SSPremiership: Waitakere United vs Eastern Suburbs 1:1 – Did the better team win?

No – because no one won.

Eastern Suburbs should have decided the game in the first 45 minutes but Waitakere’s keeper Pirmin Strasser produced a fantastic effort with 4 high Pressure saves, two of which were C1SOT! Add a couple of very assuredly executed claims of high balls into the goal mouth area to that tally, as well.

Waitakere United by comparison did not take a single shot on target during the first half! Eastern Suburb’s lead came through a brilliant shot by Sean Lovemore from just inside the 6yard box that left Strasser no chance.

In some ways the second half was a mirror image of the first as now Eastern Suburbs failed to even take a single shot on target while Waitakere pushed forward much more and delivered at least 3 decent (but not C1 level) shots that were stopped by Suburb’s keeper Rodic.

The 77^th minute equaliser came through a penalty that took an assured executed rebound shot as Suburb’s Rodic guessed the correct side and blocked the initial shot.

So – in the end Waitakere United’s penalty and their keeper’s brilliant effort combined to get them at least the single point.

Eastern Suburbs will wonder what happened to their finish during the second spell. Also – a couple of claims and the initial penalty shot save notwithstanding – the goal keeping position has to be an area of some concern. Rodic is clearly the league’s most error prone keeper – by far. Good actions are often immediately counterbalanced by belayed and fluffed back pass off loads, goal kicks that go far but nowhere in particular and fumbles of rather mediocre shots.

Anyhow, due to a lack of high-end finishes by Waitakere it did not really matter in the end on this occasion.

Looking at the updated season KPI table, we can see that Waitakere has fallen back into a mid-field position while Eastern Suburbs has gone back to the top with their C1SOT ratio but also lost a little ground otherwise.

The KPIs seem to reflect the actual table as 6 teams are incredibly tightly bunched up with the Phoenix sliding into the murky bottom territory but still a bit ahead of the actual bottom placed teams who all failed to score points (well Southern had to sit out this week because Auckland City FC is off gallivanting to Hong Kong for an international invitational tournament – where they managed to pull off a 1:0 win against FC Seoul!).

SSPremiership Canterbury United vs Auckland City FC 2:2 (a treatise on the merit of patient possession based football – or lack thereof)

 

Patient -Possession-Based- Football  = its merits or lack thereof

I guess there are different ways of looking at Auckland City FC games these days.

A)

One can simply identify with their success and be happy about the end results (i.e. points). That’s the “staunch supporter” approach. The end justifies the means and that’s that. From that perspective Auckland City are doing well – albeit not quite as brilliantly as in previous seasons!

B)

One can be a staunch supporter of another team and therefore dislike City. From that perspective it is still difficult to argue with Auckland’s ongoing success – at least on the domestic stage.

Auckland City tends to dictate the tempo and the rhythm of the game and any other team would be foolish not to adjust their own game plan accordingly. Usually that means playing – shall we say – also “cautiously” as otherwise one runs the risk of getting torn apart defensively by an Auckland team that is bursting with talent and skill to do just that.

C)

Another approach of looking at Auckland City FC games would be to analyse what is happening from the perspective of a football fan as opposed to a team supporter. From that perspective what matters most is the question:” is the game exciting to watch?” “Do we see ‘good’ football?”

Here at Footballnumbersblog I am usually trying (even if and when teams are playing that I do still have some sort of association with) to take the generic “Football Fan” perspective rather than the one-eyed team supporter one. As far as the SSPremiership is concerned I don’t feel that, these days, I have a very strong emotional attachment to any of the teams involved as such, anyway. That is a departure from years past when you could have seen (and heard) me ranting and raving and waving a flag and even tooting a horn (really?!) at the side lines. What can I say – I would like to think that I have somewhat matured over the years.

Anyhow – speaking as a neutral observer of games – as someone who is looking to understand how the results came about but also as someone who would not mind being entertained while doing so – I have come to dread games in which Auckland City FC is one of the competitors. This is not because I dislike Auckland City FC – in fact I cannot help admiring what they have been achieving over the past 12 years or so.

I am dreading Auckland City FC games because of the style in which they collect points these days.

You can employ as many euphemisms as you like to describe this particular style. You can call it “patient possession based football”, you can call it “clinically professional” – whatever.

The reality in many games is that Auckland City deliberately does not make use of their awesome potential but instead deliberately waste a good portion of the game doing absolutely nothing constructive with the ball – at all!

Big chunks of their games are filled with their players leisurely kicking the ball around between themselves sideways and backwards somewhere between the penalty area and the centre circle with no intent to take the game forward whatsoever. This happens even if they are not being approached by opposition players. They could just as well lie down and take a nap but I guess you have to keep the blood circulation going? As you can see in the match numbers below, their keeper is very much part of this utterly unproductive time wasting. Just look at the outlandishly high number of ball contacts almost all of which are due to unforced (!) back passes. If you did that regularly in one of the European Leagues you would be mercilessly booed – probably by your own supporters!

Unlike the erstwhile USA female soccer team captain Hope Solo, who lost the plot over the Swedish World Cup team who (successfully) employed a similar paralytic strategy, I do not believe that Auckland City FC are “cowards”. Not actually participating in the game is within the rules and therefore is a legitimate strategy unlike in some sports such as water polo, basketball or handball where such deliberate passivity is being punished by a compulsory turnover to the opposition team. (Now there is an idea on how to improve the spectacle??)

As the rules stand, it is for the opposition teams to find a strategy around this passive approach – and as we have seen during the last domestic season and recently in Japan – AGAIN – there are ways to get around this – literally.

No – Auckland City FC certainly are not cowards but they are astute in that they know how devastating they really COULD be – so they rely on playing the waiting game and letting the opposition eventually come to them across the half way line (unless they are Hawkes Bay United who just completely mirror Auckland’s inactivity for as long as it lasts) and try to take the ball off them thus opening up their defences and then all hell breaks loose. This is not really a counterattacking strategy, by the way, as Auckland often already have and keep the ball – they don’t “counter attack”- they just wait and then attack – occasionally.

Some teams – sometimes – respond to that by trying to put an end to this anti-football by tackling and attacking up high and forcing the issue – with all the risks associated with throwing players forward instead of matching Auckland’s waiting game with their own waiting game.

As a neutral spectator I just love those teams because then something happens!!!

Alas, strategically, I can see how matching Auckland by being passive as well and not risking opening up one’s own defense often makes more sense than the up field pressure approach. It is a bit sad, though, to watch a normally strong attacking team such as Canterbury having to resort to this “anti-football”themselves. Understandable but sad!

No – make that “infuriating” to watch. The first half of this game was a complete waste of time for anyone involved – let’s be honest here. This is where I start to feel cheated a bit because we all know how good Auckland (and Canterbury) CAN be if and when they decide to PLAY.

And that’s what I want to see as a spectator: a genuine contest of skills -not grass growing.

I think an episode towards the end of the game provided the epitome of what I am trying to say here. Ryan DeVries – one of NZ’s best attacking players – has possession of the ball inside (!) Canterbury’s penalty area and has numerous opportunities to take a shot – BUT he does NOT. Clearly (his team being 2:1 up at this point) his strategic straightjacket forbids him to make use of his talent and skills and this opportunity and so he simply ducks and dives around instead (the way you can see players of the leading team do that at the corner flag when there are only seconds left to play) and what happened was a rather pathetic conclusion to this episode as the ball was eventually taken off him:

nothing tried (!) and nothing gained other than a few extra seconds of “patient possession” (right in front of the opposition’s goal!). Woopeee!

I am happy to admit that I had a sense of Karma playing out when Canterbury got their late equaliser (via a re-taken penalty in injury time) because Auckland City had the skill and the opportunity earlier on to make this a clear cut 3:1 victory (at least) against a depleted 10 men Canterbury team BUT they seemed to DELIBERATELY not pursue another goal. So they paid the price in the end and good for Canterbury to keep at it until the final whistle! (That, by the way, was a demonstration of the value of the “PRESSURE” KPI – if you are inside the opposition’s penalty area things can happen!)

There have been other occasions when Auckland’s “playing dead” approach backfired (first game against Hawkes Bay United in 2015/16 season, North Harbour Stadium comes to mind as a prime example).

And it is noteworthy that it took an own goal AND a penalty against Team Wellington and then again it took another own goal against Tasman United recently to get the 4 points out of these games! Auckland’s attacking KPIs are far from impressive these days! In fact, looking at the current KPI table, you can see that Auckland City sits right at the bottom of the attacking KPIs (i.e. Quality Shots on target, High Quality shots on target, High Keeper Pressure) together with Tasman United, Southern United and Hamilton Wanderers.

Every single-minded strategy – especially when taken to excessive (obsessive?) lengths – has its limits and life-cycle as Spain has painfully found out in recent years – after dominating world football for some time and thus providing the explicit inspiration for Auckland City FC’s current passive – sorry: “patient”  – approach to football that – and that is my main point! – is virtually unwatchable – unless all you care about is the final result – and increasingly even then you will be disappointed!

It’s actually not working on the international stage (FIFA Club World Cup) anyway -2014 being a delightful exception to the long-standing rule. Between 2011 and 2016 Auckland City FC scored 5 goals in 9 games (excluding penalties) and conceded 12, which equates to 6 losses, 2 draws and 1 win (regular game time results) at the FIFA Club World Cup.

I believe (probably “hope” to be honest) that the strategic straightjacket called “patient possession based football” is starting to have outlived its usefulness in our domestic competition as well and that we might see Auckland City FC’s players being allowed to demonstrate their true skill and talent more freely in the future. They deserve it and the spectators deserve it!

 

Here are the game numbers:

Pressure

Shots

Lateral Defense Breaks

Fast Breaks(1-1)

there were none!

Goal Keeping

 

Better football (!) everyone

SSPremiership Eastern Suburbs vs Hamilton Wanderers 3:1 – a rather flattering win for the home team

Looking at the match numbers we can see that Eastern Suburbs did enough – just – to be the deserved winners of this game. In all honesty, though, they can only be truly happy with the final 15 minutes of it.

The first half – with a blustery wind in their backs at times – saw a clear territorial advantage for the home team (27 Pressure scores to 8) BUT all that presence did not translate in a great deal of real chances and high class finishing actions.

In fact, what can only be described as atrocious defending during the first few minutes nearly lead to a Wanderers goal as a poorly timed back pass caught Suburb’s keeper Rodic unawares and only a desperate last gasp tackle – once he had realised the severity of the situation and finally got going – prevented the home team from going down very early on.

A somewhat dubious Free Kick decision in favour of the Wanderers actually saw them going into the lead after all. This came from a brilliantly executed header that extended said free kick just underneath the crossbar and into the net.

Not long after another contentious decision awarded Suburbs a penalty which was duly converted in an unsaveable fashion and so the teams went into the break locked into a 1 all draw.

The second half saw a strangely apathetic Suburbs team that left the initiative to the Hamilton Wanderers who created actually more pressure in the second half than the home team! (20 to 15).

Chances went begging on either side of the field and Hamilton could have gone ahead and decide the game on more than one occasion. Yet – and this proved to be their downfall – they were not able to construct quality shots on target during the second spell and without such shots you simply can’t score.

Yet another decision by the official brought the blood of the Wanderer’s supporters to boiling point as it looked A LOT like their team had deserved a penalty of their own but that call was not forthcoming.

The Wanderers’ biggest chance came from a 1-1 shot that was only half-stopped by Suburb’s keeper – who did not exactly create an aura of invincibility on this day – but he managed to arrest the ball’s momentum before it could cross the line with his second bite at the cherry.

On the other side we witnessed a similar situation with Hamilton’s custodian stopping a shot from a 1-1 situation but the rebound merrily bounced across the white line after all and so it was 2:1 for Eastern Suburbs.

The value of successfully completed lateral Defence breaks (i.e. crosses and assists) was once more proven by such a shot from the edge of the 6 yard box in the 88^th minute and the resulting 3:1 scoreline put the game out of contention despite an added 6 minutes of injury time.

 

In regards to the goalkeeper performances it is noteworthy that Suburbs’ Rodic – yet again – failed to inspire a sense of confidence with many actions looking ragged and not very solid at all – a couple of nice claims notwithstanding. When dealing with back passes he either played with fire by delaying the offload for too long or almost not reacting at all at the beginning.

Hamilton’s Oliver was solid by comparison and there was nothing he could have done about the goals against him. He demonstrated great awareness with 3 solid defusions of developing Fast Breaks outside of penalty area. Well done.

Summary:

 

Eastern Suburbs won the game because they produce a bit more HIGH KEEPER PRESSURE and Quality Shots on target AND because they got awarded a penalty AND because Hamilton did NOT get awarded a penalty.

Hamilton lost the game mainly because their finish lacked precision and quality (with the one exception for the 1:0 lead) AND because they did NOT get a penalty awarded.

However, Eastern Suburbs early season magic clearly has gone missing over the holidays break and they actually started to slip a little in the KPI rankings (with Waitakere United – still based on their first game performance only – has now taken over the top in one category and the other top teams’ averages getting closer now). The Wanderers actually improved a bit their KPI averages but not enough to distance themselves from the bottom of the table.

 

The KPI table will come out tomorrow together with an analysis of the Canterbury vs Auckland City game

SSP Round 11: Team Wellington scores four goals and a 3:1 win over the Wellington Phoenix

The last 2 game days go to show that the footballnumbersblog KPIs are purely a measure of what ALREADY happened. If teams improve – or deteriorate – in their performances then all bets are off.

I was foolish to even make any predictions at the mid-season mark as I am aware that our “numbers” are useless for prediction purposes.

No more so than in this crazy season where anybody can beat anyone else, it seems.

Since I declared them the sure wooden spooners, Southern United have gone on a 7 goal rampage and are now snapping at the heels of the Wanderers after their second win in a row. This win came against Canterbury who all but destroyed Tasman the previous week.

Tasman, themselves eked out a draw – wait for it – against Auckland City FC. Waitakere United  keeps going upwards and Hawkes Bay United  have resuscitated their season in convincing fashion against my erstwhile favourites Eastern Suburbs who seem to have lost their form over Christmas.

new KPI table:

 

Why is that happening?

Not a clue!

With only 1 game per match day broadcast I have no new numbers for all these teams.

What I do have is the numbers for Team Wellington against the Wellington Phoenix.

As you can see, these numbers show a well- deserved win for Team Wellington, who continue to climb in the KPI table.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MID week KPI table: where do the teams stand after round 10 of the SSPremiership

“All Shots are NOT Equal” – what is a quality shot?

QSOT =                         Quality shots on target (C1 &C2) taken on average per game

QSOT allowed =        Quality shots on target (C1 &C2) allowed to be taken by the opposition team on average per game

QSOT ratio=                QSOT taken divided by QSOT allowed: any number above 1 indicates that this team is stronger than the opposition/ any number

below 1 indicates that the team is weaker than the opposition

C1SOT =                       Highest Quality shots on target (C1) taken on average per game (penalty shots not included)

C1SOT allowed =      Highest Quality shots on target (C1) allowed to be taken by the opposition team on average per game

C1SOT ratio=              C1SOT taken divided by C1SOT allowed: any number above 1 indicates that this team is stronger than the opposition/ any number below 1 indicates that the team is weaker than the opposition

 

HKP=                             HIGH KEEPER PRESSURE : forcing the opposition keeper into a high       pressure action that carries a strong probability of scoring a goal                                   against them if they make the slightest mistake / number of such situations created

HKP allowed =           number of such situations allowed to be created by the opposition because they could not be contained away from one’s own penalty area

HKP ratio=                   HKP taken divided by HKP allowed: any number above 1 indicates that this team is better than the opposition at putting the keeper under serious pressure and creating promising goal scoring chances/ any number below 1 indicates that the team is weaker than the opposition in this regard

 

strong teams will typically produce ratios (well) above 1.0 on these KPIs

 

 

 

After round 10, Canterbury United is the big mover in the KPI tables. They are now establishing themselves as one of the most prolific attacking teams (as they did last season – so no big surprise).

Tasman United, on the other hand has now sunk to the bottom of the official table as well as the High Keeper Pressure indicator and stays just above Southern United in regards to shots. Southern United, however, I suspect, have done rather better recently than their numbers in this table suggest but that happened away from SKY TV’s cameras. Tasman and Hamilton Wanderers’ midfield and defences appear to be the most penetrable in this competition thus far.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SSPremiership: Tasman United vs Canterbury United 2:3 (the Dragons prevail)

From the word “go” Canterbury was the dominant team in this competition and it took until the 11^th minute for Tasman to produce any significant effort. That, however, was a cracking free kick (i.e. C1SOT) being met with an equally wonderful flying save by Canterbury’s custodian Knight.

In the main, however, it was Tasman’s keeper Turipa who was and remained the centre of attention throughout the game but more on that later.

Given the enormous amount of PRESSURE generated by Canterbury Tasman’s initial 1:0 lead came against the run of play. It was the result of another high class shot from outside the penalty area (again C1SOT) that made it past Knight. That was it, though, for the rest of the first half as Tasman’s midfield and defence found it impossible to contain Canterbury’s relentless attacks and it was only a matter of time for Canterbury to equalise, which they did with a C1SOT of their own from inside Tasman’s penalty area. Only a short while later another high class shot made it past Turipa and took Canterbury into the lead for the first time.

The second half saw a Canterbury side that allowed the home team to breathe more freely for the first 18 minutes and the logical consequence was the equaliser for Tasman in the 63^rd minute with an almost “accidental” 1-1 situation that was finished in a manner that left Knight no chance for a save.

From then on it was all one-way traffic (Canterbury: 9 HIGH KEEPER PRESSURE scores to Tasman’s 0) until the final whistle. It took more high quality saves by Coey Turipa to keep his team level with the visitors until the 93^rd minute but then Tasman’s defence could not get control of a ball that seemed to bounce around their 6 yard box endlessly and a well taken header put the ball eventually behind the white line to a well-deserved 3:2 victory.

Yes – this was a well-deserved victory for Canterbury (their coach Willy Gerdsen was spot on with his after match comments to that effect!) because they completely dominated the game except for the first 18 minutes of the second half. I was a bit baffled by commentators on screen and social media who felt that Tasman had been an equal opponent to Canterbury on this occasion. I guess a mix of recency effect and simulation heuristic combined to give other observers the perception that Tasman deserved a draw because the score was still level at regular full time.

The performance indicators, however, clearly demonstrate that this “should” have been a clear cut 4,5 if not 6:2 win for Canterbury and it was purely for a great shot stopping performance by Tasman’s keeper Turipa (2 C1SOT saves plus a 1-1 save!!) that had kept the score as close as it was!

What has to be mentioned is that Tasman proved to be extremely efficient in their attacking efforts! Producing 4 quality efforts out of only 5 shots on target – and then 3 of those being of the highest quality level (C1SOT) – that is indeed impressive. And on some occasions that will be enough to take 1 or even 3 points but on this day it was simply not enough to compensate for a weak defensive performance that allowed Canterbury to create 20 (that is a season’s worst – trumping even the Wanderer’s previous mark of 19) HIGH KEEPER PRESSURE situations!

So – it’s not all bad for the Tasman team BUT their midfield/defence need to get much better at holding onto the ball and taking it off their opponents before they can take a shot or make an unmolested run towards the goal line.

 

I suspect that this unconscionably high pressure load is the explanation for Turipa’s overall mixed goal keeping performance. Fantastic (!) shot stopping (7 high pressure saves with 2 C1SOT saves and a 1-1SOT save) and clumsy looking challenges (the first of several should have seen him sent off in the 11^th minute) and an inability to actually hold on to the ball on several occasions produced a somewhat incongruent impression.

Anyhow, with Southern United’s shock (?) 4:0 win against the Wanderers, Tasman United find themselves now on the lowest rung of the competition ladder and it seems that we have a fight against the wooden spoon on our hands after all.

Canterbury, on the other hand, are very much part of an almighty dense throng of teams vying for a play-off spot behind Auckland City who start to put some distance between themselves and everyone else on the table.

 

As a competition, this season is great!