his guys working harder than any other team in the league. They play quickly, they play decisively. They give opponents no room to breathe on the ball. They make the best runs off the ball of any team in MLS. And eventually, they find themselves again and reemerge as the league's best team. It is a nice contrast for the championship game. Again, my money would have to go to the team that's been doing it consistently better than any other team all year. But I think it will be close, I think DC will have some shots, and no forwards have been better than Esky and Moreno at putting shots away. It wouldn't shock me if DC won this thing. But Gansler has made adjustments all season long, and I wouldn't bet against him now.
and this, in a nutshell, is why I like Eskandarian. Based on club form, there probably isn't another striker you'd rather have than Eskandarian to take one of the precious few chances. You look at things like opponents when your looking at midfielders and forwards that depend on beating their marks on the dribble or beating their men in the air and in the box...but Alecko is different because he just finishes shots with people hanging off him. We've seen him score goals when he has an inch of space. I can't think of a single reasons why he wouldn't be able to replicate this at the international level. amd thanks, tab5g, of posting the link to the chat. While I'm not much of a stats person I do have a question. Can someone post the ratio of Shots and Shots on Target for MLS strikers and then a comparison of that to the EPL? If I had a bit more time I'd do it myself but I'm hoping one of you guys might have that already
That's certainly true, and I'm inclined to agree that there are several factors involved in the decline. At the same time, imagine if he had been completely consistent and scored 9 goals in each season. You could pool together all of his shots from both years and then split them randomly into two halves. It wouldn't be surprising if one half contained 12 of his goals and the other half only 6. So from a strict mathematical standpoint, you can't say that his performance in the 12-goal season was any different than it was in the 6-goal season. It's possible that this year, he simply didn't get the bounces. In this particular case, that's not how you or I saw it, and I think we're right. Even so, when it comes to streaks and slumps, people are lousy judges.
while I want esky to get a camp call, i have MAJOR doubts about his ability at the elite world level we'd find in 2006.... his big gift is the knack to score, but I don't believe he threatens elite defenders at all.... who do you pair him with, and what role does he serve....he doesn't really stretch a defense...so he's not the complement to mcbride/ching/casey... and he's not the target guy....so what's his use... now, if you're playing the el salvadors of the world, who are bunkering, then throw esky out there, because that's the type foe he'd be really good against.
Stephen Goff just finished an online chat. here's what he had to say about the nats and Esky, Olsen, and Rimando: Alexandria, Va.: Apart from Nielsen and Adu, is there any foreign interest in other D.C. United players? I imagine Esky must be getting some looks with his play this year. Steven Goff: Certainly Adu and Nelsen. Esky will attract some attention, but I'm sure he'll be back in DC next season. Until he becomes a national team regular, it will be difficult for him to go overseas. Incidentally, if DCU had lost on Saturday, Esky probably would've been called in to the national team for the Nov. 17 qualifier vs. Jamaica. Rimando and Olsen were also under consideration.
You'd have to chart the shots the way the NFL coaches chart their QBs passes to get the most accurate analysis. But, as I recall, either Numerista or Elninho recently had stats for the "outside shooting", goals scored from both play and set-pieces from outside the penalty box for EPL and MLS. I believe the ratio was ~ 3:1 in EPL's favor ... but don't hold me to it.
That's Elninho ... he tracks MLS goals himself. A good source for other leagues is enbltd.com, which shows that in 03-04, Ruud van Nistelrooy scored all 20 of his goals from inside the box. One unfortunate point is that enbltd doesn't track shot attempts, only shots on goal. Even so, it's interesting to learn that Thierry Henry had nearly twice as many shots on goal as any other Premiership player (101 to Alan Shearer's 51). It appears that in his particular case, greatness comes from getting open more than from efficient conversion.
I was going to say that despite the solid stats that Nutmeg came up with, a goalscorer is judged on goals he puts away, not on the sitters he misses. The same is true about hockey as well. I remember a great old Gretzky line, "100% of shots not taken do not go in." That's a motto to live by.
The 3:1 ratio sounds right. This would be prime example of Team Poland in cup. If Teams in Major League Soccer, takes one. Number would be ten and English Premiership League would be thirty. You spread. Those thirty scorers over half of Europe and The World Cup finds atmosphere. This is one spot were 20-35 rank teams can get you.
I'd always wondered why Henry could be so dominant in league play, but be disappointing for France. Well folks, there you have it. He isn't going to get that many opportunities in International Football. When it comes to the World Cup or the European Championships, there are very few, if any, Norwich's, Blackburn's, or Southampton's on the schedule. Things tighten up, Henry's chances go down, his finishing rate stays about the same, and the math just doesn't add up.
Yes, but the vast majority of fans (and perhaps even coaches) won't see it that way. They'll say that Henry plays well in England and poorly for France. Forward is a difficult position to analyze. The player is soooo dependent on an external factor (i.e., service), but service is not easily measured. As a result, people seek easier but less accurate explanations like "He's off form" or (even worse) "He doesn't play well against X."
Yeah that's pretty illuminating in Henry's case. I'm thinking that another reason this DCU-Revs game is useful to see in terms of the Nats is that unlike the summer MLS games the cooler temperatures of fall allow the teams to play harder for longer. I know that's a very simple thing to say but I do believe that the Revs in particular get good at the end of the season because what Nicol demands of his players just doesn't work in 90 degrees and thus it's not so much that Nicol knows how to get his players to peak at the right time but its more that the time of the year allows his players to peak. Thus we got to see his team really play balls out. That's true for DCU and the other MLS teams as well of course but some teams in MLS aren't so cool temperature dependent. Of course there's an inverse here too for international play: that usually the WC is played in summer (and many WCQ's too) and if a team can play well in hot temperatures they may have a slight edge.
Henry was dominating in the 2,000 Euros that France won. He also had a good Senegal game to open the 2,002 WC. The difference between those games and Arsenal was that Titi didn't have Pires, Zidane or Giuly for the World Cup, to say nothing of Ljundberg and Bergkamp. And, of course, French coaches do play it closer to the vest than the Alsacian, which does affect the number of goal scoring opportunities. Add all three and you have a fairly reasonable explanation for his recent international performance.
A little breakdown of Henry's numbers... Euro 2004 Games 4 Shots 22 Shots on Goal 11 Goals 2 Finishing Ratio: 11:1 Prem. 04/05 Games 11 Shots 44 Shots on Goal 34 Goals 9 Finishing Ratio 4.9:1 Henry's conversion rate actually was a lot worse in Euro 2004. In particular, it's interesting that he was only able to put 50% of his chance on goal, as opposed to nearly 80% of his chances for Arsenal. Perhaps he was fatigued, or slipping in form, or perhaps he simply gets better quality chances when he plays for Arsenal. It's also possible that the entire difference boils down to chance variation. Four games isn't a very long time.
My memory says, Arsenal = receiving the ball inside the box at the feet with a clear (or nearly clear) shot on goal, France = attempting a 15 yard header with 4 defenders between him and goal. Which is no substitute whatsoever for a more rigorous analysis. But those are my lasting images of Thierry, combining on those flowing combination plays with Arsenal and looking like a bad version of Alan Shearer for France.