July 29: The forgotten CMs

No closer look today because I couldn't come up with a topic and didn't feel like waffling. I'm still figuring out the format of this newsletter, but I imagine there will be weeks where it's just the rundown. To make up for it, I've added some extra reading links at the bottom in case you're left wanting more soccer words.

The rundown

(in no particular order)

MLS owners are expected to consider a new proposal that could reshape the league's complicated roster rules and regulations, per The Athletic. As a roster sicko myself, I would say that I don't actually think the rules are as bad as many make them out to be. Are they very confusing? Yes. But also like... try explaining English and European FFP rules succinctly. No set of regulations meant to enforce sustainable or equitable spending is going to be easy to understand. Of course, that being said, there are certainly plenty of ways that the cap and roster rules could be reformed. I'll leave those ideas to the real pros like Arman Kafai, who wrote a whole piece yesterday outlining what a new set of rules could (and should) look like.

In other salary-related news, the USL Super League and USL Players Association announced last week that they had reached a tentative agreement for a new CBA that would set a minimum salary floor of $37,200 as well as guaranteed housing benefits and insurance premiums. The league did not previously have a CBA with its players. This is pretty huge for a few reasons. First, the USL is notoriously not super great about negotiating CBAs with its unions, and second, the rules should provide more stability for players playing outside of the NWSL. The Gainbridge Super League is, in fact, a division one league in the eyes of US Soccer, and their players deserve to be treated accordingly. Additionally, with the folding of Spokane Zephyr earlier this year that left players blindsided, having these guarantees in place should hopefully assuage fears regarding the league's sustainability and player protections.

Opta have updated their league and club power rankings to incorporate xG into the model's calculations. While xG is not available for all competitions, when it is available, it is used to adjust the weighting of a given scoreline on each team's elo. Essentially, if a team lost but underperformed their xG significantly, the model will know that and adjust up to 20% of the elo calculation to account for the team's underperformance.

Ryan O'Hanlon wrote a great piece dissecting Spain's dominance at the World Cup in which he argued that midfield talent has been the most important predictor of a team's WC success for the last 20 years. I agree with a lot of what he has to say, and I think that his point about thinking in goal probability is interesting. O'Hanlon writes, "The way we've come to understand value in the sport is in terms of goal probability: How much does something decrease a team's chances of conceding and increase a team's chances of scoring? And when you see the game this way, most of what happens in the middle of the field almost starts to look like, well, a waste of time." If we look at MLS, for example, just three true central midfielders rank in the top 50 players by g+ above average per 96 minutes: Rodrigo De Paul at #5, Alonso Coello at #39, and Jeppe Tverskov at #41. There are a handful of attacking midfielders in that list, but all are classic No. 10s. The list isn't just filled with attackers either — there are seven FBs and eight CBs in the top 50 (that's 30%). Last season, there were four CMs in the top 50. So, it seems that O'Hanlon is right; possession value models fail to fully capture a CMs value to a team. Is that because a midfield is often more than the sum of its parts? Should the models be adjusted? Should we reconsider how we think about midfielders to begin with? I don't have the answers to these questions, but I think that there is a lot of interesting discussion to be had here. If anyone has any further thoughts or resources on CMs and EPV models, let me know.

Not one, not two, but three different podcasts with NWSL club decision makers dropped this week. First, the great Evan and Eric over at Expected Own Goals recorded a podcast with Edward Gallagher, Boston Legacy's Director of Recruitment, and then released another episode shortly after with Boston's Director of Analytics, Jordyn Kaplan. I've yet to listen to both episodes in full, but these kinds of interviews are rare to come across and often 100% worth the listen. It's not every day you get a peek into the behind-the-scenes of a professional, analytics-driven club atmosphere, so when you do get those opportunities, you have to seize them. James Hocken, Washington Spirit's Sporting Director and former Head of Data Analytics was also on the Hey Spirits podcast this week, and I highly recommend giving that episode a listen. James is an incredibly smart person and the process that has been built at the Spirit is perhaps unrivaled across the NWSL.

Extra reading:

Sunday League Stats

Get Goalside

Expecting Goals

Me for Sounder At Heart

Me for The Guardian