AROUND THE LEAGUE: WEEK 13

by Joseph Reina

**The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the viewpoints or positions of the Major Arena Soccer League.**

@josephreina21

Baltimore’s Backslide

Playing away in the MASL is notoriously difficult. This week, after nine straight wins, capped off by a dominant and comprehensive victory in Milwaukee, the Blast hit the road and immediately surrendered their momentum with four straight defeats.


On Feb. 7, Utica managed to get the better of their regional rivals before Empire claimed a dramatic overtime win a week later. With a chance to flip their fortunes, Baltimore traveled north to Tacoma for a pair of games at the accesso ShoWare Center, but it was the Stars who emerged victorious in both contests. 


Their success earlier this season was thanks in large part to a tight core of talent, that distributed points well. However, those superstars the team relied on for goals have gone relatively quiet in February, with Chad Poarch, Bruno Henrique, Juan Pereira, Jesus Pacheco, and Ricardo Diegues, averaging just three combined points per game since facing Utica.


Before their losing streak, Baltimore averaged 18.27 shots on target per game, but since Feb. 7, that number has plummeted to just 10.75. This dramatic drop-off indicates they haven’t been generating high-quality offensive opportunities as often as they did in their first 11 games.


During the same span, Baltimore’s average save percentage also dropped from 73.8% to 69.7%, which tells us that, while not as dramatic, there has been a drop in defensive performance as well. The two regressions, paired with one another, proved lethal, but their season is far from over. 


Baltimore still has nine games remaining with six coming at home where they have yet to suffer defeat. If they can turn their fortunes around and finish the season strong, there’s still a decent chance they could secure a top-two seed for the playoffs, but crucially, they’ll now need San Diego, Chihuahua, and Kansas City to drop some unexpected points.


They’ll need to bump their individual numbers up by focusing on creating more dangerous scoring opportunities if they want to right the ship soon. Their first chance to do just that will come next week when they host the Harrisburg heat on Sunday, Mar. 2, at 3:00 PM EST.


Strykers in Hot Pursuit

Three wins on the bounce for Empire and Obasi Ball is in full effect. This week, the Strykers nearly posted a clean sheet on the road against Texas and then followed that up with a mature 10-7 win over the visiting Milwaukee Wave. This is the team’s longest win streak since 2023, and they look poised to keep it going. 


Their revolutionary use of the goalkeeper as an outfield player continues to put their opponents on the back foot. Brian Orozco scored his third goal of the season against Milwaukee, and at this point, there are nine Strykers outfield players with fewer goals than their starting keeper. His addition necessitates a fierce transition press, which has steadily improved as the season continues. Now, nearly a month before playoffs commence, that tactic looks to be honed to an impressive degree.


Another massive note about this side is the improvement around Marco Fabián from last season to this. Just five players, including Fabián, finished Empire’s campaign with a double-digit points haul, but this year, that number has already doubled. Few teams diversify their portfolio as well as Empire who are getting goal contributions, not just from every line, but every position too. 


Head coach Onua Obasi’s unconventional approach drew criticism early in the season, but his decision to stick it out as his team learned to adapt in real-time seems to finally be paying off. While this win streak deserves praise, it will, no doubt, be put to the test massively in the coming weeks.


Empire has just six games remaining, including three against San Diego, who are still in the MASL Shield hunt. If the Strykers can win their other three games and steal a win off their rivals, they might just find themselves on a hot streak to start the postseason. First, they’ll welcome Texas to Toyota Arena this Sunday, Mar. 2, at 7:05 PM EST.


Goalkeeping.

I wanted to turn our attention to a controversial and potentially inflammatory topic: Goalkeeping. It’s been way too long since I analyzed MASL goalkeeper performance, but I’ve been working on a way to track goalkeeper impact, and I think I may have found it. However, it does come with some caveats.


The reality of indoor soccer is that Expected Goals or xG, does not exist to the same degree as it does in the outdoor game. However, to get a broad idea of how much each shot is worth, we can track the league’s cumulative figure for Goals Per Shot (GPS) which is 0.215. This tells us that on average, if a team or player takes five shots, they should be expected to score at least once. 


When looking at goalkeeper statistics, we want shots that reach the goalkeeper, so instead of GPS, we need Goals Per Shot On Target (GPSOT). That figure is 0.326, which means that if a team or player takes three shots that are not blocked or miss the goal entirely, roughly one of those should result in a goal.


So, to get an idea of each goalkeeper’s impact, I took their respective save totals for this season and multiplied them by that 0.326 figure. This gives me an estimate of how many goals they should be expected to concede. I then take the resulting number and subtract the actual goals that the goalkeeper conceded. To level the playing field for goalkeepers who may not have played as much, I then divided that figure by the goalkeeper’s amount of games played to create an impact value, similar to baseball’s Wins Above Replacement (WAR) statistic. 


So here we have it, a graph of MASL goalkeepers based on Goals Prevented Per Game (GsPrvPG) and Save Percentage (SVP). The two stats correlate very well, but there is some slight separation, especially at the top. Last year’s Goalkeeper of the Year, Chris Toth is heads and shoulders above the rest of the competition, and according to the data, he is preventing 1.57 more goals per game than a typical goalkeeper would be expected to, based on average league shooting efficiency.


Kansas City’ Phillip Ejimadu and Baltimore’s Julian Rodriguez are in similar positions to each other. They both save roughly 75% of the shots they face and have prevented just over one goal per game. However, Ejimadu leads all goalkeepers with five goal contributions this season, so you could argue his impact is even higher than this stat would indicate.