When Numbers Lie
Okay, it’s that silly season again. No, not the offseason silly season, the new FIFA release silly season where we see what a terrible job EA Sports–a Bay Area company no less–did in assigning ratings to the San Jose Earthquakes and MLS players in general.
And it’s not just ratings that are a problem…
The ratings are such a joke that some MLS teams decide to capture the moment on film when their players get to see their ratings knowing it will create some perfect social media content.
Yes, these numbers lie. A lot. Without a doubt, it is frustrating for MLS fans to only have the option to play a video game that almost pretends like their league doesn’t exist. Might as well just be an arcade-y game if the ratings don’t matter.
Clearly, either very little effort goes into these ratings for MLS, or the people who do them are not very good at their job, particularly because player ratings don’t need to be subjective anymore.
We have tons of data that gives us the answers of how well soccer players play and have for a long time now. We don’t need committees of people deciding these things; we have computers to give us the answers about how well someone shoots or how good their dribbling is or how poor their defending is.
And that includes measuring “speed” in soccer. Or “pace” in football. Whichever you prefer.
FIFA 22 ratings for Earthquakes players
Digging into the futbin.com link in my tweet and sorting by Pace (PAC), we can see where FIFA 22 has ranked various Earthquakes players (full list not shown).
There’s a lot to rant about here in the overall ratings, and I decided to not succumb to the allure of just writing an entire article about how poor the accuracy of the Quakes’ overall ratings are, never mind the detailed ratings themselves (including Chofis’ shooting). But Jeremy Ebobisse is not the fastest Quake. Not by a long shot. So who is?
Side note: I have to say I don’t know how EA Sports comes up with the Pace ratings other than their MLS volunteers’ ratings. I’m definitely giving a side-eye to Jeremy Ebobisse’s PHY rating (Physical is a composite of Jumping, Stamina, Strength, and Aggression) due to the typical racial profiling that is done on soccer players. (For reference, Ebobisse has the 8th-lowest fouls per 96 minutes of all 2021 MLS players over 1000 minutes.)
Thanks to Second Spectrum, we have a way to put the Pace ratings to the test.
How Second Spectrum Works
For the past three seasons, Second Spectrum cameras have captured “tracking data” for every MLS game, except for the MLS is Back Tournament last year where logistics made that impossible. In fact, the Earthquakes were the first MLS team, and then-named Avaya Stadium was the first MLS stadium, to implement Second Spectrum cameras all around the pitch.
“Tracking data” is an interesting thing, partially because not everyone is in agreement with how to capture it. You could put GPS trackers into player shoes and the ball, and you would know where everyone is at all times. However, FIFA has not approved adding a tracker to player equipment and the ball, like has been done for years in the NFL and the NBA. You could use those sports bra things, but then you’d still need a GPS tracker in the ball to know where it is at or how high off the pitch it is.
What Second Spectrum does is use multiple cameras to capture the location and movement of every player on the pitch and the ball. A good example is included in this quick video from Second Spectrum.
Joseph Lowery wrote an article for MLSSoccer.com earlier this season that talked about player speed. While Cade Cowell was not the fastest player in MLS as of the time the article was written, he was mentioned as one of the top players in “sustained speed per second.”
Sustained speed in Second Spectrum is measured as a player’s speed over a full second of time. That might sound curious, but when you consider Second Spectrum cameras capture data in 20 frames/second, that means that a player’s speed is judged per second based on its consistency over 20 individual frames.
Race for the Pace
With a thank you to MLS and Second Spectrum for allowing me to write this article given the protected status of Second Spectrum data to just MLS clubs and a set of select media and analytics individuals (of which I’m fortunate to recently become one), I was asked to not share the “underlying data” here. However, that doesn’t prevent me from sharing some aggregate information that can help us decide the Fastest Quake.
I’ve broken this down into a few categories.
Total Distance per 90 Minutes
Winner: Chris Wondolowski (over 11 km per game)
2. Shea Salinas
3. Jackson Yueill
4. Benji Kikanovic
5. Paul Marie
Okay, so this isn’t really a “pace” category, but if we’re talking Stamina for FIFA’s Physicality category, no one is better than the MLS GOAT, and the second place goes to the other old guy, Shea. Anytime we can create a category for Wondo and Shea to win as a duo, we’re going to do just that.
Distance Sprinting per 90 Minutes
Winner: Cade Cowell (almost 400 meters per game)
2. Carlos Fierro
3. Marcos Lopez
4. Benji Kikanovic
5. Cristian Espinoza
Second Spectrum defines a “sprint” as over 25 km/h (15.5 mph). Cade takes this category by over 50 meters per game.
Total Time at High Intensity per 90 Minutes
Winner: Shea Salinas (almost 3 minutes per game)
2. Carlos Fierro
3. Paul Marie
4. Luciano Abecasis
5. Cade Cowell
Second Spectrum defines “high intensity” as over 20 km/h (12.4 mph). Shea takes this category in a tight battle with Carlos, but both of them have a solid lead over the rest of the field.
Attacking Runs per Game
Winner: Cristian Espinoza (over 20 attacking runs per game)
2. Jeremy Ebobisse
3. Cade Cowell
4. Shea Salinas
5. Jackson Yueill
Aha, we found something Ebobisse is a top player in: off-the-ball runs. Ebobisse and Espinoza are both slightly over 20 per game in this category. Also making a surprise appearance is Captain Jackson. The speed of the average run here is about 12 mph.
High Speed Pressures per 90 Minutes
Winner: Judson (over 25 high-speed pressures per game)
2. Jack Skahan
3. Cade Cowell
4. Jackson Yueill
5. Cristian Espinoza
You were looking for that Judson category, weren’t you? Yeah, you were. He’s the “pressures” guy. He’s third in average speed while pressuring, but the top two guys are those forwards who get a lot of space to build up speed, so let’s hear it for Judson, Skahan, and Yueill here who move with speed in tight spaces.
Okay, here’s the big category. Who has the fastest “sustained” speed this season and what game was their fastest run in?
…drum roll, please…
Top Sustained Speed Across All Games
Winner: Cade Cowell (top sustained speed over 22 mph) – vs. Orlando on 6/22
2. Marcos Lopez – vs. RSL on 5/7
3. Cristian Espinoza – vs. LAFC on 8/8
4. Benji Kikanovic – vs. Austin FC on 9/17
5. Shea Salinas – vs. LA Galaxy on 5/29
Cade is the only player to have broken the 10 meters per second mark this season. No one broke it in 2020, but it’s worth noting that Paul Marie had the second highest in 2020 behind Cade. Keep in mind Kikanovic only has 300 minutes this season compared to Cowell’s 1500, so the sample size is definitely a factor here.
Conclusion
For now at least, Cade Cowell is our overall winner with two categories won and appearances in three other categories. With Lopez back from Peru for a bit and with Kikanovic getting more playing time, this will be an interesting one to watch.
Rumors are that Kikanovic has bested Cowell by just a hair in training, and Benji hinted at it in this week’s press conference when asked about it.
Maybe we should have a track meet after the season, but it would feel pretty good for two Northern California boys to share the crown of Fastest Quake. For now, we have to give it to Cade, but this is going to be one to watch as Benji gets more minutes. The difference in top sustained speed from Cade through Benji is very small, and any of those players could set a new high speed in a remaining game.
How about a starting front line of Cade, Benji, and Cristian? That sounds pretty good right now, and one that ought to do well in FIFA 22 if EA Sports ever gets their act together. For now, maybe we’ll have to settle for that starting lineup in a live MLS game.
