Behind the Numbers: A Look Back at the Vancouver Whitecaps 2019 MLS Season Part II

The Vancouver Whitecaps dreadful 2019 campaign came to a conclusion on October 6^th. Shortly after, we had a look behind the numbers to see just how bad of a season it was. Spoiler alert: it was really bad. At the conclusion of that article I asked what statistics from this past season you were most curious to learn more about. You came up with some excellent suggestions. We now have a bit of a lull in the Caps news, so I thought I would pass along what I found.

One website that I rely on heavily to report statistics is WhoScored.com. Unfortunately, for the past few weeks, the website has been displaying an error when retrieving data.

I tried to wait it out but eventually I had to give up and move on to another source. Luckily, there are some great statistical resources available on Major League Soccer. One of the best, which we use often is AmericanSoccerAnalysis.com (ASA). As a result, the majority of the below statistics come from them. One final note, some of the headings they use can be a bit confusing, so I have also provided a link to their glossary just in case you wanted to know what the various abbreviations meant.

I attempted to organize the information a little bit below, but it didn’t come off as well as I wanted, so I apologize if below is a bit confusing. The first topic you asked me to investigate was corner kicks. I was unable to find information on corner kicks surrendered but I did find information on number taken each year, since their inaugural season in 2011. Below are shots for, shots against (presumably on corner kicks surrendered), goals for and against, and a myriad of ways to interpret that. Again, see the glossary. I could provide some commentary, but I am interested to hear what you think in the comments.

The next topic you asked me to explore was passing. Unfortunately, because of the WhoScored missing data issue I was unable to identify key passes, and compare them between seasons. However, I was able to explore your other question about passing in the attacking third. Again, thanks to ASA. To clarify, the graph below lists: passes attempted, percentage completed, expected percentage completed, total additional passes completed (per 100) than expected, average distance passes went forward (in yards), and all the same statistics for the opponent. To explain the average distance statistics better, it means what is the average distance, in yards, each pass went in the forward direction. For example, if you had one pass that went forward two yards and one pass that went backwards one yard, your average distance would be +0.5.

Again, I am interested to read what you see, but in general, we see that Caps attempted, about, the same number of passes in the attacking third as in previous years. They completed the greatest percentage of passes this season, but that was not any higher than expected. Translation, they completed a lot but many were low risk. The club’s distance passed is about the same in 2019 as in 2018, meaning they moved ‘forward’ about at the same (poor) rate as in 2018. What else do you see?

Finally, I wanted to examine possession, especially in the attacking third, but once again WhoScored.com got in the way of that desire! However, I did find information on goals and expected goals.

Overall, 2019 wasn’t bad. Well, it was in the shots statistic. 2019 saw the second least shots for while it saw the highest, by far, number of shots against. The Whitecaps allowed 681 shots in 2019. The second highest was in 2017, with 523. That is almost 150 shots more. YIKES! Despite the shots numbers, the Caps scored better than their expected goals - that’s right, it should have been worse! - and were right on-par with goals against; in fact slightly bettering the expected 56.6 goals compared to the 55 they allowed. But that is how I see it. What about you? What do these statistics say to you?