St. Louis FC 4 - Las Vegas Lights FC 1: Three Things (or Deja Vu All Over Again)

The Lights conceded an early goal on their way to a dismal defeat away from home, in which they also went down a man from a red card offense...

Wait what day is this? Is this the day after our April 28 game against San Antonio FC (3-1 defeat with one red card)? Or our July 26 game against Sounders 2 (3-0 defeat with two red cards)?

Oh, this is a new one. Ok then.

Here are three things from the game.

1. Playoff Door is Shut

If you've never heard of the website fivethirtyeight.com, you should check it out. It's a pretty cool site that uses a lot of statistics and analytics to make sports predictions for a variety of sports - soccer included. They recently added the data from USL, which means that they now have a page that kind of ranks the offensive and defensive output of each team in the league (based on a variety of factors like historical performance, market value, and underlying stats like xG). The predictions are never perfect, of course (nothing is), but they are pretty good in my opinion.

That's the good news.

The bad news is this:

That little "1%" there is the 538 model's prediction of Las Vegas's chances of making the playoffs after this defeat.

Intuitively, this also makes sense. There are about 12 games left to play, and we have 23 points from 22 games (about 1 point per game). Last season, the worst team to sneak into the playoffs got 44 points (and I'm pretty sure there are more games this season, so that number should go up). So in order to be in the hunt, we have to get about twice as many points per game from the next 12 games as we have for the initial 22.

What I'm saying is, keep your money in your pocket.

2. It Didn't Look Like What It Was

In short, this game against a fellow play-off contender was, at the very very very least, a must-not-lose game. So what do the Lights do?

Concede within 4 minutes.

The goal came off of a corner kick. Our defender stuck out a leg to keep the ball off of  a St. Louis head, the ball fell to another St. Louis player, whose shot was blocked, then it fell to another St. Louis player, whose shot crept in.

Look, it's a set piece goal, those will happen sometimes. But when the opposing team gets two shots inside the six yard box within five seconds, you can't really blame anyone but yourself when one goes in. The Lights really should have been more on top of things - the initial clearance was a desperate attempt to get anything on the ball because the Lights player had almost lost his man, and after that, someone has to be the first man to react and kick the ball anywhere.

The Lights conceded again within ten minutes, and although we got a bit fortunate with a penalty that looked a bit soft to me (the keeper did take out the man, but he got the ball and I don't think the Lights attacker ever looked like he was going to get to it), the Lights were never really in the game. Not only did St. Louis outscore us, they also hit the post, spurned an open goal, and generally outplayed the Lights.

3. Is It About Honor? Or Is It Really About Soccer?

After the match, technical director Chelis said "There is nothing in training or with our tactics to solve. It’s going to be about honor."

Is it about honor? Is this the same "honor" that saw Chelis challenge a fan to a fight in the parking lot, and has resulted in him getting both a four-game suspension in May and an eight-game suspension in June?

Or is it really about the fact that our squad has attempted 1,000 less passes than the next worst passing team in the league (and at the worst pass accuracy), or that our defensive strategy is apparently based exclusively on fouling (#1 in the league in fouls, yellow cards, and red cards baby!) and not on keeping the ball out of the net (2nd worse record in the league in goals conceded), or that the squad has been almost completely overhauled midseason, or that we haven't settled on an established line-up?

Because if I had two choices - to either improve the team's "honor"; or to improve the team's defensive shape, I know which one I would choose.

And that may be the most worrying part of the whole game. Not losing by three or more goals (again), but knowing that the defeat will not result in any training ground changes whatsoever.

Till next time.

-VSB

Las Vegas Lights 1 - Rio Grande Valley 0 - Three Things (With Some Thoughts on Results v. Process)

Las Vegas Lights FC beat Rio Grande Valley this weekend 1-0 with a late header from Joel Huiqui off of a corner providing the winning goal.

I haven't actually posted anything about the team in a few weeks now (my fandom gets sidetracked sometimes by little distractions like a job and a family), so I am also going to include some observations from the past few weeks in general, as I write about the most recent game specifically.

1. Won the Must-Win Game

This game, at home against a team that was three points behind us going into the match, was an absolutely "must-win" event if Las Vegas wants to hold out any hope of making a playoff push. So, fair play to the team, they had to win it, and they did.

Unfortunately, such has been the state of our season so far, that winning this "must-win" game doesn't grant us a lot of reprieve. We're still seven points back from the last playoff spot (with a far inferior goal difference), with only about 1/3 of the season to play. In other words, this is not going to be our last "must-win" game this season. Let's just hope that the team can find a way to win those games like they did for this one.

2. Squad Overhaul

By my count, the Lights have picked up ten new players since the end of May (Avila, Mendiola, Mathers, Perez, Inigo, Manley, Samayoa, Murphy, Salgado, and Guzman). Most of those new faces are loanees from MLS or other USL clubs. And I wouldn't be surprised if I have missed a couple players from that list.

That is a huge amount of turnover for one transfer window - it's enough to make an entirely new outfield.

While everybody loves a good transfer/new signing, this amount of dealing raises some serious questions for me about the club's recruitment. Surely it can't have always been the plan to put a squad together before the season started, and then sign ten entirely new players (and let a few leave after just a few months with the team) within a few months?

Most of these new faces have seen significant minutes for the first team in recent weeks, but as far as I can tell none are locked-in starters. But, to be honest with you, I couldn't tell you more than maybe three "locked-in" starters for this team for any given game, such is the level of chopping and changing by the manager. I mean, I write a blog exclusively about the club, and I couldn't tell you what the coach's preferred XI is, or even what his preferred formation would be. And I can't help but think that kind of uncertainty affects the team.

3. Results vs Process

On that note, let's talk a little bit more about the manner of the Lights' victory this weekend. Las Vegas won by one goal, from a header from a defender on a late corner kick.

However, soccer is a famously low-event sport. The stat-line that matters in this game is simple: 1-0. But there are other stat-lines from this game that reveal a little bit more detail - and that detail makes me a little bit concerned.

Rio Grande beat the Lights in possession 63% to 37% (and also in passing 435 to 238). They also beat us in passing accuracy 78% to 65%. And also in shots (barely, 14 to 13), but by a substantial margin in shots on target, 7 to 2. And also by a huge margin in touches inside the opposition box, 29 to 15 (mostly down the Lights' left hand side, which infers that Torres and Garduno had a bit of a rough night). We did manage to keep our traditional dominance in fouls though - 22 fouls to their 8.

And to be clear here - this is not a situation where the stats are skewed because the Lights went ahead early and Rio Grande had to press the game to get a result. No, this was a game that was 0-0 for the majority, where the Lights were at home, against a team that is below them in the standings, in a match that the Lights basically have to win in order to stay in the playoff hunt.

Look, I know this probably sounds a bit churlish, coming after a game in which the Lights scored a late winner and kept their playoff hopes alive. But at the end of the day, despite the good result, I still have some major concerns about the process, and whether repeating the process is going to produce similar winning results in the future.

Hopefully I am wrong (I have been wrong before) and the team has managed to come up with some secret formula that defies what I am seeing and the stats.

For the sake of the team's playoff future, let's hope so.

Till next time.

-VSB