You are going to have to come up with one insanely brilliant argument to convince me that this is a bad thing.
Exactly my thought. The rest of the world can tell us we play ugly all they want if we keep winning like we are now. To paraphase Vince Lombardi "Show a beautiful loser and I'll show you a loser" (It was a actually a "good loser" in the real quote BTW).
But your whole argument was that those two things are correlated. We mocked you. Now you're changing your mind. We get to mock you again. Because you can see two MLS games a week for free. Just when I think your insights can't get any more banal, they do!!! You're like the Everest of faux insight!!! The Great Prairie of edginess!!!
If you watched MLS, you'd also know he'll lose you many more games than ol' Jack. Then throw in the relative cap hits...it's not irrational to prefer to have Jewsbury on your team (since the point is to win) than Amado. Perfect. So the problem is NOT that Jack Jewsbury pales next to the magical wonderment that is the EPL, it's that he pales next to the celestial heights that are ManU. I can't think of a more pointless point than to argue that a mediocre MLSer like Jewsbury isn't as good as a player at ManU.
Who else finds it highly ironic that a plastic ManU fan would ignore what SAF likes about Yanks, and turn it into a negative? Is it just me?
Since someone brought up the goalkeeping, I thought I'd take another opportunity to add some signal to this noise: Code: Year GP SVS SOGA % 1996 216 952 1396 .682 1997 264 1152 1637 .704 1998 255 1141 1618 .705 1999* 239 983 1337 .735 2000 253 1149 1615 .711 2001 235 1089 1511 .720 2002 215 959 1317 .728 2003 244 1007 1365 .738 2004 227 957 1280 .748 This is the cumulative save percentage of the top 10 goalkeepers in the league in each year. (The asterisk by 1999 is because the league only listed the top 5, and I had to compile the rest myself from the league stats, and I'm not sure what the minimum minutes played are. It could be close enough to be valid for comparison pusposes, but the data collection might have something to do with why it looks like an outlier). This stat isn't meant to rank how good the goalkeepers are, but it might be an indication that they're doing their job better as time goes on. If the GKs saved as badly as in 2000, 46 more goals would have been scored on them. That's nearly a third of a goal per game of the league's scoring drop attributable directly to the league's improving GKs.
There is no way stats can determine the job that goalkeepers are doing. Were the saves being tabulated great saves? Were they easy saves that just harmlessly scooped the keeper. Were the goals let up savable? A goal perfectly placed in the side netting is tabulated the same as a goal that sneaks through a keepers hands. One was his fault, one wasn't. But they are calculated as the same. Just throwing numbers out doesn't really answer any of the questions of how good goal keepers are at doing their jobs. Its a judement call, not a statisical calulation. The same holds true with quality of play. ANTI Stat boy, Crusio
Another of my fans. Now we are on to personal insults are we? You see that is what seperates us sir. I have the ability to engage in discussions without getting personal because to me its about the conversation. To you however it is apparently so much more. You need to neg rep people. You need to get personal. You need to settle down. You ned to learn to hide your dislike for me better. Its takes a very special personality to develop such strong feelings of dislike for people they have never met. Its just a message board. This is not life and death. At this point I will cede the final word to you (as I prefer). It is clear you need it since what is said here means so much to you.
An added note: Code: Year GPG 1996 3.36 1997 3.26 1998 3.56 1999 2.86 2000 3.18 2001 3.28 2002 3.01 2003 2.89 2004 2.61 2004* 2.91 This is the chart of league goals per game. The 2004* is the "what if" scenario for if those 46 extra goals had been scored. As you can see, it doesn't explain everything (and you can eyeball the first data set and see that keepers do in fact have a little less work to do these days). However, factoring out the GKs brings the number a lot closer to the more moderate scoring range.
It doesn't need to be insanely brilliant at all. We focus primarily on winning at the youth level and neglect the development of skills and as a result we produce large numbers of Jewsburys and not enough Mapps and Donovans.
. . . only in MLS. In the half dozen other leagues in which it has happened, it was no such indicator at all, according to you.
I never made that argument. You tried to say I did in your attempt to put words in my mouth. I said the decrease in scoring was an indicator of the decrease in creativity.
Hey Stan ... that's great stuff; I hope you start a thread over in Stats & Analysis with that info. A while back, I looked at these numbers myself, and my impression was that improving save percentages were associated mostly with young keepers getting better, and with weaker keepers getting replaced.
Yes it is. I can honestly say that it hasn't decreased in those leagues because those leagues get better every year because they spend more money every year and the competition for spots gets better every year. I can honestly say any increase in scoring is down to improving defenses. Thats doesn't happen in MLS. Inflation alone decreases salaries every year. We have a harder time attracting the creative players we used to. The defending hasn't been the force behind the decrease in scoring because if the defenders were so damn better thatn the attackers we wouldn't see the cynical fouling we see every game in this league. No to mention all the fouls that don't get called. I go by what I see. I see a decrease in creativity in this league and when at the end of the season Kenn published the yearly scoring stats, I said that backs up what I see. You are making the opposit argument. That the scoring stats determine the level of creativity or the level of goalkeeping. That is your argument not mine and it is flawed.
You'll see that I did in fact note that these stats in no way judge how good the keepers are because, just as you point out, they are a facet of the quality of the offenseive plaeyrs and the shots they take. That said, remember, we are comparing seasons here. That means we're not talking about a few shots or a couple of guys. We're talking about a 46 goal difference in well over 1000 shots. So the alternative argument is "all the attacking players in the entire league over the entire season are more routinely shooting straight at the keeper, by quite a bit." That argument isn't disproven, but it's more than a little awkward. I'd accept it for a player (in fact, I think Taylor Twellman did shoot tamely at the keeper a lot more than two years ago). I'd accept it for a whole team during a slump (of say 10 games or so). But the argument that the whole league did it for the whole season sounds strained. It sounds more strained when you compare who these players are. Here are the Scoring leaders for 2000, compared to this year: 2000 Code: Mamadou Diallo TB 28 26 4 56 Clint Mathis MET* 29 16 14 46 Ante Razov CHI 24 18 6 42 Diego Serna MIA 31 16 10 42 Adolfo Valencia MET 31 16 9 41 Dante Washington CLB 30 15 9 39 Wolde Harris NE 31 15 7 37 Jason Kreis DAL 27 11 13 35 Ariel Graziani DAL 24 15 3 33 Alex Comas MET 25 13 6 32 Jaime Moreno DC 25 12 7 31 Carlos Valderrama TB 32 1 26 28 Junior Agogo COL* 22 10 7 27 Steve Ralston TB 30 5 17 27 Chris Henderson KC 31 9 9 27 Imad Baba NE 30 9 8 26 Miklos Molnar KC 17 12 1 25 Hristo Stoitchkov CHI 18 9 7 25 Roy Lassiter MIA 27 8 9 25 Robert Warzycha CLB 30 6 13 25 Dema Kovalenko CHI 31 10 5 25 2004 Code: BUDWEISER SCORING LEADERS PLAYER TEAM GP GOALS ASTS PTS Amado Guevara MET 24 10 10 30 Pat Noonan NE 29 11 8 30 Brian Ching SJ 25 12 4 28 Jaime Moreno DC 27 7 14 28 Eddie Johnson DAL 26 12 3 27 Josh Wolff KC 26 10 7 27 Davy Arnaud KC 30 9 8 26 Damani Ralph CHI 26 11 3 25 Edson Buddle CLB 24 11 2 24 Carlos Ruiz LA 20 11 2 24 John Wolyniec MET 30 10 3 23 Jeff Cunningham CLB 30 9 4 22 Landon Donovan SJ 23 6 10 22 Alecko Eskandarian DC 24 10 2 22 Steve Ralston NE 30 7 8 22 Eddie Gaven MET 29 7 7 21 Taylor Twellman NE 23 9 1 19 Jovan Kirovski LA 24 8 2 18 Jean Philippe Peguero COL 18 7 4 18 Andy Williams CHI 25 4 9 17 Now, anti-stat-boy focus on the names. Do you mean to tell me those names in the first list are 46 goals better than the ones on the second? I personally would take the second list over the first outright, myself (Clint Mathis and Mamdou Diallo I'll give you, but he doesn't score 26 goals in the league today, and Alex Comas? Dante Washington??), but I think it's crazy to argue that the first one is better by some huge margin, or that the second list were all having a bad year together.
I want to take some time to look closer (unfortunately some of us have to work in between posts), but I think I agree. At first glance, the second group seems like the stronger bunch.
As best as I tried to write my post, you still twisted the meaning into something I didn't intend. You keep attaching meanings that folks don't imply, nor write. "wanting on your team" has everything to do with results - not style. Amado Guevara faded down the stretch and was worthless when the Metros needed him most. Jack Jewsbury scored a sublime goal of the year candidated goal on an extremely skillful one-timer to send the Wizards into the conference finals. That's it - results. It has nothing to do with style - that's why someone like Dustin would state that they'd rather have one player over another. If Amado Guevara was worth so many games, why didn't I see the Metros in Carson? - That's a rhetorical question, please don't try to answer it.
It's pretty much an accepted notion among most soccer experts that until a player turns 18 or so, he should concentrate on improving his skills and not on winning the game per se. The Germans have recently taken the latter approach and, as a result, have began to suck in the last 10 years. The Dutch, to the contrary, have always used "skills über alles" theory and have produced stars gallore. It's the question of whom you want to resemble more, the lumbering Germans or the galloping Dutch.
It's 2004 - who are these "people watching MLS for the first time?" Who? Every soccer fan I know of knows who MLS and what MLS is. They may not know all the teams, nor many of the players, but MLS hasn't been hiding from the soccer community in a bubble for 9 years. The snobs turned their noses up at MLS nearly 10 years ago, and the fans that MLS has now are primarily interested in seeing their team win. "Style" is subjective, anyway. Anyone who hasn't seen an incredible increase in the quality and watchability of MLS play over the last decade is someone who's mind isn't open to the possibility of change.
(Note: They don't more and more $$ every year anymore, since the TV market crashed, but that's a side point.) You're gonna have to note that any reasoning that is designed to apply in only one case is special pleading. It is one of the classic logical fallacies. As such, even if it's true, it's not the type of argument that is ever going to convince anyone. If you can't demonstrate some kind of pattern that is repeatable somewhere else, then the evidence is not strong. This is probably the leading cause of logical fallacies among otherwise reasonable people in the world. People have two totally different standards of evidence for data that back up what they already believed, versus data that either tend to refute those predispositions or don't satisfactorily answer the question. And by the way I am not arguing the opposite. I am arguing the "null hypothesis", the agnostic position, which is merely that "you cannot draw a conclusion about the quality of play from the goal scoring." For my part, I tend to believe that a handful of creative players, like the Mathises, and now the Landon Donovans, have been creamed off the top of the league. The loss of these players might be a part of what's making the league lower scoring and less attractive to watch. However, we also have to give legit consideration to better defending, better goalkeeping, and a defensive style by some coaches as reasons (combined, these are probably a bigger factor in my book). Separate to this, the comparison of a Jewsbury with a Mathis is fallacious, since no one ever considered Jewsbury a hot NT prospect, he didn't come out of school early, never played on national youth teams, and didn't go near the top of the draft, all of which Mathis did. No one ever expected the former to replace the latter. That's a completely different set of players (the Eddie Johnsons and Danny Szetelas). The "developmental player" tag is a complete misnomer here, because it's the Mathises and Szetelas, rather than the Jewsburys and the Troy Perkinses that the league really expects to develop into anything. As a four-year college player who did no better than regional ODP, the US must produce nearly 100 a year with similar pedigree. The fact that Jewsbury , Perkins, and Josh Gros made it, and the vast majority of the others haven't, is mostly down to hard work. I think, if anything, the Jewsburys of the world are probably a little more creative than even four years ago. But that's sort of beside the point, since they were never the class of players the league expects its dynamism from, anyway.
I hope the implication isn't that all skilled players are wankers when the chips are down. But a league full of Jack Jewsburies is a pretty boring league to watch and is a money loser to boot. What is an average KC attendance without those huge supermarket giveaways? What was its playoff attendance? Putrid. Well, maybe style doesn't matter in "hack'em if you can" Serie A but style is important to a lot of people in all sports. Both NBA and NHL have seen their ratings decline when their quality of play began to suffer. Andy, do you seriously believe that having the Jordans and the Gretzkys is no different than the shirtgrabbers and Shaqhackers that have been proliferating around both sports? At least, the NBA followed the NFL and tried to emphasize skill over brute force by changing its rules. The NHL hadn't and currently finds itself in major financial difficulties. MLS at some point needs to show progress as a viable financial model or its benefactors will find other worthier projects to support and the US will be left with poorly financed pseudo pro leagues again. Rommul made have gone a little overboard with some of his statements but the reaction to them have been often just as misdirected. To imply that style of play/quality of entertainment is irrelevant to the fandom is just absurd. And, if some super hard-core followers of some teams believe so, then they will see more Steve Nicolses and Bob Ganslers ... but only for a short while because the league will not survive more of the same.
Actually it's pretty bad stuff, and one reason why I - an actual mathematician and old-school Bill James fan (I have an original copy of the first Abstract) - stay away from the stats forum here. Personally, I put a lot of decline into the increased cohesiveness of defensive play. In 1996 many of the goalkeepers in the league were more or less on their own. Afterall, there were 10 expansion teams with fluid lineups. Now you've got groups of players who know eachother very well, and also know the players they're defending. While I would agree that goalkeeping has improved, it is way too simplistic to assume a single variable system of improvement. --- But - to get back on topic - I don't think these stats contribute to this discussion at all in that I don't think the decline in goalscoring, nor the decline in shooting percentages, has anything to do with a lack of or lessening of "creativity and style" in the league - and has everything to do the fact that MLS has matured into a stable first division soccer league. As was pointed out earlier, our scoring and shooting percentages are more or less in line with other top leagues around the world.