Game Context
Toronto came into this game having an unexpectedly good season. They really announced themselves by crushing CF Montreal 5-1, a game in which Federico Bernardeschi scored a hat trick. Since then they lost 4-3 to FC Cincinnati at home and drew at Philadelphia, but those are both tough opponents.
DC United, on the other hand, has been winless in their last four, enduring three losses and a draw. They’ve been unable to get goals from anyone besides Benteke and unable to keep the other team from scoring. Their last clean sheet was in March.
According to the MLS power rankings, this was #11 (Toronto) vs. #14 (DC United, unusually high that week).
Formation
There was another short bench as Christopher McVey is out for a number of weeks with a knee injury while Cristian Dájome and Matti Peltola were suspended due to yellow card accumulation and a red card, respectively.
Alex Bono started once again in goal. Garrison Tubbs joined Steven Birnbaum and Lucas Barlett in central defense. Pedro Santos got what’s becoming a rare start on the left wing opposite Aaron Herrera. Jackson Hopkins paired with Mateusz Klich in the midfield behind the usual front line of Ted Ku-Dipietro, Christian Benteke, and Jared Stroud.
Fortunately Martín Rodríguez was back from his concussion and Jacob Murrell overcame some sort of knock to join Kristian Fletcher and Gabriel Pirani on the bench. Matai Akinmboni had to be recalled from Loudoun for defensive cover along with backup goalkeeper Tyler Miller.
Goal Details
Toronto 1’
With the game only a minute old, Klich came over to press Osorio on the sideline in what seemed like a routine play. Osorio slid past him. Oops. Seeing this, Santos left Bernardeschi and stepped up, but Osorio beat him too. Oooops. Garrison Tubbs left Deandre Kerr and tried his luck, but Osorio passed it by him to Bernardeschi. Oooooops.
Now Bernardeschi was in acres of space with four DC players bunched up behind him: Tubbs, Santos, Klich, and also Jackson Hopkins, who had drifted over while all this was happening but only taken himself out of the play as a result.
That still left Birnbaum, Bartlett and Herrera to mark Bernardeschi, Kerr, and Tyrese Spicer. After getting close to the endline, Bernardeschi cut it back past everyone to Derrick Etienne Jr., who was playing forward but who had floated back and was now arriving out of the half-space as a trailing player.
Etienne wasn’t that close to goal but there was a lot of it open. Bono was way over on his left post when the pass was made, so the right side of the goal was wide open. I’m not sure if this was cleverness or just poor finishing, but Etienne ignored the mostly open net and instead put his shot slightly to the left of Bono. Just as a matter of distance, it was extremely savable, but Bono was understandably already leaning right and wasn’t able to go back the other way fast enough.
DC has given up goals to trailing runners because the midfield hasn’t picked them up, but in this case the problem was that Osorio just beat three players and a fourth (Hopkins) took himself out of the picture. It’s frustrating that Etienne was so open, but with the midfield pulled over to the side of the field that’s going to happen. Troy Lesesne ascribed this goal to a lack of intensity coming out of the gate and he might have a point when it comes to Klich and Santos. Tubbs, I would argue, was maybe a little too intense.
Toronto 32’
DC’s midfield pressed high, but Toronto played through the pressure. The ball ended up played toward Osorio in lots of space near midfield. Garrison Tubbs had been marking Kerr, but for a split second it looked like the pass was too far in front of Osorio, and so he left Kerr to close him down. Right away, it was obvious Osorio will get there first, but now Tubbs was committed.
It’s also possible Tubbs felt even if he couldn’t get there, he should close down Osorio because Birnbaum had slid over and could mark Kerr. But my read on the situation is that Bernardeschi had stepped high, well behind Santos, so in this situation, Tubbs needed to mark Benardeschi, leave Kerr for Birnbaum, and Santos should be the one stepping to Osorio.
In any event, Osorio easily slotted it past Tubbs to Bernardeschi, who then had an open road into the box. He ended up with a somewhat narrow angle to goal and opened his hips to cross the ball. Birnbaum stepped back to try to block the pass. Instead, Bernardeschi suddenly shot it past Bono and in.
I feel Tubbs made the biggest mistake, but Birnbaum and Bono also get some blame. A lot of people blamed Santos but I actually don’t think it was his fault; with three in the back he shouldn’t have to mark Benardeschi every second of the game. It didn’t help that he doesn’t have the speed to recover, though.
Really I think this was a really clever play by Bernardeschi, though, even if it’s frustrating for DC fans. If he had just looked at the goal and blasted it, I think both Birnbaum and Bono would both have been be ready to stop it.
DC United 78’
With Toronto sitting back, Herrera played a simple entry pass to Stroud near the top of the box. With only a few moments before being closed down, Stroud fired off a shot from well outside the box that forced a diving save from Sean Johnson.
The ball spilled just out of Johnson’s reach. Ted Ku-Dipietro never stopped the run he was making and so had an easy time reaching it first. It was so clear a chance Kristian Fletcher started celebrating well before Ku-Dipietro got to the ball.
DC 90+2’
Toronto was down to 10 men and DC was playing both Lucas Bartlett and Garrison Tubbs as forwards. Klich had the ball in acres of space and played into the box. It was headed clear in what seemed like a routine play, but VAR intervened, resulting in Toronto’s Nicksoen Gomis getting his second yellow card for grabbing Tubbs and preventing him from making a play on the ball. Klich calmly scored the penalty with a simple pass into the goal after seeing Johnson dive the opposite way.
Player Ratings
Alex Bono - 5 - I’m not great at assessing goalkeepers but the advanced stats say he faced 0.63 post-shot expected goals and gave up two. Both goals certainly passed quite close to him, so you have to wonder if a reaction save might not have been possible there, especially on the second, but as described above I think in both cases he was surprised by the shots.
Garrison Tubbs - 6 - On one hand, I think if McVey had been able to start, I think neither goal would have happened. On the other hand, this was a lot of progress for Tubbs. He looked much more comfortable out there. He did a great job flailing to earn a pretty soft penalty, so I guess that’s good too, but more importantly he’ll find plenty from this performance to build off in the future. And we’ll need him to since Birnbaum sounds like he might be out for a while.
Steven Birnbaum - 6 - I still think he looked good, winning balls in the air and making some critical defensive tackles. He also smashed a ball off the crossbar in the first half. Some fans still criticize him and felt he should have blocked the second goal. I like Bartlett but I think Birnbaum is a better desperation replacement for Benteke, so it’s unfortunate he was injured for the second half.
Lucas Bartlett - 6 - He made a goal-line clearance on a shot where Bono was beat in the first half. He had two dangerous-looking header opportunities going forward that the models say were only worth 0.15 xG, so I guess we won’t ding him for missing those. It’s really sad he was offside on what would have been the winning goal, but he had a defender on his back so if he wasn’t, maybe the play wouldn’t have happened. Lloyd Sam thought he could have let the ball pass for Pirani to run on to, but I think the defender might have gotten it if he had.
Aaron Herrera - 5 - After an amazing start to the season he hasn’t been playing quite as well. He looked fine, but that’s a step down from before. He might have been a little hurt at the end of the game. Hopefully the bye week will help him.
Jackson Hopkins - 5 - His usual strengths and weaknesses: he pushed the ball forward but didn’t cover much ground on defense and didn’t always track runners.
Mateusz Klich - 7 - Made the penalty look easy and had an unusually accurate passing day, but maybe could have stood to be a bit more aggressive towards the end of the game. His set pieces continue to be great.
Pedro Santos - 6 - I thought he did well with a tough assignment. He actually won 6/10 ground duels. Although he didn’t really have any end product going forward, he kept Bernardeschi honest and even drew the first yellow card.
Jared Stroud - 7 - The best of our attackers, all things considered, even though nothing ended up on the scoresheet. His through-ball that put Benteke in on the keeper should have been an assist, his shot led to the first goal, and it wasn’t his fault that his very late goal was correctly called offside.
Ted Ku-Dipietro - 7 - This was on pace to be what I call Ted’s “standard game”: one or two dribbles, some misplaced passes, one or two tackles, and one shot from a dangerous position that nevertheless doesn’t trouble the goalkeeper. Okay, this time he had two dangerous shots. And he was pretty much dead on his feet at sixty-five minutes. But with Pirani waiting to come on for him, he followed Stroud’s shot and got the crucial first goal.
Christian Benteke - 4 - Had a couple of his usual close range headers but couldn’t score them. He made a good run late in the first half to get one on one with the keeper but chose the wrong shot, trying a chip when Sean Johnson was standing high with his feet flat on the ground. Really hope his injury can be resolved during the bye week.
Substitutes
Matai Akinmboni - 7 - The second half was mostly going DC’s way so he didn’t have as much to do as I expected even though he was on Bernardeschi’s side, but he looked great for a 17 year old center back. That’s a relief because he could be in for more playing time given the injury situation.
Jacob Murrell - 4 - Thirty minutes played, four touches, 1/2 passing. Yikes.
Kristian Fletcher - 5 - My new Fletcher theory is that he is playing out of position as a winger. He just doesn’t look dangerous out there. 0/2 on dribbles, 1/5 ground duels. Maybe he’s better as a true forward? Unfortunately he doesn’t really have the size or speed for it.
Martín Rodríguez - 5 - He is pretty tidy in possession and cycled the ball quickly, which was appreciated when we were pushing to try to even the score. But there’s no cutting edge whatsoever…no incisive passes, no aggression in advancing the ball, nothing that will make the other team nervous.
Gabriel Pirani - 6 - The good news is he continues to provide some spark off the bench, most notably his calm and accurate assist on Stroud’s disallowed goal. But he also turned the ball over to start a really dangerous opportunity for Toronto.
Other
Troy Lesesne - 5 - I guess you theoretically blame him for the team not being turned on at the beginning of the game, but at least he managed to get some life out of them in the second half.
Referee - 5 - I haven’t looked at a replay, but Bernardeschi’s first yellow card seemed soft to me at the time. Later Santos did the same thing back to him without getting carded. The second yellow was straightforward. The penalty…well, sure, Tubbs is being grabbed, but we all know it happens all the time. I guess the ref and the VAR ref must have felt Tubbs could flash in front of the defender who headed the ball, but it sure looked like the defender was in great position. I’m all for zero tolerance on grabbing in the box, but are we to believe no one else was grabbed in the box at any point in the game? I doubt it.
High Expectations
The score against Toronto was 2-2, but DC had the edge in expected goals 2.9 - 0.8. This is a fairly familiar story. It’s the sixth game where DC has undershot their xG by 0.9 or more. It doesn’t happen every time, and they did outscore their xG by 0.9 against Philadelphia…but still.
DC started off the season leading the league in xG after piling it up against New England due to their early red card. Since then DC led for much of the season, but LAFC has caught up. Both teams have 31.2 xG, but LAFC did it in one fewer game.
I know, I know. You don’t win trophies with expected goals. You need the real thing. That’s been a big problem for DC. LAFC and DC have 31.2 xG and LA Galaxy has 30.3. LAFC is a bit behind expectation with 28 goals, LA Galaxy a touch over with 31. DC has only 25. That’s -6.2 goals compared to DC’s xG. Is that…bad? Let’s see how MLS teams are doing this season by that measure.
So…yes. -6.2 is not great. On one extreme you have Inter Miami, scoring well over expectation (Leo Messi and Luis Suárez have 24 goals on about 16 xG) and on the opposite side of things there’s DC United.
Before we talk about what’s going on, let’s think about defense. Since DC’s defense is at least as much of a problem as their offense, it’s worth checking how their xGA stacks up to the league.
DC’s xG allowed is middling. Not great but not a disaster. The trouble is, DC’s opponents are…you guessed it…outscoring their expected goals. DC’s allowing 24.6 xG but its opponents have scored 31 goals. Don’t tell me this is another league-leading gap!
Phew! I don’t pay much attention to the Western Conference so I have no idea what on earth is going with Colorado and especially San Jose. But we can say here that DC has the biggest defensive gap in the Eastern Conference by a fair margin, but league-wide it’s not completely exceptional.
So what’s going on?
The orthodox explanation for xG gaps is luck due to small sample size. Over time, stats people tell us, everything converges. There’s no such thing as “finishing skill”.
A thousand Internet arguments have happened over statements like that because obviously there must be such a thing as finishing skill. A professional soccer player will be much better at scoring a goal than you or me from the same position on the field. But skill on the ball gets normalized in a given league by the transfer system. So it’s not surprising Inter Miami is outperforming with Messi and Suárez who, at least in raw skill terms, should still be playing in better leagues.
For its part, most of DC’s goals have come from Christian Benteke who—despite underperforming his xG for most of his career—has scored 13 goals on 10.7 xG this season. He’s certainly holding up his end of the finishing bargain. But besides him, DC has unimpressive veteran attackers like Cristian Dájome and a bunch of kids who are anything but clinical. Pedro Santos is the team’s only other overperformer (1 goal on 0.3 xG). Kristian Fletcher and Christopher McVey are both about even with 1 goal on 0.9 and 1.0 xG respectively.
That leaves a host of underperformers: Ted Ku-Dipietro (2 goals / 4.4 xG), Jared Stroud (1 goal / 2.7 xG), Mateusz Klich (2 goals / 2.6 xG), Dájome (1 goal / 2.0 xG), Lucas Bartlett (1 goal / 1.9 xG), Gabriel Pirani (1 goal / 1.6 xG), Jacob Murrell (1 goal / 1.6 xG), Jackson Hopkins (0 goals / 1.0 xG) and so on. The eye test agrees that these players have many other gifts, but they’re hardly snipers out there.
When it comes to defense, I think there’s a better case to be made that’s just luck. One could wonder if DC’s defensive failings somehow give opponents comparatively easier shots than the shot’s position might indicate, but DC has also been on the receiving end of some unlikely goals. For example, Carles Gil (0.04 xG), Aidan Morris (0.04 xG), Jack McGlynn (0.01 xG), and Elias Manoel (0.01 xG) have all scored on sub-0.05 xG shots. Carles Gil has 5 goals on 1.4 xG this season, so maybe he’s in the Messi/Suárez “he’s just that good” category, but none of these guys are tearing up the league.
So going back to DC’s offensive shortfall, it leads the league by a good margin, so how does it stack up in MLS history? Or at least, in the xG era, which only goes back to 2018?
Before I answer, let’s quickly mention all-time overperformers. The recordholders are last year’s St. Louis team with +16.4. DC United’s 2018 LuchaRoo team actually comes in at 10th with +10. The overperforming players on that squad included Yamil Asad (9 goals / 4.5 xG), Lucho Acosta (10 goals / 6.4 xG), Paul Arriola (7 goals / 4.2 xG), and Wayne Rooney (12 goals / 10.3 xg). Most of the other players came in even, people like Darren Mattocks, Zoltan Stieber, Steven Birnbaum, and Ulises Segura.
But yeah, as you would expect, Inter Miami is on pace to absolutely smash St. Louis’s record, though Copa America absences might knock them off their pace. Their +12.2 already puts them at #6 in the xG-era after only 18 matches compared to 34 from most past teams.
That brings us to the underperformers. DC has had a lot of futility in the xG era with two wooden spoons, but turns out they haven’t had this sort of futility. Both the wooden spoon teams just about matched their expected goals. The problem was they couldn’t generate enough xG to win more games. The worst season in terms of shortfall is actually 2019, the second Rooney team, with -2.6. That’s not all that much, something like #58 all-time and currently exceeded by a bunch of teams from this season.
DC’s 2024 -6.2 currently puts them at #36. It’s no Inter Miami outlier, but history could still be in the making. On a per game basis, that’s -0.36 per match. That would be good for #7 on the since-2018 list. The all-time leader in full seasons is 2019 Sporting KC with -0.46 per match, slightly eclipsed by the 2020 NE Revolution who had -0.47 a match in the shortened season.
So…this is certainly a large gap, but it’s not totally unprecedented. Also, looking at the outcomes of the teams above DC on the all-time list provides at least a little reason for optimism. 2019 Sporting KC (-0.46) and 2021 LAFC (-0.43) didn’t make the playoffs, but 2021 Minnesota United (-0.4) and 2020 NE Revolution (-0.47) did, as did 2018’s Columbus Crew (-0.38), the last Gregg Berhalter Crew team, the one that sadly defeated 2018’s LuchaRoo DC United in the opening round.
Coming Up
DC has next weekend off for the international break, then goes to Charlotte FC the following weekend. Charlotte hasn’t scored many goals (18, 7 less than DC) but they really haven’t given up many either (18, 13 less than DC) so they’ll be a tough opponent.
Then DC hosts the team they most recently defeated, Atlanta United, in a midweek game. Atlanta just fired its coach, so hopefully any interim coach bounce will already be over. Then Ben Olsen’s Houston Dynamo comes to visit for an inter-conference mid-table battle.
Great stuff as always! Keep up the great work