I pulled the data from 18U Platinum. Peter S, was pretty dominant regardless of how you look at it. I looked at shooting % for players with at least 10 goals.
I’ve been pretty interested in the value of shooting percentage and chastised 6-8 for not penalizing low percentage shooters.
This shows that for the most part, low shooting percentage leads to unfavorable results but higher doesn’t necessarily lead to better results. I suspect this data is skewed by the level of the competition and any shootouts (this could be significant as 8 goals on 9 shots in a long shootout can be impactful. 5 of the top 6 shooting teams had at least 1 shootout).
It is important to split the universe by ‘skill set.’ I ran the following analysis in order to understand what was a more important factor: defense of offense. When running the analysis as one sample, i.e., top 24 the results shows Offense was a more important factor
However, when I split the universe to three groups top 8 , next 8 and bottom 8 the results started to make sense where for top teams, when they play with each other, defense is a more important factor.
Expanding the analysis to the data @Gibson looked at, shows similar pattern, the more elite the team is, its placement correlates with its placement when you separate the data. First, the entire sample then splitting it into three groups.
As for the importance of multiple scoring threats. This shows the scoring and shooting contribution by the top 3 scorers for each team. wp2024 can do his fancy regression analyses.
Thank you Gibson, this is a good analysis. I think the stat that will separate teams by skill level, and ultimately determine their final placement, is 6-on-5 offense and defense, particularly 6-on-5 defense.
It just took the two factors you included in the table. the number of goal, mathematically, is just the product of Shooting Volume * Shooting % and it used both of them to explain the final placement. It just says that for the more skilled teams (high placement) the % is more important and for the lower end the volume as the % does not explain much.
Yeah, there’s a lot more we could do with more details. You could go game by game and count all the exclusions and then see the PGs and PPGs, but that would be a pain to do and also only approximate.
Thank you for sharing this analysis. It is really difficult to draw a conclusion on the importance of defense vs offense. I have always felt that the defense makes or breaks a game. Then again, my son is a goalkeeper so there you go. The plots show a weak relationship so I would not draw any conclusions here. Interesting none the less.
Just curious. How does USWP determine 1st team, 2nd team, honorable mention for all American JO recognition. Do they use stats, talk to coaches, select only top 10 team platinum athletes etc.? Thanks
Each team from 1st through 15th in Platnium will get x number of spots to select players. From there each coach will select players from their club based on the number of spots allowed.
This data is interesting. If I’m a coach in the bottom half of the rankings for average goals scored per game, I’d be foolish not to make offense my top priority. On the other hand, if I’m already in the top half in scoring but my overall ranking doesn’t reflect that, then it’s obviously time to hone in on defense.
Too many American coaches get carried away with defense and fail to recognize that offensive deficiencies are just as much of a liability. If you want to be a top-five team, you have to build a relentlessly good offense first. Once that’s established, then you can fine-tune your defense. Otherwise, you end up stuck in the bottom half of this list.
Defense can absolutely win games. But at the highest level, the coaches who consistently win are the ones who adapt their offense to break down equally good defenses. That’s ultimately what separates the best teams from everyone else.
The only other sports that would be comparable would be lacrosse and (to a lesser extent) hockey. Lacrosse is more comparable because the volume of offensive possessions/shots would be similar. Hockey less so for two reasons: even though possessions are more similar, the lack of control of the puck; and the size of the goal relative to the goalie makes for decreased offensive efficacy.
I was actually going to mention handball, but did not for this exact reason! I always watch it during the Olympics and it’s often referred to as “water polo on land”!
. This is an interesting perspective. Is this opinion implied for just waterpolo or all sports? Respectfully