'Overperforming and bad': Learn about xPoints, the metric that shows Austin FC should be much worse than it actually is

As a Verde fan, you should be really happy with 16 points from 11 matches. According to one metric beloved by stats heads, it should be about half that.

Eliot McKinley, a data scientist by day who works with the American Soccer Analysis team bringing some of the best and nerdiest number-crunching, has shared a graphic that shows just how stark the difference is between what the data says Austin FC should be doing and what it actually is doing.

Of course, it’s not quite that simple, and we’ll break down in a moment how teams with wild discrepancies in their expected goals and expected goals against numbers, versus their actual goals and goals against tallies, can eke out results and sit 6th in the West (and 10th in the Supporters’ Shield race!)

In the meantime, though, just bask in the glory of this visual.

‘They continue getting away with this’ (Eliot McKinley/American Soccer Analysis)

Overperforming and bad. A quadrant not quite the sole domain of Austin’s, but the distance with that x and that y is arresting.

Are we getting the faint wafting aroma of 2022 yet? Recall that year, when pundits waited for a regression to the mean that arguably began before the season’s end, but not before a double dose of playoff wizardry that got Verde to the Western Conference Finals.

Let’s dive in.

Well, first, let’s have you call up this link to this ASA contribution from Friend of the Site Chase Hoffman, who turned our musings about a Mendoza Line for MLS soccer coaches into a whole exploration of the Thomas Rongen Line. I coined the term, but he did admirable levels of work on it. (Look for more on this later this week.)

And now let’s dive in.