Last matchday of the 2023 regular season! As always, all the below numbers are as per TruMedia via StatsPerform unless otherwise noted.
Let’s dive in:
Charlotte FC vs. Inter Miami CF
- WATCH: Apple TV - MLS Season Pass | Saturday, 6 pm ET
In game No. 1 of this home-and-home, Charlotte – as has been their wont all season – dropped points after taking a lead. The xG race chart tells the whole story of a team that does not know how to protect any sort of advantage:
They now need to win and get some help in order to make the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs.
FC Cincinnati vs. Atlanta United
- WATCH: Apple TV - Free | Saturday, 6 pm ET
Cincy playmaker Luciano Acosta leads the league with 29 goal contributions (16g/13a). Atlanta playmaker Thiago Almada is second with 28 (11g/17a).
That’s pretty fair – I think they’ve been the two most consistent attacking threats in the league all year long.
Columbus Crew vs. CF Montréal
- WATCH: Apple TV - Free | Saturday, 6 pm ET
The Crew enter the weekend having had 57% possession and will finish first in that stat unless something completely bizarre happens.
Montréal are 19th at 48.6%, which is a significant drop from last year’s 55.2% under Wilfried Nancy (who’s now Columbus' head coach, of course).
New York City FC vs. Chicago Fire FC
- WATCH: Apple TV - MLS Season Pass | Saturday, 6 pm ET
The Pigeons held onto their playoff lives by a thread thanks to Miami’s comeback 2-2 draw vs. Charlotte on Wednesday. NYCFC need to win and get a ton of help in order to keep their playoff streak alive.
The Fire… are who they are. They’ve got 39 goals on 37.2 xG this year, and have allowed 50 on 50.2 xG faced. They’re 4W-9L-3D away from home, and have probably got to get a win and some help to make the postseason for the first time since 2017.
Nashville SC vs. New York Red Bulls
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Nashville are the definitive “trade field position for space to attack into” team in MLS, as their league-low 40.9% field tilt (share of final third passes they hit) can attest.
RBNY remain the definitive “trade possession for field position” team in MLS, as they’re 27th in touches, 24th in possession and dead last in passing accuracy, but are actually fourth in field tilt.
New England Revolution vs. Philadelphia Union
- WATCH: Apple TV - Free | Saturday, 6 pm ET
The Revs have won once in six games under interim manager Clint Peay, and have won the xG battle just once (and only fractionally) in that span. They have been sinking.
The Union aren’t precisely soaring, but they’ve only lost once since Leagues Cup – and man did they need the two weeks off they just got. My guess is they’ll look fresh for the first time in months.
Toronto FC vs. Orlando City SC
- WATCH: Apple TV - Free | Saturday, 6 pm ET
This is what TFC fans will be hoping for now that John Herdman is finally taking over:
Did Canada get kind of lucky in World Cup qualifying? Absolutely. But that luck only propelled them from the second-best team in the region to the first – it’s not like they were exclusively riding some unsustainable hot streak (even if the wheels came off in the World Cup proper). They played good ball, and TFC haven’t seen much of that for years.
Orlando City, obviously, have seen plenty of good ball this year. A lot of that comes from rookie center forward Duncan McGuire, and while I am the captain of that particular hype train, his xG is more than doubling his non-penalty xG:
I think that’s noise – the kid scored again this past week, this time for the US U-23s as they clubbed Japan 4-1 – and his nose for goal keeps scaling.
But there’s at least a little bit of a red flag here.
Colorado Rapids vs. Real Salt Lake
- WATCH: Apple TV - Free | Saturday, 9 pm ET
The Rapids tried to be a possession team to start the year, but weren’t good at it. And now they’ve settled into a low block-and-counter 4-2-3-1, which suits them. They’ve completed the second-fewest passes ending in the attacking third of any team in the league, ahead of only Nashville.
RSL’s game model: They hit more long balls than anyone in the league, and switch fields way more often than anyone else – and have continued to do so without Pablo Ruiz.
Sporting Kansas City vs. Minnesota United FC
- WATCH: Apple TV - MLS Season Pass | Saturday, 9 pm ET
The last time we saw the Loons, Teemu Pukki was bagging a poker vs. the Galaxy’s hapless defense. He’s now got nine goals in a shade over 1,000 regular-season minutes and is overperforming his xG by 0.37 goals per 90 – an absurd number that is unsustainable even with Emanuel Reynoso feeding him.
Sporting KC’s Alan Pulido is also overperforming by a significant amount, as he’s scoring 0.58 goals per 90 on 0.38 xG per 90.
LA Galaxy vs. FC Dallas
- WATCH: Apple TV - MLS Season Pass | Saturday, 9 pm ET
The resistible force: Dallas' ponderousness with the ball (direct speed of 1.25 meters/second, which is 25th in MLS) has made it hard for them to exploit any disorganized defense they come up against. This came to a head this past weekend vs. Colorado.
The moveable object: The Galaxy’s emphasis on possession (third in the league at 55.1%) has often left them exposed in transition.
Portland Timbers vs. Houston Dynamo FC
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Key to Portland’s turnaround under interim coach Miles Joseph has been defending a lot higher (their average passing sequence now starts 49.2 meters from goal, which is second in the league; under Gio Savarese they were mid-table at 45.8 meters) and being a lot more patient (an average sequence time of 8.6 seconds under Joseph, but just 6.9 seconds under Gio).
Houston have been on a similar tack, though obviously without the coaching change. From February to mid-July, when Leagues Cup started, they were 12th in possession at 50.1%. Since then they’re up to sixth in the league at 55% as they’ve leaned into that midfield identity.
San Jose Earthquakes vs. Austin FC
- WATCH: Apple TV - MLS Season Pass | Saturday, 9 pm ET
One stat that distills San Jose’s attacking struggles this year is American Soccer Analysis’s “goals added” metric, and in particular I’m going to drill down on No. 9 Jeremy Ebobisse’s “receiving” value:
In 2022 Ebobisse was +1.06, which wasn’t elite but at least spoke to the fact he was getting enough touches and looks in and around this box.
In 2023 his receiving value is -1.08, which is in the bottom third of the league among strikers. He’s still the same player he was in 2022, but the Quakes move the ball so slowly and imprecisely that he’s just not getting enough looks.
On the other side, Sebastián Driussi’s seen his receiving G+ number drop as well, from +1.44 in 2022 to just +0.44 this season.
“Get your goalscorers the ball in spots where they can score goals” is the name of the game, and both these teams have mostly failed at it in 2023.
St. Louis CITY SC vs. Seattle Sounders FC
- WATCH: Apple TV - Free | Saturday, 9 pm ET
A contrast in styles, featuring the league’s most direct team vs. one of the most methodical. There are lots of numbers to back this up, so I’m going down the list a bit to pull one out: St. Louis are dead last in passes received in the middle third of the pitch – by a mile – at 4,069.
Seattle are second in the league at 7,400. These teams, first and third in the West, could not be more dissimilar.
Vancouver Whitecaps FC vs. LAFC
- WATCH: Apple TV - Free | Saturday, 9 pm ET
The underlying numbers have these as two of the best teams in the league, as Vancouver are fifth in expected goal differential and LAFC are actually first overall, just ahead of Cincy.
Both teams are in form. Should be a great one with playoff seeding on the line.
