2025 Atlanta United: The numbers so far

Maybe it's not so bad?....[checking]...ok, yeah, it's still kind of bad

We typically can’t put too much stock into what stats like expected goals (xG) and goals added (g+) are telling us until about 8-10 games into a season. Even then, those numbers are less predictive in MLS than anywhere else in the world. That doesn’t mean they’re pointless though. They’re still decent indicators of relative team strength.

Last year, Atlanta United’s underlying numbers showed signs of life that weren’t apparent in their record. American Soccer Analysis’ expected points metric suggested Atlanta United should be closer to 1.51 points per game based on the chances they created and allowed. Instead, they finished with 1.18 and the third-largest negative disparity in Pts-xPts of any team in MLS last year.

We won’t dig into all the numbers from last year, but, basically, numbers like that suggest that when the Five Stripes pulled off their upset win over Inter Miami, it didn’t look like that much of an upset on paper.

Here. Take a look at FSF’s patented Coefficient of Power Expected (or COPE) from last season. By taking measures like xPts and G+, and weighting them based on predictive power, we can get a really good sense of how good the numbers believe a team actually is. You can see 2024 Atlanta’s COPE is high. Probably a lot higher than you would have guessed. And Miami…Miami is the luckiest team of all time and would have been close even without Messi and Suarez overperforming.

I say all that to point out that there were kernels of hope scattered throughout the 2024 season. The underlyings were good to great in the first half of the year. They understandably trailed off a bit after the departure of Giorgos Giakoumakis and Thiago Almada, but still stayed toward the middle of the pack after that. So maybe, just maybe, if we dig deep into the numbers behind this year’s Atlanta United, we’ll see a team just waiting to start catching a few more breaks…..

[checking…]