By Sebastian Bush One of the fondest memories I have from my childhood was when my brother and I would sit in our basement, load up FIFA 11 on the Nintendo Wii, and play a kick-off match between our two favorite teams: Arsenal and Manchester United. 4-3-3 versus the classic 4-4-2. I wasn’t much of a tactico as a six year old, but I saw the game of soccer through the lens of formations; that’s how I learned to watch the sport, and that’s how I learned to play it. That’s how everyone learns to play it.  It wasn’t until I reached college that I began to really care about not just watching a ..read more

By Eliot McKinley Over the last few years, analytics in MLS has been turned on its head. Whereas ten years ago if a team had one person “doing analytics” it was a big deal. Now, questions are asked if a club doesn’t and it is not uncommon for clubs to have multiple people on staff. The Tiers of MLS Analytics are now based upon the number of full time analytics staff members a club employs. Former ASA Contributor Kevin Minkus, now Director of Analytics for Chicago Fire, wrote Soccer Analytics 101 over at MLSsoccer.com where he defined analytics as “using data and statistics to better understand ..read more

Sometimes things happen in our small community that affect everyone. Sadly, on May 18th, a beloved member of our community, Om Arvind, passed away. The best way we could think to go about remembering him here at ASA was by, well, remembering him. So we got everyone together, and people shared some stories. Below is the edited version of that conversation. Om Arvind, 1998-2024 Remembering Om Arvind, an ASA Round Table Kieran Doyle Hey everybody, thanks for popping in. As we've all got the news now, a treasured member of our ASA and soccer community as a whole, Om Arvind, passed away recently ..read more

By Chase Hoffman How good or bad is a soccer coach? For most of the world, it’s a hard metric to determine. Because the squads for teams vary so highly based on the amount of money the team can spend (e.g., Manchester City alone has a roster valued, conservatively, more than the entire rest of the Football League combined), it can be difficult to determine if a manager is successful due to their efforts, or due to a hyper-talented team. Points Per Game (PPG) is not adequate. I don’t think anyone would consider Avram Grant a great manager, but he did manage to get an expensive Chelsea squad to ..read more

We’re releasing team previews ahead of the NWSL season that kicks off on Saturday, March 16! Our final episode covers the two teams taking place in the Challenge Cup, San Diego Wave and Gotham FC. You can find all of our season previews here! Water Pressure in the Tidal Pool By Kieran Doyle $120M. That’s apparently the cost of buying into a team with +300 odds at winning the NWSL Championship. I suppose both of those things (the impending sale of the team at a $120m valuation, more than double the next highest NWSL valuation triggered by an ownership stake sale, and the +300 betting odds) are ..read more

We’re releasing team previews ahead of the NWSL season that kicks off on Saturday, March 16! Our penultimate edition covers the North Carolina Courage and Portland Thorns. You can find all of our season previews here! Sweet Kerolin By Paul Harvey  The Courage had a much better season than anyone predicted last year, and were more than happy to point that out as the table took shape towards the end. The last season had marked the gradual transition away from the legends that had made the Courage the team to beat in the late 2010s, and in the beginning of the season had essentially complete ..read more

We’re releasing team previews ahead of the NWSL season that kicks off on Saturday, March 16! Day five covers Angel City and Seattle Reign. You can find all of our season previews here! Angel City Needs to Get Out of Escrow on Their Cabin in Big Bear By Evan Davis Angel City is constantly undone by the burden of their own self-regard.  One need only watch the three-part HBO docuseries about the team’s inaugural 2022 season to understand the disconnect between the Girlbossin’ ownership group and the rest of the women’s soccer community. The joke around town is that they are a PR firm with a ..read more

We’re releasing team previews ahead of the NWSL season that kicks off on Saturday, March 16! Our third edition includes last season’s bottom dwellers, the Houston Dash and Racing Louisville. You can find all of our season previews here! Can you Door-Dash a New Reset Button? By Evan Davis The Houston Dash really, really want to be a real team.  Oh, they’ve come close once or twice. They won the inaugural, COVID-haunted NWSL Challenge Cup back in 2020. A few months of Juan Carlos Amorós got them over the playoff line back in 2022. Beyond those two glimmers of hope, it’s been a long road of ..read more

We’re releasing team previews ahead of the NWSL season that kicks off on Saturday, March 16! Our first edition includes the league’s two newest expansion teams in Bay FC and Utah Royals. You can find all of our season previews here! Bay FC: Setting the standard or just setting the table? By Trevor Wojcik Breaking the global transfer record in women’s football, signing away key players from top European clubs, Bay FC certainly has not lacked ambition heading into their inaugural season. To guide them, the team selected Albertin Montoya, a staple of women’s soccer in the San Francisco Bay A ..read more

Will Orlando’s Outliers Overperform Once More? By Matt Barger How do you follow-up your best-ever season? Orlando City might have the answer. Orlando finished 2023 second in the East (and second in MLS) with a club-record 63 points, scoring a club-record 55 goals along the way. After a best-ever playoff finish in the Eastern semifinals, the Orlando front office may have had a best-ever off-season: Keeping rookie standout Duncan McGuire for the MLS minimum rookie salary after his $4 million deal with Blackburn collapsed at the final hurdle, Signing Luis Muriel, a designated player also valu ..read more