What does a loss look like? RSL v. San Jose stats

What does a loss look like? RSL v. San Jose stats

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While the headline would seem to indicate that I'm interested in showing you what a loss in general looks like, I 'm not so sure that's in the scope of the season so far. Perhaps at the end of the season I will compile stats and offer a full and complete view of our losses (hopefully there will be no more than we've already had), but for now, I'll just take a look at this loss.

This one, inevitably, will be a bit of a special case. Until stoppage time, we were essentially playing for a draw (who can blame us, really? Nine men and a card-happy referee? I'd have played for a draw, too!), and this will dictate what some of the statistics look like.

At any rate, let's get on with it. Inevitably, this will be a quick one today.

  • San Jose, unsurprisingly, completed more passes than any other side has against us this season (456/557) and had the second-highest rate of passes completed, at about 81.9%. First in that? NYRB, at 83.6%. 
  • However, despite their completing a high number of passes, we held San Jose back: Only 27.7% of their passes were sent forward, a number equaled by — wait for it — New York Red Bulls.
  • They also completed a whopping 72.6% of their passes in the final third (138/190), second only this season against us to Colorado Rapids (73.63%). San Jose beat out New York Red Bulls for most final-third passes completed and attempted. What is it with New York?
  • Our passing rate was below average at 77.25% (275/356), but in the first half, we were at about our average, hitting almost precisely 80%.
  • It was, unsurprisingly, the match where we attempted as few passes as we have this season, with the next-closest being against Sporting KC, with 425 attempted.
  • We had only 38.5% possession through the match. To contrast, our lowest came against New York, with 46.1%, and our highest came against Portland, with 61.2% possession.
  • Our right side hardly presented an option to us —  at least in the same proportion as usual. This is not surprising, given how often we saw Jonny Steele and Will Johnson both on the left, but only 17.1% of our passes were on the right side. Before this, we averaged 23.4% of our passes on the right side.
  • The left side, too, was a bit below average, but not by as much. 21.4% of our passes were right-sided, just below our pre-match average of 24.4%.
  • Roughly 63.3% of our passes were completed in the final third, which is slightly higher than our average of 62.6%, but only 16.9% of our overall passes were attempted in the final third.

Let's also look at some player numbers.

  • Kyle Beckerman (the birthday boy! Today, he turns 30. What a guy.) completed 38/44 passes, including three in the box. He also completed an untold number of dummies — that was a bit of a treat, to see our side working so well in the attack when down a man (or two!)
  • Combined, Tony Beltran and Chris Wingert dominated the flanks, with 73/90 of their passes completed. They also combined for 10 clearances, four blocked crosses, six recoveries, two interceptions, and 3/5 tackles won.
  • Javier Morales had one of his best matches of his early season so far, going 48/54 in passing, with two key passes. He also won two tackles and completed four recoveries.

Right, well, that's all I have for you today. Tune in tomorrow when I'll hopefully turn my back on this match and move on to the FC Dallas match, which is on Wednesday. We'll see, though. I have problems letting go.

'Til tomorrow!