Reply to MLS Next Quality of Play scores make no sense

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I honestly think that Taka might be making a mistake in how they calculate defensive quality of play.

If you look at different leagues, the attacking quality of play is highly correlated with the number of goals scored. That seems reasonable. More goals = higher attacking QoP.

But defensive quality of play seems to be uncorrelated with the number of goals against. Which is highly unintuitive. For example, in the U14 Northeast Division, Bergen has allowed a league-best 6 goals and is ranked 9th in defensive QoP. In the U14 Mid-Atlantic, Armour has allowed a league-best 9 goals and is ranked 9th in defensive QoP. It seems unintuitive that teams with the best defense in terms of goals allowed are ranked so far down in defensive QoP. You can find many more such examples.

My uninformed guess is that Taka count the number of "good" defensive plays a team makes and then they add them up to calculate the defensive QoP score. But teams that recover the ball quickly or have more possession will have fewer of those defensive plays. So teams that allow their opponents fewer chances are penalized with a low defensive QoP.[/quote]

It's been said a few times already, QoP relies heavily on individual skills and the ability of those individuals to connect.  I mean "link-up" is considered a postive skill.  An informed guess would be that teams that are not scoring high on the defensive QoP (notwithstanding less goals allowed) is likely because the players aren't scoring high on individual skills nor are they actually creating plays.  For example, maybe they boot or clear the ball more often - even when there is time to do something else with it.  So if a team is good at clearing/booting the ball away from the goal area, no other individual skills by defenders are being recorded.  If all the defenders do is clear/boot the ball, then there is no connection to the rest of the team, like through midfielders to create plays.  Should defenders have to show more than the abiity to clear/boot a goal, I guess many would find that debtable.  But whoever came up with QoP certainly thinks so.

At U15, this all becomes moot anyway when it's just win-lose.  At some point, teams that score high on defensive QoP (despite number of goals let in) are still going to need to figure out how not to let balls in.  [/quote]

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