Atlanta United have found some marginal advantages in 2025. Why not embrace all of them?

don't think, just chuck it

I reckon most of y’all are probably pretty checked out of what’s happening elsewhere in MLS right now. But let me clue you in on one of my favorite storylines of the year. Minnesota United, the team with the league’s third-lowest payroll and a collection of relatively unknown players, are sitting second in the Western Conference thanks in part to their relentless devotion to uglying things up.

To steal (as always) from John Muller:

Minnesota’s oddball tactics aren’t just outliers in MLS. According to an analysis by Soccerment, a soccer data company, they take more long throws and deep free kicks than any other club in 30 of the world’s top leagues, from the Bundesliga to the Brasileirão. The low-budget overachievers sitting third in the MLS Western Conference just might be the most aggressive set piece team on the planet.

New phase-of-play data from the livescore app Futi supports this line of thought. (I co-founded Futi with the data scientist Mike Imburgio, who consults on Minnesota’s recruitment but isn’t involved with set pieces.) Though only 14% of Minnesota’s throw-ins into the box produce a shot, they lead to another set piece 20% of the time. Similarly, 45% of the team’s deep free kicks reach a second phase where the ball bounces around the box while the defense is still disorganized. The Loons haven’t managed a single shot in the first phase of a Dyche Zone free kick but they’ve scored three goals during those dangerous second phases, plus another from a subsequent corner kick.

Add it all up and the value of Minnesota’s aggressive set pieces is astonishing: their 10 goals within 45 seconds of a long throw or deep free kick represent nearly a third of the team’s season total.

The Loons have turned ugly into art. And numbers are guiding the way.

It’s pretty simple. Long throws and long free kicks into the box are more likely to result in goals.

We’re quoting Muller again…

Over the last four Premier League seasons, short throw-ins from the final quarter of the pitch are worth an average of 0.010 expected goals over the next 30 seconds, meaning they should produce 10 goals for every 1,000 throws. Throws into the box are worth more than double that, at 0.022 xG per attempt.

On average, a Premier League team that chooses to take a deep free kick short will go on to score 0.7 per cent of the time within the next 30 seconds. They’ll also concede 0.2 per cent of the time, for a net 30-second expected goal difference of +0.005. In other words, if a team took 200 deep free kicks the way they’re usually taken — ending somewhere short of the final third — we would expect them to earn a total goal difference of +1.

A deep free kick into the Dyche Zone will go on to score 1.1 per cent of the time and concede 0.2 per cent of the time, for a 30-second expected goal difference of +0.009. From 200 deep free kicks into the Dyche Zone, we’d expect a goal difference of +2.

Teams around the league are taking notice. Back in May, the good folks at Backheeled found that long throws into the box were trending upward at a notable rate and that teams were having more success with long throws than ever. Minnesota, of course, are leading the way. But they aren’t the only ones adopting what’s becoming a global trend in the sport. Teams like New York, Vancouver, St. Louis and Philadelphia are all invested in the long throw.

However, two teams in particular were notably hesitant (too proud?) to chuck the ball.

But while many teams do take this tactic seriously, it’s clearly not been adopted by everyone. Two teams – Atlanta United and New York City FC – are yet to throw the ball into the box this season at all.

That hasn’t improved with time. Per Backheeled and ASA’s Benjamin Bellman, Atlanta and NYCFC are still the league’s least launchingest teams.

In general, Atlanta haven’t found marginal advantages over the course of the season. A commitment to set pieces and long throws wouldn’t have saved…whatever this has been, but it would have at least improved things.

To their credit,