I just thought I'd bump this to note that Ralston picked up an assist against the Galaxy last night, bringing him within one of Valderrama.
Reposting what I said on the Revs forum: The assists record is pretty meaningless in MLS, due to the way they used to count secondary assists. They still give out questionable secondary ones, but from 1998-2002 it was ridiculous. MLS would be better off only counting one assist per goal (aka the "primary" assist). See my posts from last year for a longer explanation: http://usasoccer.blogspot.com/2006/0...ts-in-mls.html http://usasoccer.blogspot.com/2006/0...ndividual.html The secondary assist as a whole is pretty much a joke, and it ruins the whole assist statistic in MLS. I can't take it seriously. Last year's Pete Vagenas example is still the best. Tell me where in this clip did Vagenas contribute to the goal? His pass, which I'm assuming was a backpass, was not even notable enough to include in the highlight. Or maybe they just made a mistake. The primary assists are no better. Adu and Marsch don't deserve assists on Brown and Galindo's goals last weekend. The whole assist stat in MLS is poorly applied and unreliable, and therefore Ralston's record will be meaningless.
That's a bit like saying Cy Young's win record is meaningless. It is pretty close to meaningless, but the record's the record. And I can't see how Freddy doesn't deserve an assist on that Brown goal. [youtube]-DnJX15JM2o[/youtube] Won't make the "MLS's best assists" list, but it meets the definition.
I think scaryice's point about the absurdity of the statistical application is worth mentioning, but when it comes down to it the absurdity has been universally applied, so that really doesn't undermine the validity of the record itself. Now, it may undermine a claim like "Steve Ralston is the best passer in the history of MLS," but you'd have to be a pretty big knucklehead to make that claim in the first place. So I'd disagree that the record is "meaningless." It just recognizes the frequency of a different sort of play.
I don't see how the pass directly set up the goal. That's the definition of assist, or at least it should be. The goal was all Brown.
I know this is an old thread, but checking to see whether he got an assist made me think of it. Bull. That pass beat three defenders, which is two more than Brown did. Brown pulled a pretty nice shot out of his ass, but then again he made it harder than it had to be by cutting the wrong direction away from the goal. Bottom line, Freddy put Brown into the box with only one defender there with him. That's an assist. And to enlarge the point, assists mean something. I don't know what you want them to mean, but if we compare Ralston to Cobi, see they've usually played the same position in the same era and Ralston has over 25 assists more than him and use this to conclude he's a better passer than Cobi, we've drawn a basically sound conclusion. QED they mean something
Huh? What? Meaningless? Why would you say the assist record is meaningless? It's a tremendous honor to own any league wide record. I don't give a rats ass if they counted secondary assists for a number of years. I'm certain Valderamma and Preki were credited with plenty of secondary assists. Quite frankly the secondary assist is often the more important pass that unlocks the defense. I'm all for recognizing a secondary assist and I'm all for recognizing the outstanding achievements of Steve Ralston as he sets the alltime MLS Assists record.
I would have to say that Ralston has already made himself the best and most consistent winger to play in MLS.