Tutul Rahman

a man sitting at a table with his hand on his chin ALT: a man sitting at a table with his hand on his chin

Me watching this CCC game.

Cavan & Iloski were the most dangerous players for the Union in the first half, so of course Carnell pulled Cavan at half.

This PHI-Club America game is helter skelter, and not in a good way.

Celtics are so good man, enjoy this run! East playoffs are gonna be a doozy which is fun to say.

OKC gives up 22.2 FTAs per game, so on average has +1.6 more FTAs per game. At 82% FT, this is worth +1.3 pts. They have +11pt differential per game.

Denver gives up 23.2 FTAs per game and on average has +2.6 more FTAs per game. At 80% FT, this is worth +2.1ppg. They have a +3.7pt differential pg.

OKC averages 23.8 FTs attempted per game this year. That's 14th in the league. Denver averages 26.2 FTs (4th).

MJ-Era, it wasn't the Bulls hunting the line (24.5 FTA/g), it was Malone & the Jazz (32.2)

Shaq/Kobe averaged 28.5 FTA in 2001, tops in the league but a lot of that was hack a Shaq.

Feels like an OK time to mention that the Guardian does not take ad money from sports betting companies and we just hired three of the best U.S. soccer journalists around.

It's an ELO based system that then provides a score for each club and then the score is average.

Actually MLS gets more penalized by the average and looks better at a top 10 view, because the league is so large (the size of 1st & 2nd tiers of a lot of country's)

Agree with point 1 & it's something all sports leagues around the world will need to address. It's not unique.

On point two, depending if you're looking at Opta or other sources, MLS is between the 10th-15th best league in the world, comparable to Turkish Super Lig and/or Dutch Eredivisie.

worst in MLS in all GKs. Atlanta's backline, GK and two holding mids are bad and worse yet, expensive. This is where you want classic MLS guys, league average players in your squad build. If Atlanta had that, (and they did but just traded them for GAM) they'd be miles better.

28) SKC. James, -0.67

McGuire and Ojeda as well, which is them dropping too deep. This is a result of a poor midfield and really poor backline. They desperately need pitch control to keep their most dangerous players up.

29) ATL. Jacob, -0.75. Largest minus is dribbling (-0.48). Actually the worst is Hoyos who ranks as

A "way too early" Weakest Link analysis thread, where we look at each MLS teams lowest rated player in G+ to see if we can diagnose the team's issue.

Starting from wooden spoon leaders.

30) ORL. Pasalic, -0.45. Lowest in Receiving (-0.2). All of their top attackers are negative there.

1/

G+ Leaders through MLS Week 3, per ASA

1) Messi, MIA +1.28
2) Dreyer, SD +1.16
3) Bouanga, LA +1.03
4) Tverskov, SD +0.80
5) Cuypers, CHI +0.78
6) de Paul, MIA +0.77
7) Klauss, LAG +0.73
8) Judd, SJ +0.68
9) Pec, LAG +0.67
10) Guilavogui, RSL +0.63

Long term view of MLS home field advantage across history from @eliotmckinley.com (a must follow).

The home field advantage decline happened starting 2015/16: which is when TAM was introduced. It allowed more aggressive teams to invest more, hence reducing a bit of parity.

Would that purple area where it starts to decline be around 2015 by chance? That was the roll out of TAM & since then owners who wanted to, have had increased mechanisms to invest in their squad

Round 2 of CCL starts on Tue. There are three MLS v Liga MX match ups:

San Diego v Toluca. SD hasn't given up a goal, TOL has won 5 straight

Cincinnati v Tigres. CIN lost to TFC at home. Tigres have lost 3 of last 5.

Philadelphia v Club America. PHI lost to SJ at home. CA have lost 3 of last 5.

I'll add another gripe of a young player not getting more burn (on top of Berchimas who scored again in MLS Next Pro) ... How is Cavan Sullivan not getting more minutes for the Union?

It makes no sense to me.

Has general home field advantage declined over time? Or is it about the same?

Armchair Analyst: Nashville's continuing evolution, NYCFC's catalyst & more from Matchday 3

Including a Miami team just throwing stuff at the wall & a Cincy side that looks lost both on and off the ball.

tacticsfreezone.ghost.io/nashvilles-c...

This is vintage Salloi.

I remember in my first ever MLS Trade Value ranking, I had Salloi up way too high, but he was doing this as a 20 year old back in 2018!

Through week 3, here are the three US teenagers that have multiple 8+ Fotmob rating games:

Gozo, 18, RM, RSL (2 games)

Mehmeti, 16, CM, RBNY (2 games)

Ferree, 19, GK, SD (2 games)

Tier 5: Cameo

Murrell, ST, 21, DC, 1
John, CM, 19, CLT, 1
Donovan, LM, 19, SKC

Baker-Whiting, LB, 20 NSH (6.2, 12)
Bartlett, CM, 20 SKC (6.2, 90)
Carrizo, RM, 18 NYC (6.1, 20)
Valenzuela, CM, 21 CIN (6.1, 63)
Hall, ST, 17 RBNY (6.0, 85)

Tier 4: Tough Day

Moisa, CM, 17 RSL (5.9, 45)
Mehmeti, CM, 17 RBNY (5.8, 90)
Reid-Brown, LB, 19, ORL (5.4, 45)
Miller, CB, 21, ORL (5.2, 90)

Tier 3: Good Experience Gained

Habroune, RM, 20, CLB (6.9, 90)
Tsakiris, AM, 20, SJ (6.7, 90)
Dos Santos, LB, 17 RBNY (6.7, 61)
Hopkins, AM, 21, DC (6.6, 82)
Brunell, RW, 18, SEA (6.5, 85)
Verhoeven, RB, 19, SD (6.5, 26)
Soma, CM, 19, SD (6.4, 64)
Sanchez, CM, 17, ATL (6.4, 59)

Tier 2: Excellent Outing

Hezarkhani, RW, 18, RSL (7.7, Goal, 63 min)
Izoita, CM, 18, POR (Goal, 90)
Johnson, LB, VAN (7.4, 90)
Bombino, RB, 19, SD (7.4, 64)
Westfield, RB, 20, PHI (7.3, 90)
Borso, RW, 19, CHI (7.1, 62)
Orozco, CB, 21, STL (7.1, 90)
Vazquez, CM, 20, SD (7.0, 26)

MLS US u22 Report, Match Week 3

Tier 1: Match Winner

Feeree, GK, 19, SD (8.2 Fotmob, Shutout, 3 saves, 0.55 xGOT saved, 4/6 long balls)

Gozo, RM, 18, RSL (8.0, Goal, 5 tackles, 6/14 duels won)

1/5

This is super super naive from the Red Bulls. But is often what happens when you implement an aggressively attack oriented style.

Long term I think RBNY is fine but Bradley has to play a midfield & if he doesn't trust the vets, they need more players he will trust.

I don't think these Mina & Mosquera subs are solving the issues that RBNY has experienced.

And it seems that Bradley really really doesn't rate Berggren, rather playing Ruvalcaba at the 8 instead.

Yeah definitely one of the top 3. But I think Cowell has been the most dangerous of the three so far.

But Berggren needs to come on for stability in the middle

That is really poor from Horvath and the 3 RB players who could've reached this