In a total of 10 games so far this season, the Legion has scored 11 goals. xG in 8 games of league play is 12.97. In the 2 USL Cup games xG was just 0.77. That makes for an average xG per game of 1.37. That’s not exactly great either, but it means that the Three Sparks have underscored by about 3 goals to date. The 11 goals include one penalty, on which the xG is always close to 1.00, so the open play performance is even weaker.
On top of that, the Legion has been shut out 4 times. That is, the team has been having manifest scoring problems all season. As it did last season, come to that.
The Legion is not alone in the Championship in struggling to score; there are 6 other teams with 10 or fewer goals in league play. Two of those are currently in playoff positions (New Mexico United and Hartford Athletic, who are 4th in the East with just 9 goals in 8 games). New Mexico and Lexington SC are even with the Legion on 10 league goals, although Lexington has played 1 more game. The others will not surprise you: Brooklyn FC (8 in 9 games), Sporting JAX (6 in 9 games) and Monterey Bay FC (5 in 9 games). Of the 6 only Hartford has a positive goal difference (+1, the same as the Legion).
It’s also true that the Legion has had probably more than its fair share of bad refereeing decisions that have denied it at least a couple of goals (including against Hartford, which ended 0-0 if you recall). So the situation is not dire…yet. Still, it is axiomatic in sports that you win the games you are supposed to win and get whatever you can out of the rest. The Legion should have beaten Miami and Chattanooga for sure. Loudoun United and Indy Eleven as well, probably. The Charleston game should have been a win as well, but that one can’t be blamed on the attack, which managed a 2-goal lead.
Points have been squandered. At least 6 in league play, and arguably 9. That would be good for 2nd in the East. Potentially 3 Cup points as well (1 point from the San Antonio game was not bad though). At this rate the Legion will eventually sneak into the Championship playoffs on a long string of draws à la Rhode Island. Which you really don’t want.
Which leads to the obvious question: what is preventing the Legion from scoring more?
Well, I think it comes down to style of play. That is, what the Legion is good at doing, offensively speaking, and what teams are doing to counter that.
The Legion attack seems to me to be built to do two things: first, a fast transitional game and, second, spreading the field horizontally. The Three Sparks are a counter-attacking team. This combination is designed to create space for passing lanes and to move the ball around the field as quickly as possible, thereby catching the defense out of position and generating shooting chances.
What the team is not really good at is high pressing. But for much of the time, at least lately, that is what the Legion has been trying to do. Games have been following a pattern: starting off with extremely high possession – 65% or higher – and easing off as the game progresses. That high possession is not translating into a high volume of shots, or even much penetration into the final third, let alone the opposing box. Against Chattanooga last week the team started in the low 70% range and ended the game at 55.7% possession. But the team had only 8 shots in the game and just 3 in the Chattanooga 18. Just 12 touches total in the box.
The only game in which high possession has really succeeded was against Indy Eleven. Indy are notoriously a low possession team and they more or less force opponents to keep the ball (which to an extent is what the Legion should be doing). The Legion had 70.6% possession overall, leading to 17 shots and 11 in the Indy box. The ultimate 2-2 scoreline was the result of switching off defensively, not any weakness in attack.
So what are teams doing to keep the Legion at bay? Well, other than allowing the high possession, they are denying the passing lanes the Three Sparks want to make. Consider the average positioning of the Red Wolves last week:
Two things appear to be the case here. This looks for all the world like a 3-4-3. They also favored defending their right flank. That is not too surprising given that the Legion lineup included its regular starters on the left (Dawson McCartney and Gevork Diarbian) but was missing Sebastian Tregarthen on the right (as well as Sam McIllhatton in the middle, but that’s a separate issue). Additionally, central midfielder Matt Acosta (#21) looks to be playing as a defensive pivot.
But that is not how the personnel was set up:
This was supposedly a 4-4-2. That is even more the case since the right back, Angelo Kelly-Rosales (#35), is primarily a midfielder. So the Red Wolves showed a hand and played it completely differently than what would be expected. Rather sneaky. And effective. That amounted to a group of 3 center backs keeping the Legion from advancing into the final third. Here’s the heatmap for those three guys:
They did not ignore their left side, but they worked hard to protect the right. Nicely done.
The only game in which the Legion played as it is built to do was in Rhode Island. The team had just 38.3% possession in the game but generated 11 shots of which 6 were in the 18 ( and 7 on target). Is it surprising that was the game in which the Legion put up its best score of the season so far? Not to me.
What I would like to see the Legion start doing is the soccer equivalent of the rope-a-dope. Instead of buzzing around aimlessly early in the game and tiring themselves out, the Three Sparks needs to make the opposition do the same thing. And take full advantage of the opportunities that result.
The Legion has 10 goals in the league, but has taken 98 shots. Those are 19th and 13th respectively. But the conversion is 14%, which is 12th. That is, when the team does get shots, they are relatively high quality (although it still needs to be much better). Combine that with the team’s league-leading 85% passing accuracy and you have a winning strategy.
