USA, World Cup Readings

Before getting to the Champions League Final pairing of Bayern Munich and Inter Milan at another date, here are some links and discussion of some reading on the US team and the World Cup to be found on ESPN Soccernet and elsewhere.

They’ve been running a series of features, one series called “World Cup 101 – 101 features in 101 days.”

ESPN’s been using a lot of statistical analysis in its pieces, such as today’s piece on the percentage likelihood of each team’s advancement from the USA-England group.

Maybe what surprised me the most from the article was finding out that according to ESPN’s Soccer Power Index (SPI), the US has the 9th rated attack, whereas only the 34th rated defense. I’m pretty sure it would take you all of 1.2 seconds to name 10 teams with better attacks than the US. I don't even need to list them.

The weaker defense however actually shouldn’t be too surprising. Aside from goalie, the left back spot is always shaky, while injuries and inconsistency among the center back pairings haven’t helped either.

Still, some of the statistical analyses can be interesting, such as an examination of how the goals per game in the European leagues the year of a World Cup predict an increase or decrease in goals per game during the World Cup from previous years. (This year… look for more goal scoring than in past low years, but nothing close to historical highs. Old school defending just not exactly high quality.) Other articles range from highlighting players that could see a post-World Cup boost in transfer value, and why the cooler weather could lead to a more exciting Cup.

Another interesting series of reads has been a best XI of position players. Always fodder to argue who the top 11 attacking or defensive midfielders have been.

Lastly, as time is running out for players to make their way onto the World Cup, there are a few questionable spots left on the potential US roster and there have been a variety of articles from experts on those who are in or out. Unfortunately there aren’t many forwards worthy of being in.

If there was something close to a consensus on the roster, it would look like this:

Goalkeeper (3): Tim Howard, Marcus Hahnemann, Brad Guzan
Defense (8): Jonathan Spector, Steve Cherundolo, Oguchi Onyewu, Carlos Bocanegra, Jay DeMerit, Clarence Goodson, Jonathan Bornstein , Heath Pearce
Midfield (9): Clint Dempsey, Stuart Holden, Michael Bradley, Ricardo Clark, Maurice Edu, Benny Feilhaber Landon Donovan, Jose Torres, Alejandro Bedoya
Forwards (3): Jozy Altidore and two of Brian Ching, Herculez Gomes, Charlie Davies or Edson Buddle

As you can see, picking Bedoya as the midfield wild card over DaMarcus Beasley is the only non-forward tough choice, and even then that spot is available only because Robbie Rogers hasn’t improved and there’s room for an extra midfielder because Dempsey and Donovan can play up top. I won’t presume between picking the forwards because there’s still a lot to be seen in terms of Ching’s and Davies’ injury recoveries.

Also, I’d like to remind everyone clamoring for Gomez, who was joint top scoring in the Mexican first division, that he was the top scorer in the Mexican first division, not exactly the Serie A of tactical defenses. Nonetheless I’d still take him because he’s on form and confident, something in short supply in the US camp. Here’s where I start praying that Davies can return to a semblance of his former self…

Soccer Power Index

What would the world be without ESPN? Even with a sport like soccer, which ESPN does not often feature, though it is doing so increasingly, they can be trusted to provide us with more than just table scraps. Today's unveiling: the Soccer Power Index, a power rankings for national teams.

The Soccer Power Index, or SPI, is a power ranking of not just how a team has performed, but according to ESPN it is an objective measure of a team's current overall skill level and the SPI ratings are intended to be forward-looking so as to measure a team's relative likelihood of victory if a competitive match were to be held tomorrow.

The formula for devising the ratings is explained in detail here. A more layman's explanation of the purpose of the SPI is provided here.

Though the formula for the ratings is complicated, it's not arbitrary and convoluted; it makes sense. I won't go into detail explaining the system, but anyone knowledgeable about soccer would agree with how ESPN determines much of the formula. There is a lot of adjusting going on because in soccer, unlike most sports, who and where you play make a huge difference, and the ratings are not meant to rank past performance but predict future performance.

Home field advantage is much more important in soccer than in any other sport. Undeniably so. And goals for/against must be adjusted for competitiveness - not just the opposing team (Australia beating American Samoa 31-0 is really like a 4-1 victory between average teams) but also for the particular lineup of both teams. Makes sense that a victory over a B team is not as impressive as a win against a ful strength squad. Similarly, we know that a victory in CONMEBOL qualifying is worth more than a CONCACAF victory, and a Confederations Cup victory is more impressive than a Gold Cup victory. Interestingly, the ratings also use club results as a factor. So every time Barca crush someone via goals by Ibra and Messi from Iniesta assists, Sweden, Argentina, and Spain all benefit. Makes sense if you're evaluating current skill level. And even those numbers are adjusted to take into account the performance within the greater team - soccer is truly the most team oriented sport. The end result is a rating of a team's current skill and competitiveness level.

Though not shown in the ratings explicitly, the SPI formula essentially creates rough equivalencies between national teams and club teams. So Brazil = Barca, Germany = Chelsea (shocking comparison, I know), Sweden = Tottenham (about right), Bolivia = Sunderland (a little generous for Bolivia I think) and Tanzania = Derby County. Who is the USMNT equivalent? FC Porto. Style notwithstanding, the place in the larger order of giants of world football seems about right: dominant in their league/region, can spring upsets against any team in the world, can even advance from group stages and possibly another upset beyond, but not expected to win the whole thing (or really even be a semi-finals level team) - applies pretty well to both I'd say.

So what about the actual ratings? Brazil and Spain are 1-2. Can't argue there. England as no.3? Hmmm. But when you examine their qualifying results, the skill level and how they've played under Capello, I see why they're high, though this is the one of the teams that the SPI seems to have gotten clearly wrong in my eyes. I'd have them closer to 7 or 8.

The full top 25:

1. Brazil, 2. Spain, 3. England, 4. Netherlands, 5. Argentina, 6. Germany, 7. Portugal, 8. Chile, 9. France, 10. Uruguay, 11. Ivory Coast, 12. Italy, 13. Russia, 14. USA, 15. Serbia, 16. Cameroon, 17. Paraguay, 18. Mexico, 19. Croatia, 20. Ukraine, 21. Denmark, 22. Honduras, 23. Sweden, 24. Australia, 25. Czech Republic.

Some people might say the US is a little high, but really, this is about right. The USA is better than Mexico and Honduras obviously, and has beaten Sweden twice relatively recently. Maybe Serbia, Cameroon, and Croatia all have talents well above the US (players like Nemanja Vidic, Samuel Eto'o, Ivica Olić, and Luka Modrić) and I wouldn't argue if they were rated higher than the US, but as a team you'd have to say that a match between any of the four would probably be pretty close, with home field advantage or neutral field playing a big role in who gets the advantage that particular game.

The SPI ratings are also much better than FIFA's rankings. The US is not the 11th best team in the world, but 14 is a little more appropriate. Chile (17th in the FIFA rankings), Uruguay (25?!), Ivory Coast (19?!), and Serbia (20) are all given their proper due in the SPI, while Italy is rightfully dropped eight spots. Croatia may have a gripe, dropping from 8 to 19 between the two polls. But they also only finished third in their qualifying group behind England and Ukraine, only above superpowers Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Andorra. I also like how the SPI righted the fact that FIFA has Switzerland and Greece in the top 16 (absolutely no way) and Bosnia makes a significant jump from FIFA's ranking of 42 to 29 (as I've been telling people, Portugal has to watch out, especially with Ronaldo ruled out of their playoff tie).

Anyway, it's nice to see a ratings system like this that uses advanced statistical analysis and takes into account the unique factors of soccer without just giving credit to teams for beating up on lower opposition (BCS...). Plus, it's always fun to have one more thing to debate.