Diving Deep: the last three games

The Legion has taken just 4 points from the last three games – home against Rhode Island and Orange County and away against New Mexico United. Going into this stretch I would have expected 6 points, with the dropped points being a loss in Albuquerque. The team did in fact come very close to 6 points, being rather unlucky not to get a win on the road. Getting waxed by Rhode Island 1-3 at home was not on my radar and was, to say the least, a disappointing performance.

But these results are somewhat representative of the Legion season to date. And that means it’s time for some crosstabs. Consider this table:

That’s a fair amount of data but the table shows several important points. First, the Three Sparks are performing far better – almost double the points per game – against the Western Conference¹ By the way: why do sports leagues insist on using the term “Conference”? Conferences are literally for talking, not playing. Dumb idea. At least MLB gets it right.. Second, the team is way better on the road than it is at home, at least against the East. Third, the team is scoring way better against the West than it is against the East, with a negative goal difference against the East of 10.

The Legion has three games remaining against Western teams: Monterey Bay Union away, Las Vegas Lights at home and Oakland Roots away (the season finale). All three are in playoff position right now, but given the team’s record – it has lost only once to Western playoff teams (Memphis 901, grrr) – that’s not too big a deal.

But against the East it has 6 home games (Hartford Athletic, Detroit City, Pittsburgh Riverhounds, Tampa Bay Rowdies, Miami and North Carolina) and 4 road games (Rhode Island, Loudoun United, Pittsburgh Riverhounds and Indy Eleven)  and left. 5 of those games are against teams below the playoff line, but frankly only Miami and maybe Hartford can be considered less than competitive.

So, if the Legion makes it to the Championship game, it’s in fine shape. Getting there is going to be the really hard part. Most importantly, the Three Sparks have to seriously tighten it up at home. One win in four home games against the East is not encouraging. And that means they have got to start scoring more efficiently. That’s an issue we have noted here before.

Well, if last Saturday is anything to go by, that improvement may be in the works. The Legion still ranks very high in terms of total shots taken. The Three Sparks are 4th overall with 316 shots (just over 15 per game) and with the 3 over the weekend have risen to a tie for 13th with Colorado Springs, Detroit and, ironically, Orange County, all on 25 goals. However, the conversion rate (as calculated by the league, which excludes blocked shots) is 10.9%, tied for 20th with El Paso, Monterey Bay and Pittsburgh, which is second-worst ahead of only Hartford. That last is good news for this coming weekend.

Shots on target overall is a fairly healthy 43.9% and goals to shots on target is 24.8%, which also seems pretty good. But compare that to the three teams ahead of the Legion in shots taken. First, there’s Louisville City, which is scoring like it’s going out of style. City’s conversion rate is 21.7%, shots on target is 50.8% and goals to shots on target is 42.6%. The Charleston Battery has ratios of 15.6%, 47.2% and 33.1% respectively. Rounding it out is Tampa Bay with 15.3%, 51.2% and 29.8%.

So the only one of these indicators in which the Legion can be considered competitive is shots on target. That’s not bad, but you have to convert, obviously. Even worse, the Legion is underperforming its xG. Per American Soccer Analysis, the team’s xG is 33.78, 6th best. Bear in mind that two of the team’s goals were own goals, so earned goals is over 10 below that.

xG for the Orange County game was 2.96, so the team was right on the mark there. Against New Mexico it was 2.98 and against Rhode Island it was 1.16. On an xG basis, the Legion should have beaten New Mexico 3-1 and tied with Rhode Island 1-1. 

One bit of good news: opponents’ xG for the Legion is 34.84, so the team has allowed 7 fewer goals than it should have. Also, 15 of the 28 goals allowed – more than half – were in just 4 games, including two against Lou City in which the Legion gave up 9 goals.

Which brings us more directly – after 750 words! – to the recent stretch of games.

The 3 goals given up against Rhode Island were, to put it mildly, rough. The first two should never have happened. On the first-minute goal Jake Rufe pulls out of a block that would have redirected Noah Fuson’s shot. The second is also partly due to Jake – Rhode Island stole the ball on a terrible pass attempt by Jake. It also didn’t help that Phanuel Kavita made a very half-hearted attempt to block Zach Herivaux’s shot. Herivaux’s late goal was the only one that was well-earned and Trevor Spangenberg did get a hand on it.

The Legion were on the back foot the entire game. Prosper’s goal was a thing of beauty, but it arose out of a fast counter by Dawson McCartney. That’s not how this Legion team plays best. It is a high-pressing squad. In the end the Three Sparks had 13 shots total and just 3 on target, both about 2 below average. It was, to say the least, an off game, but the Legion have had rather more than their share of those.

New Mexico – where the Legion brought our wonderful July weather with them, it seems – was rather the same in that the home team looked to be having a poor day. New Mexico ended up losing its perfect home record in the 1-1 draw and was relatively fortunate not to drop all 3 points. Enzo Martinez was ruled offside on a goal, probably correctly but by a very tight margin, and New Mexico keeper Alex Tambakis made some huge stops to keep the draw, in particular a late foot save on Preston Tabort Etaka who had him in a one-on-one.

This time the Legion, especially in the second half, were back to the high press. The wet conditions made the entire game pretty sluggish though, so the tactic was not as effective as under ideal circumstances. Still, the Legion racked up 20 shots to New Mexico’s 9, 8 of which were on target compared to 4. Tambakis made 7 saves total to just 2 by Trevor.

Which brings us to the Orange County game. OC came into this tilt having scored precisely 0 goals in its previous 2 road games (at New Mexico and Tampa Bay), so the odds were not in their favor. Moreover, they arrived with a squad hampered by injury, although the same is very true for the Legion.

Tommy Soehn was in fact forced to get very creative with his lineup. He ditched the 4-3-3 for the hoary old 4-2-3-1 and seriously mixed it up. Phanny was moved to right back and Derek Dodson to right wing. Youngster Ramiz Hamouda got another start – this time as defensive mid.  But Matt van Oekel was back on goal and Tyler Pasher was on the bench.

That formation is made for the high press (although it can handle mid and low blocks as well). 4 men up top can be hard to handle. The starting attack of Dawson, Enzo, Derek and Stefano Pinho had 52 duels as a group. The attacking subs – Prosper, Preston and Tyler – added another 12. All defensive players combined for 35 duels. Oddly, although there were no goals scored, the team pressed much higher in the first half. Here’s the heatmap:

The Legion playing left to right. In fact, OC was so pushed back that it took over 25 minutes for them to even get a shot in. The Three Sparks rather allowed them back into the game at that point, laying off the press a bit and it got a tad nervy for a while.

But Tommy had some tricks in his bag. He pulled Ramiz at half time and inserted Prosper, moving to essentially a 4-1-4-1 with Kobe Hernandez-Foster as the defensive single pivot. Even more aggressive, that is. It took just 6 minutes for the change to bear fruit. With Prosper pulling some of the defense to the right, that freed Dawson up some to exploit his speed and crossing ability, ultimately finding Stefano in the middle of the box.

Then AJ Paterson was forced to leave the game and Tommy really rolled the dice. Instead of a straight defensive replacement – which he couldn’t have done anyway with none on the bench – he put in Preston. Phanny moved to his normal centerback position and the Legion went with a slightly rearranged 3-man back line, in what was likely a 3-5-2 with Preston moving more central and Derek hung back more in a quasi-fullback role. Kobe stayed where he was so it really functioned as a 3-1-4-2. And then when Tyler came on…it became more like a 3-4-3. And a lethal one at that.

The Legion logged 20 shots for the second straight game, but 11 were on target this time. The conversion rate was 17.6%, way above the Legion’s average. OC had 11 with 4 on target, and only one of those was enough to trouble MVO in any way. A rout? well, sort of.

Stefano was a deserving Player of the Week (he got our Man of the Match honors as well), but less evident was the selection of Tommy as Coach of the Week. It was well-earned considering the difficulties he was working under. He also told me after the game that it was a lot harder than it looked.

Was this the Legion’s best home game this season? The Three Sparks had already put up a 3-0 win over San Antonio, but this felt like a much more satisfying affair. Besides, San Antonio are bad this year. With Hartford coming in there’s a good chance to top it. The Athletic have fallen off the cliff since beating the Legion in Week 2. They haven’t won since June 15th and have a game tonight so will be on short rest. This could be an excellent opportunity to solidify a high-scoring mentality.