Revolution v. Vancouver Whitecaps, 5.12.12: Is Scoring Early a Good Thing?

It is common, or seems common, for an NFL team that returns an opening kickoff for a touchdown to go on and lose the game. The announcers often call this “suffering a letdown.” After the Vancouver Whitecaps scored in the 5^th minute of last Saturday’s game against the New England Revolution in Foxboro, the Whitecaps suffered a letdown of their own, ultimately losing to New England 4-1. This reminded me that last month, New England went up 1-0 in the 6^th minute against D.C. United, but lost 2-1. I wondered: Do MLS teams that score within the first six minutes of a game typically “suffer a letdown” in the manner of NFL teams that score touchdowns off the opening kick?

I decided to look at all the MLS regular-season games that have been played so far this season to see if any pattern emerged. Here’s what I found. (As I wrote in a similar statistics-related post last year, I wouldn’t swear in a court of law that these numbers are accurate, but I’m reasonably sure they are.)

·      Of the 96 games played so far this season, nine have involved a team scoring at the six-minute mark or earlier, about 9% of games played.

·      The record of the teams that scored first in these games is 5-2-2; in other words, teams that score very early do not typically “suffer a letdown,” in fact they usually go on to win.

·      The Revolution played in the only two games of the nine in which the team that scored first lost. As I already mentioned, the Revs won one of those games (against Vancouver) and lost the other (against D.C.).

·      New York has scored early more than any other MLS team this season, twice scoring at the three-minute mark (both wins) and once scoring at the five-minute mark (a tie). Though I only counted games in which a team scored in six minutes or less, I noted that New York has twice scored at the seven-minute mark. Both of those games ended in 1-0 New York victories, one coming against New England on April 28. If you count those games, the record of teams that score early is 7-2-2.

That’s enough of that. The big story of this game was not its capacity to summon dry, meaningless statistics, but the play of Vancouver castoff and current Revolution midfielder Lee Nguyen, who scored two goals and assisted on another. The 79-minute performance was good enough to earn Nguyen MLS Player of the Week honors. He’ll probably also get Goal of the Week for his second strike, a wicked long-range volley that you can check out below, courtesy of mlssoccer.com.

Nguyen’s assist was also high-quality stuff. In the 24^th minute, he received a pass from Chris Tierney on the left, ran at and through two Vancouver players and sent a perfect ball between two defenders and onto the outside foot of Saer Sene. Sene turned and scored off a clinical strike, low and to the far post. Sene had another good and varied game. He’s a fun player to watch, combining as he does great size and good foot skills, but also a knack for scoring and creativity, often flicking passes to himself and others with the back and outsides of his feet and sometimes putting me in mind of former NBA player Jason “White Chocolate” Williams. Sene also loves to get wide and cross the ball, as he did in the 33^rd minute of this game. That pass led to the Revolution’s third goal, this one by Shalrie Joseph.

So the new guys are producing, the back line continues to play well, and Joseph and Clyde Simms look strong in the midfield. About the only downside of the match for the Revs was the performance of Blake Brettschneider; he didn’t see a lot of the ball after his strong performance against Salt Lake. Of course, the Revs played quite well enough to win, whether or not every player shined. It’s great to see New England paste an opponent, and their fans will no doubt be eager to see if they can string together a couple of good games and not “suffer a letdown” as they did after beating L.A. in March.