NSC Stars Fall To Portland Timbers; Lose Ground in Playoff Hopes
The NSC Minnesota Stars missed a golden opportunity to gain 3 points and draw even with the Portland Timbers in a contest some may call a 6-point game. The Stars lost to the Timbers on Saturday evening by a score of 1-0 at the National Sports Center Stadium in Blaine, Minnesota.
Before the game, Portland sat in 3rd place in the USL Conference with 31 points. Minnesota was in 5th place with 28 points. A win would have allowed Minnesota a chance to leap frog Puerto Rico who were in 4th place with 29 points and move into a 2-way tie for 3rd place spot with Portland. Instead, the Stars drop to 7-11-7 and with games in hand over most teams their chances of making the playoffs become more difficult.
Wins=Blue, Losses=Green, Draws=Gold
The game’s only goal came in the 68th minute when Portland scored on a PK after the muscular Bright Dike stripped the ball from defender Scott Lorenz in the center of the field and then used his pace to race ahead and go one-on-one with Stars goalkeeper “Papa” Joe Warren. The Stars keeper came out of his goal and took down Dike in the box denying a goal-scoring opportunity and receiving a red card for his efforts.
Ryan Pore took the penalty and scored on backup keeper Matt VanOekel, putting the Timbers in the lead. The goal also put Pore into the league lead in goals scored with 13.
While many have been lamenting the Stars lack of goal-scoring prowess this season, a look at the statistics actually shows a different problem. Soccer is a game where home field is normally an advantage with low scoring contests and home supporters. Looking at the Stars home record this season, they’ve not used that advantage and their home record has most likely contributed to their attendance woes.
Minnesota has only managed 4 wins at home this season with 3 draws and 6 losses. They have won only 31% of their home games this year, drawn 23% and lost 46%.
Looking at the top four teams in the league you will see a very different story, with teams using the home field to their advantage. Only Portland has a win record under 55% and they’ve lost only 27% to Minnesota’s home loss record of 46%.
Wins=Blue, Losses=Green, Draws=Gold
While the Stars “goals scored at home” is slightly lower than the top four teams with 11 it isn’t too far off from the top four. Rochester has 18, Austin, 23, Vancouver and Portland each have 13 goals scored at home. The real thorn in Minnesota’s side seems to be “goals allowed a home.” A look at the stats shows every one of the top four teams have a +5 goal differential or better, while Minnesota’s home goals allowed is a -5; a 10 goal difference from the closest team Portland. Minnesota’s defense has given up a staggering 16 goals at home. Vancouver has given up the least with 6. Portland has leaked 8, Rochester 9 and Austin, while giving up 14, have scored a whopping 23 goals at home offsetting the goals allowed.
Goal differential for the top four teams is: Rochester and Austin both sit with a +9 goal differential at home. Vancouver is +7, Portland +5 and Minnesota-5.
Minnesota has clearly not taken advantage of their home field advantage this year and as the losses stack up their playoff chances get more remote. The Stars still sits in the final playoff spot tied with Montreal, but have played 25 matches and all other teams in the league have games in hand except Rochester who have also played 25.
As the standings sit Sunday morning, August 22, the Rhinos are in 1st place with 48 points (14-5-6), Austin sits second with 41 points (12-3-5), Vancouver is third with 39 points (9-3-12) and Portland fourth with 34 points (9-7-7).
| USSF D-2 Pro League | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| USL Conference | GP | W | L | T | GF | GA | GD | Pts | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 01. Rochester Rhinos | 25 | 14 | 5 | 6 | 32 | 18 | 14 | 48 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 02. Austin Aztex | 20 | 12 | 3 | 5 | 37 | 22 | 15 | 41 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 03. Portland Timbers | 23 | 9 | 7 | 7 | 23 | 19 | 4 | 34 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 04. Puerto Rico Islanders | 22 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 28 | 25 | 3 | 29 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 05. NSC Minnesota Stars | 25 | 7 | 11 | 7 | 24 | 33 | -9 | 28 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 06. Tampa Bay Rowdies | 23 | 6 | 8 | 9 | 30 | 29 | 1 | 27 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
GP: Games Played; W: Wins; L: Losses; T: Draws; GF: Goals For; GA: Goals Against; GD: Goal Differential; Pts: Points;
Comments are closed.
FYI, “games in hand” is usually used to mean that a team has played *less* games than another team.
Ya, thanks. I wrote that in a very confusing way. In fact I’ve made a number of edits just now and I think I cleaned up a number of things in a hastily written post. I spent a lot of time on the numbers and graphs but not so much on the wordsmithing.
I would disagree slightly about the goals scored not being a problem (just because it compares to the other teams).
The numbers show that all the USSF D 2 Pro teams are not doing well scoring goals this year, Austin is maybe the exception at 1.9 per game.
I’m not sure we are disagreeing. My point is that the bigger problem may be all the goals given away at home. As you well know, in soccer it’s often tough to get the away goal, but not necessarily in Minnesota. I do agree that goal scoring is not real high in general but it would be interesting to look though the stats at the end of the year and see if that was a trend or if that is normal for D2. I have a feeling it’s more normal than we may think. I way also wondering about draws in the league this year. There seems to have been an awful lot of them. But when I calculated the total number of draws it was around 1/3 of all games which I would think would be about right.
I really see this as a tale of two seasons—the first half and the second half. In looking at the hard data, the Stars were 5-8-2 (W-L-D) in the first 15 matches. They only scored 12 goals (0.8 per game) and conceded 21 (1.4 per game.) From what I remember seeing the first few matches, they were not necessarily in game condition. They also did not have the experience of playing together, which anyone knows is a huge factor in being a successful team. While not trying to remember details of all the matches, I think a lot of the goals conceded during the first half of the year were breakdowns in the middle of the backline. I also saw problems in the team finding their shape on the field. They also had a number of injuries early on that hurt the team.
However, in the second half—so far, they are scoring a few more goals per game (1.2 per game by my count), and are also conceding fewer—I think they are actually even on goal differential since the mid-way point. I also note that they have not lost by more than one goal since they were beat by Tampa Bay on May 27—they lost that one 3-1. From what I have seen, there has been a major improvements in the backline (and the Stars midfield), and they are playing more consistent soccer. I have also seen fewer mistakes.
However, the main problem is lack of overall goal scoring production. I guess you cannot win your matches if you are not scoring goals, right? Come on you Stars!
PS: There has to be a bunch of “luck” cards sitting at the bottom of our deck? Some of our loses have also been just downright “unlucky.”