We still have 2 away-games left in the season, although we are eliminated from playoffs. Much worse than being eliminated, we finish last in the Western Conference. Strangely enough, even in 13th place we are currently closer to the playoff line in the West (10 points out), then the eliminated-8th place team in the East (13 points). Anyone who tells you the Western Conference is soft, works for USL HQ.
As we usually do towards the end- I started thinking about this season and where we could've been better. Obviously giving up late goals has haunted us for years, but this year seemed different. A few weeks ago Elder and I were talking in the stands about a stat in the Prem: “Points Dropped from Winning Position.” This seems to be largely ignored in American soccer, at least I couldn’t find it kept track of in the league or media.
So I wanted to quantify it. Note, I will never pretend to be any kind of statistician. I am a hack who knows how to string together a few formulas in Excel, and that is the extent of my ability.
That’s right, folks. Twenty-three points dropped. Twenty-three is more points than two Eastern teams earned the entire season. A slight wiggle room here for me, after doing all the work I figured out the Louisville draw we were never leading- but we had a draw and then conceded late to lose, so I’ll still count that as points dropped.
And there’s really no rhyme or reason to it. Sometimes we’re ahead early, sometimes we claw back a goal or two, only to give up more. We dropped 5 points to 2021 village bicycle Oakland Roots.
But it wasn’t all doom-and-gloom, only mostly. We also clawed back some points to force a win or draw. Altho almost always a draw.
On the other side of the coin, 15 points clawed back either from a losing position or a draw. But, look how many times we allowed goals in the first five minutes, to have to fight back for 85 minutes to earn a draw or win. Five games we allowed an early goal to either put us behind, or bring our opponent level.
Now with it all out there, I don’t want to come off as just a moaner, complaining about everything. But I think it illustrates where we have gaps and where we can get better. Primarily, everyone must be ‘switched on’ from the starting kick. Early mistakes made us work much harder just to get back to level and get the go-ahead.
On the other side, waning minute goals have killed us for years. It’s almost expected now in the supporter section to not celebrate too early- even in the 80’. Just hold onto your butts until the final whistle blows. We have to be able to retain those late-minute leads and close out games.
