Concussion

A great trailer of an upcoming sequel documentary to "Head Games."  The new film debuts today at NYU, where much cutting edge concussion research is being done.

http://headgamesthefilm.com/global/

Save % Analysis - Part II

Mignolade, part II

Stinkin' Lousy Players...

Part I of this mini-series illustrated some remarkable differences in goalkeeping stats between EPL GKs and NCAA GKs.  In men's NCAA DIII we saw that 141 GKs posted save percentages higher than Petr Cech, David De Gea, Joe Hart, Simon Mignolet, Tim Howard, Brad Guzan and basically every other starting GK in the EPL in 2012-13.  Something doesn't mesh there.  Here we'll try to parse out why college GKs appear to have greater success relative to their pro counterparts, and what that says about the other 20 players on the field.

To bring this down to the youth level, this post tracked the number of shots and passes attempted by my U13 boys team...37 shots led to 5 goals.  This was in a mere 40 minutes of indoor play, but all the same, at that rate we'd have taken just over 83 shots in a 90 minute game!  Without getting into shot conversion rates (and that was pretty interesting stuff- read the post for more) the main theory is that young kids play in way too big a rush.  Which is mostly OK; the problem is we don't see a lot of college teams behaving that differently from my U13s.

EPL teams put 1/3 of their shots on target- 1,961 on goal out of 5,891 attempts (33%) through 22 matches this year.  10% of all shots end up in goal in the EPL (a number proven steady over many years, and first noted by one of soccer's earliest and most notorious statisticians, Charles Reep).  Interestingly, as you'll see below, college teams at all levels and both genders convert about 10% of all attempts at goal, too.

Cold Weather Soccer

Hide And Seek

Find the ball's location in the photos below.  Determine which team is in possession and describe as completely as possible why you feel the ball is in the location you think it is.

Solutions are located under the "Photos" tab at the top of the blog.

Save Percentage Analysis - Part I

Mignolet's Slump-
Making Lemonade From Lemons

(Mignolade?)

In the never-ending search for intersections of useful data and applications to improve the game, some recent events have prompted the thoughts below.

I was reading Whoscored's nice piece on Mignolet's troubles as late which used this graphic (left) to show his form over the course of this season.

TOP TEN in Save Percentage BPL 2012-13
Image taken from Barriesview.com

28 Goals Against...1.27 GAA and 3 errors leading to goals in the past five games.  Not terribly impressive numbers and worrying for any Liverpool fan.  However, if we dig a little deeper we see that his save percentage is on track for his fine run of form over last season (which saw him finish in the top ten in save percentage).  So what gives?  We have to accept that even good GKs have stretches where they hurt their own cause (see De Gea/Hart the past couple years) but they typically bounce back. Mignolet ought to follow that pattern. This may all be a tempest in a teacup; Mignolet is legit, and so long as his coaches support him and he has good resilience, he'll be back at the top of the current class of GKs in short order.

So what's the connection between Mignolet and lousy offenses in NCAA Division III?  In looking at his stats, something jumped out at me.  For being such a talented guy, Mignolet's save percentage seemed low at 73%...which got me to looking into other BPL GKs numbers which showed me that save % in the EPL is surprising low across the board.  And then, inevitably, I had to ask what the numbers would show at the level at which I work in Division III.