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Friday, June 25, 2010
Soccermetrics
Brunkhart agreed to send me his soccermetric analysis of Wednesday’s dramatic US-Algeria game just a few hours after Landon Donovan’s goal found the back of the Desert Foxes’ net. Here it is, in part:
“In the second half, Algeria’s ability to retain the ball player-by-player dropped from 71.4% to 58.5% (US’s increased from 67.2% to 69.7%). Algeria’s touch count in the second half also dropped 24%. That seems to indicate a weary and manhandled Algerian side.
“Donovan is known for being able to perform in the big matches. In the US-Slovenia match, Donovan had only 48 touches and drifted to the left side of the field for over half of them, lost the ball over half the time he touched it, and made no passes leading to shots. His goal was critical but his performance was not as strong as it was against Algeria.
“In the Algeria match, he stayed wide right with 91% of his touches right of center, saw the ball 67 times, played 4 passes leading to shots, and retained possession 69% of the time he touched it. Much better game for Donovan against Algeria.’’
Too geeky for the “beautiful game’’? To quote the mathematician Paul Erdös: “If numbers aren’t beautiful, nothing is.’’
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