{"id":333849,"date":"2025-12-07T23:32:23","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T23:32:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/uncategorized\/the-mls-journey-so-far-eastern-conference-american-soccer-analysis\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T23:32:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T23:32:23","slug":"the-mls-journey-so-far-eastern-conference-american-soccer-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=333849","title":{"rendered":"The MLS Journey So Far\u2026 Eastern Conference \u2014 American Soccer Analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-sqsp-text-block-content=\"\">\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Who else did you expect here? Messi is 38 and of course he\u2019s still a very special player, blah blah blah. \u201chE iS oNe thAt StiLl deFiNeS tHe sPoRt and oh&#8230; my god, that\u2019s so boring. He\u2019s great. We get it. You know it. We don\u2019t need advanced data to see or know that. Dude has been doing it for 20+ years.\u00a0 Whatever.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The most bullshit thing of all is before 2020, no one had put up a greater than 0.28 Net g+\/96 season. That was by Ibrahimovic in 2019 who tied Robbie Keane\u2019s 2014 record. Since arriving, Messi has broken that twice. Last year with 0.32 and this year now with 0.51(!!!).\u00a0When I said he was breaking our G+ stat. He\u2019s legitimately BREAKING. IT. It\u2019s screaming. Messi is killing ASA. I know it\u2019s cliche, but I cannot express the degree to which being 0.51 goals better than the average attacker is insane. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">An aside: one goal of goal difference is worth about 0.6 points in MLS, so you can call that 0.2 wins (a win is 3 points, if you\u2019re new around here). So Messi\u2019s 0.51 goals added above average per game would be the equivalent of being 0.2 WAR per game better than the average MLB player (0.02 WAR per game). Messi would have a WAR of 35. That\u2019d be triple the best season of Babe Ruth\u2019s career. If basketball is your game, Messi is adding 25% of the goals per match (three goals per game in soccer, 0.75 raw goals added). The average NBA game has about 230 points. Messi is averaging 58 points per game. He is a Monstar. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\"><span style=\"text-decoration:underline\"><strong>Goal for the Rest of the Season:<\/strong><\/span> \u00a0Someone besides Messi, do something\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">I mention that Messi is 38 and also mentioned how schedule congestion is about to catch up with Miami, it\u2019s a great time to now mention father time is undefeated (did you hear the page ripping when I tore it out of Matt Doyle\u2019s playbook?) and they\u2019re going to need to find time for Messi to catch a breather at some point. He\u2019s already playing more minutes (2400) this year for Inter Miami than his first two seasons, that plus he the Leagues Cup (280) and Club World Cup (360) minutes too.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">He\u2019s not going to suddenly turn to dust and be bad but at a certain point in time you\u2019re going to have to protect your greatest player from himself. That begs the question, who could and will step up. You\u2019re not going to just replace him through the aggregate (there is one for the friends playing bingo in the comments) but I do think they\u2019re going to need someone who is going to either help create and keep the high level creation or find a way to limit how many extra chances are being created.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Guys like Yannick Bright, who hasn\u2019t had the greatest offensive g+ with passing and possession but has interesting defensive g+ numbers. There is also your starting CB pair of Maxi Falc\u00f3n, Gonzalo Lujan, who both had potential coming into this season and have moments but need to elevate their game&#8230; oh, yeah, and Benjamin Crem&#8212;-oh, bummer. Well, nevermind.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">But the biggest \u201cdo something\u201d has to be Rodrigo De Paul. The \u201cfourth\u201d Designated Player for Miami and arguably the biggest summer grab in the league. He\u2019s only 31 and has the skills to come in to help Miami create goals without Messi and be the leader of this team on the field when Messi isn\u2019t there. That may be a huge ask of a new player adjusting to both a new team, a new league and a new country but not as large of an ask as me not typing Rodolfo Pizarro multiple times before correcting myself and typing Rodrigo De Paul. Maybe a Freudian slip,\u00a0 maybe not.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">5. Orlando City\u00a0<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Who else did you expect here? Messi is 38 and of course he\u2019s still a very special player, blah blah blah. \u201chE iS oNe thAt StiLl deFiNeS tHe sPoRt and oh&#8230; my god, that\u2019s so boring. He\u2019s great. We get it. You know it. We don\u2019t need advanced data to see or know that. Dude [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":333850,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[204,10990,7908,12754,6967,32185,2524],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-333849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american","tag-analysis","tag-conference","tag-eastern","tag-journey","tag-mls","tag-soccer"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The MLS Journey So Far\u2026 Eastern Conference \u2014 American Soccer Analysis - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=333849\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The MLS Journey So Far\u2026 Eastern Conference \u2014 American Soccer Analysis - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Who else did you expect here? Messi is 38 and of course he\u2019s still a very special player, blah blah blah. \u201chE iS oNe thAt StiLl deFiNeS tHe sPoRt and oh&#8230; my god, that\u2019s so boring. He\u2019s great. We get it. You know it. We don\u2019t need advanced data to see or know that. 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