Howard v. Scotland - 11.15.13

Thank you Scotland for making this review a little bit easier on me. For the last two games of the year, neither Brad Guzan or Nick Rimando were called up for the Euro-friendlies. Guzan was reportedly dealing with an unnamed injury and Rimando was just left out in the cold. From Express and Star

Guzan was expected to be given a chance in at least one of the matches after starting in the USA’s final World Cup qualifier against Panama last month.  Jurgen Klinsmann’s side qualified for Brazil 2014 with Guzan fighting with Everton’s Tim Howard to start while DC United’s Bill Hamid and Sean Johnson of Chicago Fire trying to fill the third goalkeeping spot... Klinsmann said. “There are some injury issues that now give other players the chance to step up.”

...and 7500 to Holte...

...it seems Brad Guzan won't be part of the squad assembling for these friendlies. Instead, Tim Howard, Sean Johnson and Bill Hamid were the goalkeepers named by Jurgen Klinsmann. According to Twitter and some actually reputable news outlets, Guzan isn't on the list because he's picked up an injury. A vague injury. One that has yet to be confirmed or named by Aston Villa. Or articulated by any news sources.

So Howard starts while Johnson and Hamid pick up the slack. I'd expect for Johnson to start versus Austria on Tuesday but reserve the right to not be excited about it.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLqypKd8pVc&w=560&h=315]

Starter: Tim Howard Bench: Sean Johnson Not in 18: Bill Hamid

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Howard only had one save so I'm going to look more at his positioning than usual because what else is there to talk about when a goalie only saves one shot?

Seventh minute, a cross gets sent in that Cameron clears while Howard does the "should I, shouldn't I?" dance in the box. The ball drops to Craig Conway a top of the box and Howard does about fifty jump sets that continually inch him forward to the ball.

It's small, as is this post on this game, but he's cutting down his reaction time and opening up a backdoor chip. It doesn't affect the game but it's not a good practice.

Twenty-fourth minute, Howard faces a free kick outside the box. But the free kick taker, Charlie Mulgrew, has lined up so drastically to the right of the ball that the only realistic shot on goal would be right at Howard.

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Howard easily sees this over.

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In the thirty-sixth minute, Howard faces a somewhat similar situation that he faced against England in 2010: a simple throw-in unzips the back line when the CB unsuccessfully chases the ball up field. However, Scotland does not have Steven Gerrard on their team and do not put the ball on target. Howard does a good job of covering the goal width.

Howard makes zero saves in the first half and is still at a 0.0 for his GSAR at this time. A few minutes into the second half he is finally called upon.

Yawn? I thought so too. US Soccer only gave him one save for the game (and we all know what's coming up next) so I guess they thought this was too easy to credit with a save as well. Howard takes note of how boring this was and makes up for it by giving us a wonderful distribution.

Fifty-third minute and we get the save of the match.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ77Olakko8&w=560&h=315]

For all those Howard nay-sayers saying he struggles with long free kicks... yooou could still argue that because this is actually very different from previous free kick goals. Here, he can see the ball before the shot but against Guatemala he could not. So while the shot is a little faster at ~57 mph, Howard has a full second to get to the ball as opposed to less than half a second. In the first ever "How They Saved [It]" Howard reveals that he was expecting the shot to go to his left. So Howard sees the ball the entire way to a spot he is already leaning towards. Not to take away from the save, but it is different.

If Howard doesn't make that save... well there might be people screaming for Guzan but I don't think anyone would really blame Howard on that one.

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shutout: -0

36' catch: +.01 53' save: +.77

Total: +.78

And that was it. Don't be surprised to see Johnson on Tuesday. [SPOILER IT IS HOWARD AGAIN]

Top 100 American Goalkeepers (November 2013)

No player profile this month as I'm pushing to finish my GSAR before the Goalkeeper of the Year award goes to the wrong guy. And hopefully I'll get around to compiling a Steve Clark highlight video just in case he needs to find a new team next season. (Try to catch the finale this Saturday, 9-ish CT, not exactly sure when.) I tweaked my formula so a lot of college guys dropped out and lower tier veterans sneaked back in.  But of note, Bendik jumps to number 7 from 10 and Dykstra rises from 40 to 26. Also Blake Hylen (senior at San Diego St) represents the collegiate class at number 100. I'm still not completely sold on Hylen so I'm just penciling his name in for now. Also Patrick Wall hasn't been on great form lately so he slipped out of the 100. (He'll be back, I'm sure.)

[googleapps domain="docs" dir="spreadsheet/pub" query="key=0AttujdNBdATWdFplNUFBWVo1TVZKa2xPclpqQ3FCQ1E&output=html&widget=true" width="500" height="1000" /]

Here's a bit of a sneak preview for my 2013 MLS GSAR stat. I haven't finished it (as you'll see) but just in case anyone had any doubt it shouldn't be Rimando...

[googleapps domain="docs" dir="spreadsheet/pub" query="key=0AttujdNBdATWdGh0a1V0QWp6ZHlLcDlJYmlyd1oxQkE&output=html&widget=true" width="500" height="600" /]

 

(web page here)

As you can see, Rimando has a +10.75 goals saved above replacement. Second is Joe Bendik at +10.47 although Rimando has played four less games than Bendik.

"Okay but what are these stats based on? How is that number calculated." Uh, well I wasn't really thinking ahead to save my work (sorry all middle school math teachers) to show it to the public but coming from someone who has probably seen 100 times more highlight videos on these goalkeepers, please trust me. DO NOT VOTE JIMMY NIELSEN PLEASE. He is a fine enough goalkeeper but not deserving of this award. His GAA hides behind a great defense. DO NOT VOTE FOR TALLY HALL. It's great that he's been called into the national team but he has not performed as well as Rimando. Save percentage and goals allowed are not accurate assessments of a goalkeeper's ability.

If that does not convince you, here is American Soccer Analysis' expected goals allowed compared to real:

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(These stats are based off of ASA's shot location stats which you can see here.)

Portland tops the list with only giving up 33 goals while they were expected to give up 40.1 this year. But RSL has a lower dGA (difference in GA, colored column) than Portland because, I think, of the defense. Who is the Timbers' best defender? Michael Harrington? RSL has Borchers, McDonald, Wingert and Beltran. If you did vote for Ricketts over Rimando, eh, but okay. But please some of these other selections are not appropriate.

Look, SKC has a -0.2 dGA to RSL's 5.1. If you voted for Nielsen over Rimando you're essentially saying that the SKC defense was so miserable than they negated all of Nielsen's efforts and RSL's defense, on the other hand, was even better than SKC's and that Rimando had very little to do with it. DO NOT SAY THIS.

Whew. Okay, looking forward, I have interviews with Alan Mayer and Brad Stuver coming in the next week, a re-visiting of the 1989 win in Trinidad and Tobago to celebrate the 25-(minus one)-th anniversary, and an MLS end of the year write up of what goalkeepers should be going and coming. It should be an exciting month [for people who care about goalkeepers].

Guzan v. Panama - WCQ - 10.15.13

COCANCAF gonna CONCACAF. Howard departed after US's 2-0 over Jamaica. Guzan last played in the 4-2 loss to Belgium, coming on in the second half and conceding three goals, but did well against Mexico, holding them to a 0-0 tie at Azteca. So maybe this game would shed some light on how good this Brad Guzan guy really is. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmKpSZyeZzQ&w=420&h=315]

Starter: Brad Guzan Bench: Nick Rimando Not in 18: Sean Johnson

Johnson, who looks like a strong candidate for 2018 bench at this point, fills the void. Guzan comes out in the worst USMNT goalkeeper kit I have ever seen. All mustard yellow (including gloves and sock) and neon yellow cleats.

Four minutes in and Guzan collects a skyscrapper of a header then punts the ball down to a man cleverly disguised as a target striker but for whatever reason never wins a 50-50 ball.

Seventh minute and we get a really good example of the difference between Guzan and Howard.

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Kljestan takes care of the header as Guzan stays home. Howard goes for that ball every time. Who is right? Well in this occasion it's Howard. However, a goalkeeper who typically protects the line versus one that imitates a wrecking ball can be equally as effective, you just have to know how to play them appropriately. There's a lot of to consider (relationship with the defense, aerial strength of the opponents, type of service, etc.) before you just pick stay or go. (I went into length about this last time on Howard v. Jamaica.)

I don't know who has the longer throw but Guzan dishes out a nice javelin at 0:25.

(There are a lot of looped balls sent in and various no-shot skirmishes in front of the goal because that's what Panama is good at.)

Thirteen minute, Guzan gets a stressful encounter. A ball slices through the eighteen towards the corner flag. Guzan moves to it, then backs away (either because of the striker or slick bounce). The Panamian tracks it down, breakdances,

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...and sends a hard ball in front of the goalmouth. Guzan goes down to collect it (as he should) but the giraffe is too thin to box out his man. I don't know if Guzan does this on purpose or not but he kicks his right leg up in the air as if to block the goal when he realizes he's lost the angle on the play.

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If it's on purpose, smart play to try to avoid the chip; if not, well he still looks awful in yellow.

Guzan pops back up and Goodson proves to not be completely two-deminsional and stomachs the ball from getting on frame.

Alright who watched the first goal and thought "Wha-Guzan? What happened?" then proceeded to watch eight awful camera angles that didn't clarify anything? (Comment below about your experience.) Well I think I figured out some factors that contributed to Guzan's wiff. First, there is a nice mud patch that Guzan is trying to avoid.

Screen Shot 2013-10-16 at 9.45.56 PMScreen Shot 2013-10-16 at 11.14.40 PM

He ends up being a little out of position because of this. Secondly, his feet are a bit out of sorts. His pre-shot jump is too high and he does a weird circle motion with his right foot (again, maybe because of the mud pit) that slows him down and kills his reach. The shot is in the side netting but this is something Guzan can get if he gets his mechanics sorted out. (I slowed it down at 1:48 to get a good look.)

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A minute later he gets a similar shot on goal that Perez can't get off the ground.

Later, Guzan does his best flying squirrel impression two minutes before the half.

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Second half, Guzan comes out in a new kit. I bet Frank Borghi didn't have that luxury.

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Guzan and Castillo team up in the fifty-fourth minute to awkwardly bat a ball back into the center of the park. I think Guzan would have gotten this one on his second attempt. He misses with his foot but his swinging arm should arrive in time.

Screen Shot 2013-10-16 at 11.28.02 PM

Guzan makes his best save of the match at around the 66th minute. Just a deft southpaw but a needed one. The play goes somewhat unnoticed because it happens so fast but it's a six yard 1v1 blast and Guzan gets back up after the save just as fast as he made it. The slowed replay from behind the goal still makes the shot look fast.

I added a shot that goes wide from the seventy-ninth minute because I loved Guzan's footwork. Constantly on his toes. Great stuff.

83rd minute and Guzan gets thrown in a similar situation that Howard faced with the in-swinging cross from Jamaica. There's the original shot that's not going in the goal but if Guzan leaves it he runs the risk of a easy shot on goal from the backside. He stretches out but can only fingertip it back to the guy that both Beckerman and Goodson have combined to stop marking. (The old adage "If you get your fingertips on it you need to catch it" does not apply here or for goalies at all btw.) There's another crashing striker in the play that makes things even more difficult for Guzan.

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What could he have done differently? Officially, I'm going to say nothing because any critique is going to be so minute it's not actually helpful. But in the margin I'm making a note that you want to parry the ball out on a line and not pop it up, which Guzan kiiinda does (5:03).

Two bounces into the bread baskets later, Guzan gets a hockey assist to make it 3-2.

The biggest thing I got out of the game is not knowing who the better goalkeeper is between Howard or Guzan, it's deciphering the little things between the two. From first glance, they're both bald. They're both athletic. Both are good communicators. Both can kick and throw well and they are playing in the EPL. But they two have distinct playing styles. Howard is definitely more aggressive on crosses and 1v1s. Guzan likes to stay back. Howard's stance is a lot wider while Guzan's footwork is constant changing. Overall, I think the biggest difference in the game is that Guzan takes a calmer approach to the game and Howard is like that giant circular dog on a chain from Mario.

mkdd_chain_chomp

The good thing about this is that there's no obvious better goalkeeper at the moment so everyone still has something to discuss on BigSoccer.

two goals: -2

5' catch: +.02 7' no catch: -.01 7' catch: +.02 10' catch: +.01 13' positioning: +.10 17' catch: +.01 18' goal: +.82 19' catch: +.05 40' catch: +.01 66' save: +.17 83' save: +.06 83' goal: +1

Total: +.27