The match stats for the Australia v USA game is now up on Stattoz.

The stats looked great for Australia.

Pity about the result!

Thanks Decentric

Makes me feel a little better about the match

Fantastic statistics Decentric. Thanks for pointing it out.

I just hope these statistics will lessen the deluge of criticism poured upon the socceroos after the USA match and open people up to a little positive attitude and optimism.

Great work again Decentric!

I usually watch the matches as a passionate spectator and make disparaging comments about players in the game. When I analyse it later, one realises many players do many things well over the course of a game.

Grella hit more misdirected passes in the game than I've seen him do before. Conversely, these were all offensive passes in the attacking half of the pitch. He completed 21 passes in the defensive half of the pitch, making no mistakes. Even beter he successfully completed 30 passes in the offensive half of the pitch, possibly the best figure by an Australin player in any game we've played in the last two years.

We all remmeber Vince for his uncharacteristic extra touch when he lost the ball to Buddle who converted. Over the last two years there appears to be nobody else with his range of passing.

The closest is Jedinak, but he was wrong footed by nimble Asian players too often in the Asian qualifiers. Against bigger, less agile, more physical teams, this may not be a problem for him.

Grella also won more physical challenges than he lost in midfield. He was the only player in this part of the pitch to do so.

Edited by Decentric: 9/6/2010 10:56:15 AM

Over time one realises that rather than us having uncategorically good and bad players, different players have different strengths and weakneses.

The only player I have concerns about in one position, is David Carney. Over the last few years he has had difficulty winning sufficient one on one challenges at left back. I can't believe he is the best option as a a back up for Chipperfield.

As a wide flanker or winger, I think Carney's stats show that over the last few years, he is fine in that position. Bresciano is not a great ball winner either. Howevwer ,all other players who've played in the dfensive line are good ball winners, despite their relative technical quualities with the ball ath their feet. Wilkshire, Neill, Moore, Beauchamp, Chipperfield, Colosimo, Heffernan, Kemp, Vargas, Coyne, Kisnorbo, Williams, Stefanutto, Milligan and North, win more hard balls than they lose. Carney is a liability in this facet of the game.

With the ball at his feet, Carney is a decent player. Moreover, he has improved.


Scott McDonald is probably an example of a good player, suited to playing an obsolete game plan. The Championship and the SPL are not paradigms of conntemporaneous footbal practice. Goal sneaks are probably becoming less prevalent at higher levels of football.

I gotta tell ya, Decentric, I'm extremely impressed. :shock:

You should seriously consider working for SBS or Fox as a stat gatherer or something. You certainly know your stuff.

Decentric is a champ, we are all very lucky that these stat/analysises of the game are available to us. It is still amazing to me that their are people who cannot see the value of statistical analysis as a tool is extremely important in football.

Of course it is. I use stats all the time to back up points, and I see a lot of other posters doing the same.

However, I disagree with the stance of 'Oh, we lost 3-1 but it doesn't matter because we had 60% possession, we were unlucky'

We weren't unlucky. They were a far better side on the day. And it was (is) a worrying sign with the WC so close.

On paper and on recent form the USA are a much better side than us. While they won the game, and had a number of good chances its important to focus on the positives from a game like this. We controlled a lot of the game, and created a lot of chances.... we really need someone to start banging em in the back of the net though

A couple of the chances that Kennedy had were perfectly suited for a player like Joel Griffiths.

Thanks again Decentric always interesting to read your stats.

If you read Soccernomics by Simon Kuper, there is always an element of luck in any game. The USA's accelerated attacks stood out against Australia, but there were some good points for the Socceroos. It wasn't all bad.

Kuper breaks down England's performances to demonstrate they don't underperform using a rational calculus formula. It comes down to one or two decisions and an element of luck which determines they marginally underachieve in big tournaments. However, their win/loss ratio is approximately what it should be.

The American goalkeepers were much busier than ours on Saturday.

Yep. I also think America (Like us) have a rich supply of goalkeeping talent looking at their list, which is why so few of our scoring opportunities went in.

Let's see how Germany goes against Australia with what I perceive as a fairly inexperienced and mediocre goalkeeping squad. Between their three goalkeepers, they've only had 8 national team caps. This is an incredible statistic to me.

Let's hope the big occasion makes the goalkeepers a little nervous, causing them to stuff up here and there.

Decentric, you and I both know that Stats don't win games and we were outplayed against the USA. We may have had some stats in our favour, but the bottom line is, we got dominated on the on ethat matters - the scoreboard.

I've qualified what I've said. The USA were the better side. Nevertheless, when one analyses the game more closely, the game wasn't as bad for Australia as the scoreline suggests.

Just as Australia beat Ireland 3-0, the result flattered Australia.

There are a number of erudite Americans, in football terms, concerned about their ability to rely on counterattacks, as opposed to playing circulation football. There have been concerns that with 33% of the possession against Australia, it is too low.

Italy may be comfortable with 33% possession, but not many other teams are good enough to have so little of the ball and win.