CTL on MLSsoccer.com: How bad a red card hurts

This week's column: Climbing the Ladder: How bad a red card hurts How many goals per 90 will it cost your team to go down a man? And I already realized that I missed the RSL-Columbus series for the article's second point, about drawing the away leg of the CCL first. Doh. Previous Columns March 9 - Champs usually start hot March 16 - Home-field advantage March 23 - Hidden milestones of Week 1 April 1 - Playing percentages by nationality April 6 - Dixon and the Name Game April 13 - Winning PK shootouts April 20 - How MLS teams rank by age

MLS 2009: Red Card Data & Situational Goal Differences

Did you notice the stat ESPN gave about David Beckham on the MLS Cup broadcast last night? I sure did. They noted that the Galaxy's goal differential was +10 when he was on the field during the 2009 season. The team as a whole was only +5, though I don't recall if the ESPN stat was for regular season only or not (EDIT: It included the playoffs as well, he was +7 for the regular season). Plus/minus is a stat that has been used in hockey for a long time, and it's starting to pick up steam in basketball as well. It's come up from time to time on soccer sites as well, but not too much. I'm planning to look into the plus/minus data for each player MLS in 2009, and one thing I needed to deal with are the red cards. That's why this summer I went through MLS history and figured out all the necessary red card data, with the view of possibly looking at all seasons at some point. Also, I want to use only full strength, 11 on 11 situations for the analysis. I'm also going to adjust for each team's goal difference, so each player will be compared to the average for the team (I'll post the non-adjusted number as well). Players will also have their playing time taken into account, like I did with the MLS Team Ages post. But this post isn't about plus/minus. I mentioned having to get the red card data for 2009, and I've done that. So while I've yet to figure out the plus/minus, I have some interesting stuff to post: I wanted to show how teams have done this year with their goal differences, and not just the normal ones seen on MLSnet. How does their GD look when you take out all non-full strength situations? First, let's look at the historical red card numbers for the entire league (which I believe I didn't actually post in my previous look on the subject). All data in this post is regular season only: MLS Red Cards Per Game, 1996-2009 Reds Games Per Game 1996 29 160 0.181 1997 37 160 0.231 1998 60 192 0.313 1999 54 192 0.281 2000 54 192 0.281 2001 45 158 0.285 2002 44 140 0.314 2003 38 150 0.253 2004 35 150 0.233 2005 42 192 0.219 2006 44 192 0.229 2007 54 195 0.277 2008 59 210 0.281 2009 81 225 0.360 Total 676 2508 0.270 Yes, 2009 had the highest sending off rate in league history. MLS is missing two red cards in their historical data the last time I checked, both in 1997. I've added both. Also, MLS has sometimes counted in their MLSnet statistics red cards given to coaches. I don't count those, only ones given to players. Reds given to players on the bench or after the final whistle are counted, however. Four such cards are included in the 2009 data below (though they don't impact the minutes at all). Now let's look at this past year. How many did each team get, and what about the minutes played in each situation? 2009 MLS Red Cards & Situational Minutes Played For Against 11v11 10v10 1 up 1 down 2 up 2 down CHI 4 6 2460 31 116 93 0 0 CHV 7 9 2386 29 153 125 7 0 CLB 7 3 2544 8 7 141 0 0 COL 2 9 2467 0 190 37 6 0 DAL 5 6 2472 2 63 163 0 0 DC 4 3 2611 0 44 45 0 0 HOU 8 7 2380 62 167 91 0 0 KC 6 10 2171 0 467 55 0 7 LA 7 7 2382 11 139 168 0 0 NE 4 6 2448 21 105 126 0 0 NY 8 3 2370 1 76 253 0 0 RSL 7 5 2388 53 59 200 0 0 SEA 8 4 2376 34 94 196 0 0 SJ 1 2 2621 0 70 9 0 0 TOR 3 1 2646 0 0 48 0 6 "For" means a red card given to that team. So Chicago received 4 red cards (Robinson, Soumare, Thorrington 2), while benefiting from 6 called against the opposition. Man, the Wizards played about 20% of their season up or down a man (or two). That stands out. I know they had that streak with a bunch of consecutive games with ejections for either team in the middle of the year (including the Superliga). As mentioned above, four red cards were given to players not in the match at the time: 6/6 - Luciano Emilio, DC vs NY (bench) 6/13 - Mike Petke, NY @ TOR (after final whistle) 8/6 - Brad Davis, HOU @ DAL (bench) 9/12 - Carlos Johnson, NY vs KC (after final whistle) Here's the most interesting thing: MLS 2009: Goals For/Against in Various Situations Overall 11v11 10v10 1 up 1 down GF GA GF GA GF GA GF GA GF GA CHI 39 34 31 32 0 0 7 1 1 1 CHV 34 31 31 28 2 0 1 0 0 3 CLB 41 31 39 28 1 0 0 0 1 3 COL 42 38 35 38 0 0 7 0 0 0 DAL 50 47 44 43 0 1 5 1 1 2 DC 43 44 42 43 0 0 1 0 0 1 HOU 39 29 35 25 0 1 3 2 1 1 KC 33 42 23 33 0 0 10 5 0 4 LA 36 31 34 26 0 0 1 1 1 4 NE 33 37 30 31 0 1 1 0 2 5 NY 27 47 25 40 0 0 0 1 2 6 RSL 43 35 41 31 0 0 0 0 2 4 SEA 38 29 35 24 0 0 2 0 1 5 SJ 36 50 33 48 0 0 3 1 0 1 TOR 37 46 37 45 0 0 0 0 0 1 So here's how the GD's compare, overall and 11 v 11: overall 11v11 GD GD CHI 5 -1 CHV 3 3 CLB 10 11 COL 4 -3 DAL 3 1 DC -1 -1 HOU 10 10 KC -9 -10 LA 5 8 NE -4 -1 NY -20 -15 RSL 8 10 SEA 9 11 SJ -14 -15 TOR -9 -8 The two teams that jump out are Chicago and Colorado. Both go from positive to negative when you only consider full strength situations. On one hand, it means they took advantage of their man up situations. But it also means that they didn't impress at full strength. It's pretty surprising to me to see the Fire with a negative GD in full strength situations. Meanwhile, LA-NE-NY all look better. I know red cards are a part of soccer, but it's interesting to isolate the data like this. Thoughts?

MLS: The Impact of a Red Card (part three)

Part 1: Leaguewide stats Part 2: Better or Worse, Outcomes Changed Back with more details on the history of red cards in MLS. Now I'm looking at the team stats. Be sure to check out the first two parts as well. This data is through 2008, and includes only regular season games. Team Stats How many times has each team gone up or down a man? Games Up Down CHI 335 45 29 CHV 124 8 13 CLB 398 43 37 COL 398 43 43 DAL 398 42 41 DC 398 38 43 HOU 92 14 11 KC 399 46 32 LA 398 44 28 NE 399 40 35 NY 398 41 60 RSL 124 9 17 SJ 336 31 36 TOR 60 6 9 MIA 122 11 19 TB 187 14 22 Games refers to the total number of regular season games played all time. Look at that New York number for times down. Wow. That's only 17 more than their nearest competitors. When Up 1 Man Times Minutes Avg Length GF GA GF per 90 GA per 90 GD per 90 GF per time GA per time GD per time CHI 45 944 21.0 21 7 2.00 0.67 1.33 0.47 0.16 0.31 CHV 8 300 37.5 6 6 1.80 1.80 0.00 0.75 0.75 0.00 CLB 43 917 21.3 24 15 2.36 1.47 0.88 0.56 0.35 0.21 COL 43 1044 24.3 24 19 2.07 1.64 0.43 0.56 0.44 0.12 DAL 42 1029 24.5 30 11 2.62 0.96 1.66 0.71 0.26 0.45 DC 38 1064 28.0 35 14 2.96 1.18 1.78 0.92 0.37 0.55 HOU 14 386 27.6 5 2 1.17 0.47 0.70 0.36 0.14 0.21 KC 46 1183 25.7 45 18 3.42 1.37 2.05 0.98 0.39 0.59 LA 44 1389 31.6 55 14 3.56 0.91 2.66 1.25 0.32 0.93 NE 40 748 18.7 17 18 2.05 2.17 -0.12 0.43 0.45 -0.03 NY 41 1199 29.2 31 21 2.33 1.58 0.75 0.76 0.51 0.24 RSL 9 158 17.6 4 1 2.28 0.57 1.71 0.44 0.11 0.33 SJ 31 891 28.7 28 13 2.83 1.31 1.52 0.90 0.42 0.48 TOR 6 175 29.2 1 2 0.51 1.03 -0.51 0.17 0.33 -0.17 MIA 11 306 27.8 9 5 2.65 1.47 1.18 0.82 0.45 0.36 TB 14 264 18.9 10 4 3.41 1.36 2.05 0.71 0.29 0.43 The Revs have actually let in more goals than they've scored while up a man throughout MLS history (at least until this year). Toronto is in that category too, but that only takes into account two years of data from poor teams. Dallas, DC United, Kansas City, Los Angeles, and San Jose have all done excellent jobs of making their man advantage count. When Down 1 Man Times Minutes Avg Length GF GA GF per 90 GA per 90 GD per 90 GF per time GA per time GD per time CHI 29 795 27.4 20 20 2.26 2.26 0.00 0.69 0.69 0.00 CHV 13 277 21.3 2 4 0.65 1.30 -0.65 0.15 0.31 -0.15 CLB 37 970 26.2 14 18 1.30 1.67 -0.37 0.38 0.49 -0.11 COL 43 1187 27.6 20 25 1.52 1.90 -0.38 0.47 0.58 -0.12 DAL 41 1082 26.4 12 40 1.00 3.33 -2.33 0.29 0.98 -0.68 DC 43 1029 23.9 15 29 1.31 2.54 -1.22 0.35 0.67 -0.33 HOU 11 290 26.4 2 5 0.62 1.55 -0.93 0.18 0.45 -0.27 KC 32 716 22.4 7 24 0.88 3.02 -2.14 0.22 0.75 -0.53 LA 28 564 20.1 5 13 0.80 2.07 -1.28 0.18 0.46 -0.29 NE 35 821 23.5 10 33 1.10 3.62 -2.52 0.29 0.94 -0.66 NY 60 1553 25.9 23 43 1.33 2.49 -1.16 0.38 0.72 -0.33 RSL 17 327 19.2 6 11 1.65 3.03 -1.38 0.35 0.65 -0.29 SJ 36 856 23.8 8 22 0.84 2.31 -1.47 0.22 0.61 -0.39 TOR 9 207 23.0 2 5 0.87 2.17 -1.30 0.22 0.56 -0.33 MIA 19 636 33.5 14 19 1.98 2.69 -0.71 0.74 1.00 -0.26 TB 22 687 31.2 10 34 1.31 4.45 -3.14 0.45 1.55 -1.09 Chicago, Columbus, and Colorado have been the best teams while down a man. Meanwhile, Dallas, New England, and Kansas City have gotten killed. Outcomes by Team This includes only the 389 instances where a game only had one red card (just like in part two), because it gets tricky to measure otherwise. How did each team do when it came to the result they ended up with after going a man up or down? As seen in that link, the leaguewide averages for teams that go up a man are: 19.3% end up with a better result, 7.5% end up with a worse result, and the other 73.3% end up with the same result. Going a Man Up Times Better Even Worse Net CHI 29 16.7% 80.0% 3.3% 13.3% CHV 7 28.6% 42.9% 28.6% 0.0% CLB 38 18.4% 78.9% 2.6% 15.8% COL 37 18.9% 78.4% 2.7% 16.2% DAL 34 17.6% 73.5% 8.8% 8.8% DC 30 23.3% 63.3% 13.3% 10.0% HOU 14 7.1% 85.7% 7.1% 0.0% KC 41 34.1% 61.0% 2.7% 29.3% LA 37 24.3% 73.0% 2.7% 21.6% NE 33 12.1% 78.8% 9.1% 3.0% NY 35 17.1% 65.7% 17.1% 0.0% RSL 6 0.0% 100.0% 0.0% 0.0% SJ 26 15.4% 73.1% 11.5% 3.8% TOR 4 0.0% 100.0% 0.0% 0.0% MIA 9 11.1% 88.9% 0.0% 11.1% TB 8 25.0% 62.5% 12.5% 12.5% NY not fairing so well here, while KC looks even more impressive (LA too). The final column is the net percentage of positive results (better minus worse). Going a Man Down Times Worse Even Better Net CHI 25 24.0% 64.0% 12.0% -12.0% CHV 11 9.1% 90.9% 0.0% -9.1% CLB 30 20.0% 66.7% 13.3% -6.7% COL 33 15.2% 69.7% 15.2% 0.0% DAL 35 34.3% 60.0% 5.7% -28.6% DC 37 18.9% 81.1% 0.0% -18.9% HOU 9 22.2% 77.8% 0.0% -22.2% KC 27 14.8% 77.8% 7.4% -7.4% LA 22 18.2% 77.3% 4.5% -13.6% NE 31 16.1% 77.4% 6.5% -9.7% NY 50 10.0% 80.0% 10.0% 0.0% RSL 15 6.7% 80.0% 13.3% 6.7% SJ 27 18.5% 74.1% 7.4% -11.1% TOR 7 14.3% 85.7% 0.0% -14.3% MIA 12 33.3% 58.3% 8.3% -25.0% TB 18 38.9% 61.1% 0.0% -38.9% Dallas gets absolutely crushed here. DC as well, with no positive results. Now they have improved their end result twice while down a man in MLS history, just not in the games that only contained one red card (which make up this data here). You'll probably remember the last minute winner by Emilio last year at Chicago playing 9 on 10. NY actually does very well here, ending up with an equal number of better and worse results. Same for Colorado, while Real Salt Lake is actually in the positive (1 worse, 12 even, 2 better).

MLS: The Impact of a Red Card (part two)

Part 1: MLS: The Impact of a Red Card Back with more details on the history of red cards in MLS. Be sure to check out part one too. This data is through 2008, and includes only regular season games. Better or Worse? Exactly how did the scoreline of the game change when one team was a man up? How many goals did each team score after that? The GD in the table below refers to the team that was a man up, and also only includes the time in the game while that team was a man up. So for example, let's say a team was losing 0:3 and went a man up. If the game ended up with a final score of 1:3 (and no more reds were shown), it would be listed below as +1. GD Times PCT +6 2 0.4% +5 2 0.4% +4 4 0.8% +3 9 1.9% +2 38 8.0% +1 104 21.9% 0 257 54.1% -1 50 10.5% -2 8 1.7% -3 0 0.0% -4 1 0.2% Total 475 100.0% The -4 game was in 1999. Chicago was up 1:0 on Colorado in Soldier Field when Jerzy Podbrozny was ejected in the 25th minute. The Fire scored four more times in the second half and it finished 5:0. Simplifying it a bit: Times PCT Better 159 33.5% Even 257 54.1% Worse 59 12.4% So MLS teams have only outscored their opponent about one out of every eight times after going a man down. This holds even when accounting for the location of the team going a man up: Home Away Better 34.4% 32.1% Even 54.5% 53.6% Worse 11.1% 14.3% Outcomes Changed? The last table concerned only the number of goals scored versus conceded. What about how the actual outcomes of games? To make things easier, I only looked at games with a single sending off. The only exception was if a second red was given to someone on the bench or otherwise not in the match. There were 389 such games: Times PCT Home Away L to W 9 2.3% 7 2 L to D 14 3.6% 5 9 L to L 84 21.6% 43 41 D to W 52 13.4% 31 21 D to D 65 16.7% 41 24 D to L 17 4.4% 7 10 W to W 136 35.0% 95 41 W to D 10 2.6% 4 6 W to L 2 0.5% 1 1 Total 389 100.0% 234 155 In summary: Better 75 19.3% Even 285 73.3% Worse 29 7.5% Interesting that most of the time the result stayed the same in the end. Of course, many of these red cards were given at the end of matches. The 2009 MLS Fact & Record Book lists 6 games where a team scored a tying and winning goal while a man down. Those games are: NY 2:3 LA (April 11, 1998) COL 1:2 MIA (May 13, 2000) NY 2:1 NE (August 12, 2000) DC 1:2 CHI (June 2, 2001) COL 2:1 KC (July 4, 2005) RSL 3:2 DAL (September 16, 2006) The first, third, and sixth matches were all tied when the red card was shown. The team a man up then scored, followed by the team a man down scoring twice to win. They were included in the "D to L" category above. The second match was 1:0 Rapids, a red card was shown, and then the Fusion scored twice to win. It's not in the above stats because a second red (to Colorado) was shown in the dying minutes. The other two make up the 2 in the "W to L" column above. Once again, let's see how it breaks down into home/away: Home Away Better 18.4% 20.6% Even 76.5% 68.4% Worse 5.1% 11.0% Away teams are more than twice as likely to end up with a worse result. No surprise if you saw part one where I detailed the average number of goals scored for home and away teams. Coming up next: In part three, I'll look at how each MLS team has done while up and down a man. Have certain teams done better than the rest

MLS: The Impact of a Red Card

When a red card occurs during a game, how big of an advantage or disadvantage occurs as a result? The obvious fact that one team is now a man down doesn't tell us exactly how many goals that's worth. I wanted to learn more about the impact of red cards in MLS history, so I've gone through all 594 595 of them from 1996-2008. That figure includes one two sending offs that aren't listed in the 2009 MLS Fact & Record Book (FARB): Branco is listed as only having received 2 reds in 1997; pretty amusing since getting 3 reds in 11 games is the only thing anyone remembers about his MLS stint. That appears to be the only one they've overlooked. Although, if you get your ejection numbers from the MLSnet stats pages, be aware that they sometimes count coaches being sent off in their totals. EDIT 8/1: I found another one while looking at the 2009 NY media guide. They list all the team's red cards, and unfortunately are missing a couple. But it looks like the FARB and MLSnet are missing another 1997 Metrostars red card: Tab Ramos on 8/17 at KC. What I did was look at every single match that involved a red card, and figured out how many goals were scored after that. Some matches involved multiple red cards, so I've decided to post the data as "1 man up" and "2 men up" situations. Being up by two men is a very uncommon situation that's only occurred for a total of 201 minutes in 2,283 games through last season, so let's focus on being one man up. This data includes goals off of penalty kicks awarded as a result of a red card. 1 Man Up: Per 90 Minutes Min GF GA GF per 90 GA per 90 GD per 90 1996 802 28 10 3.14 1.12 2.02 1997 604 24 10 3.58 1.49 2.09 1998 1739 72 29 3.73 1.50 2.23 1999 1323 38 23 2.59 1.56 1.02 2000 898 29 17 2.91 1.70 1.20 2001 941 31 14 2.96 1.34 1.63 2002 823 18 7 1.97 0.77 1.20 2003 596 8 6 1.21 0.91 0.30 2004 527 11 7 1.88 1.20 0.68 2005 737 14 10 1.71 1.22 0.49 2006 830 27 10 2.93 1.08 1.84 2007 1197 25 18 1.88 1.35 0.53 2008 980 20 9 1.84 0.83 1.01 Total 11997 345 170 2.59 1.28 1.31 This data is all regular season only. To summarize, MLS teams have been up by one man for a total of 11,997 minutes. Those teams have scored 345 goals and let in 170. That comes out to an average of 2.59 to 1.28 over 90 minutes. You can see that more goals are scored in these situations than the normal per game averages. The total goals, both GF & GA, come out to 3.86 per 90 minutes. For comparison, the average in MLS history is 2.99 per game (which includes those goals). One thing that immediately stands out is the GF/GD per 90 minutes for the first few seasons. Pretty crazy. More goals were scored leaguewide in those years, but that doesn't explain everything. I guess the quality of the league improving and more emphasis on defense have much to do with it. The parity after contraction is a factor too. As a matter of fact, there's a striking difference break down the numbers into pre and post contraction: Min GF GA GF per 90 GA per 90 GD per 90 1996-01 6307 222 103 3.17 1.47 1.70 2002-08 5690 123 67 1.95 1.06 0.89 Teams still have a big advantage, just not crazy big. After making the above tables, my next thought was to figure out the home/away splits. I don't think it would shock you to learn that 60.7% of "1 man up" minutes were in favor of home teams. We already know that they get more penalties called and win more games. However, you might be surprised to learn that teams with the advantage scored goals at nearly the same rate whether they were at home or away. In fact, the away goals were scored at a slightly higher rate: 1 Man Up: Home & Away Min GF GA GF Per 90 GA per 90 Home 7285 208 85 2.57 1.05 Away 4712 137 85 2.62 1.62 The big difference is that home teams are much more likely to score despite being a man down. I also considered the possibility that maybe a handful of games had a huge impact on the data. Most notably, the Los Angeles Galaxy beat the Dallas Burn 8:1 in 1998 in Texas. The Burn received a red card while losing 1:0, so that's 7 away goals in one game. To try to take that sort of thing out of the equation, I looked at how many "situations" a team was a man up and divided the goals by those situations. I use the word situations rather than games because a team can have two separate 1 man up periods in a single game. Overall, there were 475 man up situations with 58.7% of those at home (279-196). Here's the GF & GA divided by those numbers: GF GA Home 0.75 0.30 Away 0.70 0.43 Total 0.72 0.35 Both scoring rates are still nearly the same. Notice the total number, there's another great piece of data: Throughout MLS history, every time your team went up a man, on average you could've expected them to score 0.72 goals and allow 0.35 for the rest of the game (or until another ejection). In fact, let's take a look at the goals per "situation" for each individual year next: 1 Man Up: Goals per Red Card Situation Times GF GA GF per Time GA per Time GD per Time 1996 28 28 10 1.00 0.36 0.64 1997 29 24 10 0.83 0.34 0.48 1998 48 72 29 1.50 0.60 0.90 1999 46 38 23 0.83 0.50 0.33 2000 40 29 17 0.73 0.43 0.30 2001 36 31 14 0.86 0.39 0.47 2002 33 18 7 0.55 0.21 0.33 2003 28 8 6 0.29 0.21 0.07 2004 28 11 7 0.39 0.25 0.14 2005 36 14 10 0.39 0.28 0.11 2006 37 27 10 0.73 0.27 0.46 2007 44 25 18 0.57 0.41 0.16 2008 42 20 9 0.48 0.21 0.26 Total 475 345 170 0.73 0.36 0.37 Once again, let's separate this data into pre and post contraction periods just to emphasize the difference: Times GF GA GF per Time GA per Time 1996-01 227 222 103 0.98 0.45 2002-08 248 123 67 0.50 0.27 It appears that now you can only expect a goal for your team every other time they're a man up. Although many of those times are in the dying minutes of the match, so I guess your expectations would depend on when it happened. One more stat: 11,997 minutes divided by 475 situations = just over 25 minutes each. 2 Men Up Much less to talk about here simply because it's such a rare occurrence. So little data means that we can't really take these numbers too seriously. Obviously it's very good to be two men up, but other than that... Per 90 Minutes: Min GF GA GF per 90 GA per 90 GD per 90 1996 9 1 0 10.00 0.00 10.00 1997 0 0 0 1998 16 0 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 1999 0 0 0 2000 1 1 0 90.00 0.00 90.00 2001 51 1 1 1.76 1.76 0.00 2002 3 1 0 30.00 0.00 30.00 2003 0 0 0 2004 18 0 1 0.00 5.00 -5.00 2005 30 0 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 2006 2 0 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 2007 10 0 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 2008 61 3 1 4.43 1.48 2.95 Total 201 7 3 3.13 1.34 1.79 Per two man up situation: Times GF GA GF per Time GA per Time GD per Time 1996 1 1 0 1.00 0.00 1.00 1997 0 0 0 1998 2 0 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 1999 0 0 0 2000 1 1 0 1.00 0.00 1.00 2001 4 1 1 0.25 0.25 0.00 2002 3 1 0 0.33 0.00 0.33 2003 0 0 0 2004 1 0 1 0.00 1.00 -1.00 2005 1 0 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 2006 1 0 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 2007 2 0 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 2008 4 3 1 0.75 0.25 0.50 Total 20 7 3 0.35 0.15 0.20