Canada’s World Cup ends with loss to Morocco
Pulisic "feeling better" but availability for USA-Netherlands still unclear
Christian Pulisic is day-to-day with a pelvic contusion.
Sign up for The Daily Kickoff in your inbox! The Daily Kickoff is more than an article – it can be delivered to your email account as well.
On Wednesday we took a look at which players might be set up to take a jump forward in 2023 based on the chances they had to score that didn’t quite work out. But what about the guys who had everything go right? Here are some players who might be primed to take a step back next year. Even if that step back means they’ll just be good instead of really, really good.
Look, before everyone fires up the laminators, just remember you’re not mad at me, you’re mad at math. Somewhat subjective math, but still. According to that math, Driussi’s near MVP run (and a large part of Austin’s conference final run) had a bit of outside help from the soccer powers above. Driussi outscored the chances he had by the second-largest amount of any MLS player since 2013.
Keep in mind though, even if he had scored at the most average level possible relative to his chances, he would have had a 15-goal season. We’re still clearly talking about one of the best players in the league. But if he ends up with similar expected goal numbers next season, don’t be surprised if he’s more of a Best XI candidate than an MVP candidate. And maybe really, really don’t be surprised if Austin takes a step back in the standings in 2023. They were kind of collectively powered by magic this year.
Taking a look at these numbers is worth it just for this.
I know for a fact that the discussion around Ferreira’s finishing ability got so bad at one point that I wrote a whole Daily Kickoff section about it. People still think that a few scuffed shots mean he’s actually bad at this whole sport.
Well, he only went and outperformed the chances he found by the sixth-highest margin of any player since 2013. I almost hesitate to bring luck into this. It kind of seems like he scored well above his station out of pettiness – just powered by people saying goofy things on the internet.
Anyway, in most cases, the chances he found suggest his goal total this year would have been somewhere around 11 goals. Instead, he ended up with 18. For a young striker on a team that lacked aesthetic appeal in attack sometimes, finding that amount and quality of chances still represents a solid year. If a little spite got him a few more goals here and there, that’s probably ok.
Uhre is one of those players who didn’t find a ton of chances but found a lot of high-percentage chances. That’s not atypical for a team like Philly that lives off transition moments and direct play. Repeatedly finding one or two massive chances and nothing else each game can make the expected goals numbers a little noisy, the same way Luiz Araujo firing off 15 pot shots from 40 yards out each game can artificially inflate numbers.
On top of that, the Union just kind of had a stretch there in the middle of the season where they did whatever they wanted. And on top of that, they still have Julian Carranza and Daniel Gazdag around to do damage. Even if Uhre regresses to the mean a bit next season, I’m going to guess Philly will be alright.
Was the Brennersaince a lie?
Probably not, but it seems like it may have been a bit inflated by good fortune. Of course, it helps your assist numbers when you can deliver the ball to Brandon Vazquez and just have him do Brandon Vazquez things until the ball is in the net, and, of course, it helps to have Lucho Acosta put the ball on a platter for you in front of goal from time-to-time. But yeah, maybe a year that saw Brenner score 18 times and deliver six assists got a little boost from the soccer gods.
Even still, would you really have been upset if he ended the year with 13 goals and three assists in 22 starts? After his debut season, that would have still been seen as a leap forward. We’ll see if he can replicate a similar year in 2023, but you do kind of have to wonder if now is as good a time as ever for Cincy and Brenner to move on while the numbers are hot.
The league’s second-largest overperformance in assists goes to Diego Fagundez. Sebastian Lletget had the largest overperformance, but he underperformed when it came to goals, so we gave him a bit of a pass.
Meanwhile, Fagundez finished the year with six goals and 15 assists. 12 of those assists were primary assists, meaning Fagundez made the pass leading directly to a goal. Basically, if we ran Fagundez’s season through 1000 simulations and took his average totals, he would have finished closer to four goals and eight assists. That’s still solid. Just maybe not the Best XI caliber numbers he put up in 2022.
It helps to be passing the ball to the league’s leading overperformer in goals, Sebastian Driussi though. Did I mention Austin had a little magic in them this year?
New York Red Bulls sign defender Ofori to homegrown contract: The New York Red Bulls have signed defender Curtis Ofori to a three-year homegrown contract with an option for 2026. After spending the past two seasons with USL affiliate Red Bulls II, the 17-year-old becomes the 28th homegrown signing in franchise history.
- Kaylyn Kyle has your Canada player ratings.
- Travis Clark took a look at the most exciting youth players to watch at MLS NEXT fest.
Good luck out there. Here’s video of a dog with a giant soccer ball.
