MLS Goal Details 2009

Taken from the game guide pdfs on MLSnet. They appear each week, and also in the playoffs. For the non-playoff teams who played each other last week (NY-TOR, KC-DC), I've added in the stats myself. I'll say it again: MLS should really promote these stats as they are very detailed and interesting and just get buried in the game guides. Totals Goals 571 100.00% Right Foot 300 52.54% Left Foot 155 27.15% Headers 114 19.96% Other 2 0.35% Open Play 289 50.61% Cross 111 19.44% Corner 43 7.53% Rebound 24 4.20% Penalties 49 8.58% Direct From FK 18 3.15% FK (indirect) 19 3.33% Own goals 18 3.15% Inside Goal Area 152 26.62% Inside Penalty Area 339 59.37% Outside Penalty Area 80 14.01% Compared to Previous Years 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Right Foot 48.21% 56.62% 57.65% 57.72% 53.98% 52.54% Left Foot 32.65% 23.77% 26.64% 23.75% 26.90% 27.15% Headers 18.37% 18.15% 15.51% 17.57% 18.44% 19.96% Other 0.77% 1.45% 0.20% 0.97% 0.68% 0.35% Open Play 52.04% 51.72% 49.50% 47.30% 51.78% 50.61% Cross 21.43% 19.60% 18.09% 18.34% 18.61% 19.44% Corner 6.63% 6.53% 7.36% 8.11% 6.77% 7.53% Rebound N/A N/A 7.36% 7.14% 6.09% 4.20% Penalties 9.95% 9.07% 6.96% 9.07% 6.09% 8.58% Direct From FK 2.55% 3.45% 2.98% 3.09% 2.88% 3.15% FK (indirect) 5.36% 6.72% 5.57% 5.21% 5.08% 3.33% Own goals 2.04% 2.90% 2.19% 1.74% 2.71% 3.15% Inside Goal Area 26.79% 25.05% 26.84% 22.59% 21.15% 26.62% Inside Penalty Area 61.99% 60.80% 56.86% 62.16% 60.74% 59.37% Outside Penalty Area 11.22% 14.16% 16.30% 15.25% 18.10% 14.01% Team Breakdowns: Offense CHI CHV CLB COL DAL DC HOU KC LA NE NY RSL SEA SJ TOR Goals 39 34 41 42 50 43 39 33 36 33 27 43 38 36 37 Right Foot 16 21 18 25 31 28 18 13 16 17 18 22 22 11 24 Left Foot 15 9 10 10 9 8 11 15 11 6 6 14 12 15 4 Headers 7 3 13 7 10 7 10 5 9 10 3 7 4 10 9 Other 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Open Play 22 19 15 23 27 21 16 13 19 14 15 25 25 14 21 Cross 7 7 12 6 9 4 10 8 6 11 3 7 5 10 6 Corner 2 0 6 1 5 2 6 3 4 0 0 4 7 0 3 Rebound 0 2 1 4 0 2 0 2 1 1 3 1 1 2 4 Penalties 4 3 4 5 3 8 2 2 3 5 3 2 0 5 0 Direct From FK 1 0 2 2 2 2 2 2 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 FK (indirect) 1 1 1 0 3 3 3 1 1 1 1 0 0 2 1 Own goals 2 2 0 1 1 1 0 2 2 0 1 3 0 2 1 Inside Goal Area 4 10 11 10 14 8 16 16 9 8 8 7 14 9 8 Inside Penalty Area 29 20 28 25 24 29 16 9 21 22 15 33 21 23 24 Outside Penalty Area 6 4 2 7 12 6 7 8 6 3 4 3 3 4 5 Team Breakdowns: Defense CHI CHV CLB COL DAL DC HOU KC LA NE NY RSL SEA SJ TOR Goals 34 31 31 38 47 44 29 42 31 37 47 35 29 50 46 Right Foot 20 18 14 17 22 20 19 27 18 17 24 20 14 24 26 Left Foot 8 6 11 9 15 12 5 7 8 14 14 10 10 14 12 Headers 6 7 6 12 10 11 5 8 5 6 9 5 5 12 7 Other 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 Open Play 15 17 17 16 22 19 15 22 13 16 27 20 18 25 26 Cross 5 6 7 5 7 10 4 9 7 6 10 9 4 12 10 Corner 2 1 1 5 7 2 6 2 3 5 1 2 0 4 2 Rebound 2 1 2 3 2 2 0 3 2 0 3 2 2 1 0 Penalties 5 3 1 5 4 5 2 3 5 2 5 1 1 3 4 Direct From FK 2 1 2 1 2 1 0 1 1 3 1 0 0 1 2 FK (indirect) 2 1 0 3 0 3 2 2 0 1 0 1 1 2 1 Own goals 1 1 1 0 3 2 0 0 0 4 0 0 3 2 1 Inside Goal Area 7 10 6 10 15 12 6 13 13 12 10 10 7 13 9 Inside Penalty Area 20 17 20 25 26 28 19 22 14 17 29 18 19 33 31 Outside Penalty Area 7 4 5 3 6 4 4 7 4 8 8 7 3 4 6 If you're looking at this really carefully, you may notice an error. For offense, there are 289 open play goals and 24 rebounds, as well as 152 inside goal area and 339 inside penalty area. For defense, the numbers are 288-25 and 153-338. I checked, and it's not from any of the non-playoff teams that I manually added. Maybe at a later date I'll go through each week's game guides to find the error...not now. Some interesting things to point out: Corner kick goals. For the past four seasons, the MLS Cup winner has been in the top three percentage wise. Here's this year's breakdown: Corners Goals PCT 1 SEA 167 7 4.19% 2 CLB 144 6 4.17% 2 HOU 144 6 4.17% 4 DAL 146 5 3.42% 5 LA 138 4 2.90% 6 RSL 160 4 2.50% 7 TOR 129 3 2.33% 8 KC 157 3 1.91% 9 DC 127 2 1.57% 10 CHI 183 2 1.09% 11 COL 134 1 0.75% 12 CHV 129 0 0.00% 12 NE 118 0 0.00% 12 NY 135 0 0.00% 12 SJ 157 0 0.00% Total 2168 43 1.98% The total PCT of 1.98% is lower this year: Corners Goals PCT 2009 2168 43 1.98% 2008 1980 40 2.02% 2007 1826 42 2.30% 2006 1751 37 2.11% 2005 1776 36 2.03% 2004 1554 26 1.67% Of course, keep in mind that due to the way MLS counts things, there are actually more goals scored off corners. I believe that if a corner is sent in and headed on goal, parried by the keeper back to an attacker who then puts in home, that would count as a rebound goal rather than a corner goal. And Blanco's corner vs CHV last week would go down as an own goal, because that's a separate category. Stuff that jumped out at me: KC and SJ were the only teams with more left-footed goals than right-footed. LA only allowed 13 goals from "open play," the fewest in the league. DAL led the league by far in goals scored outside the area. CLB was last. CLB had the most goals with the head, and also lead the league in goals from crosses. They were right among the leaders in corner goals as well. SEA didn't allowed a goal off a corner all year. I would include "defensive corner" percentages, but I have no way of easily getting corners against stats without going through all the match reports. HOU and KC had the highest rates of goals scored "inside goal area," which means the six-yard box. CHI and NE both were at the top of goals against from outside the area. Will we see any long distance bombs in their series? NE gave away 4 own goals this year, the most in any year so far (2004-09). See anything else interesting? Further Reading 2008 Goal Details 2007 Goal Details