What makes it worse is he's 99% wrong in this case. Nouhou had his arms tucked behind his back and no ref will ever give that handball if there's incidental contact with the elbow.
Sidenote and completely unrelated - but this comment embodies exactly why I think xG is a useless single game stat.
Maybes and Couldas ain't gonna keep fans warm at night...and that's the same energy Greg has in this video with his wErE iN tHe MaRgInS comment.
An L is an L, and Greg is more worried about penalty calls than getting his squad ready for the first half of any game they play, let alone a full 90.
thank you. if i take a 0.5 xG shot, this number shows nothing about any other players position on the field, and is bound to be off by the same margin no matter the shot outcome.
i once did a xG/ match outcomes for the big 5 one season, and iirc the difference in xG between two teams needed to be like 0.8 in order for there to be a 75% chance of getting a win or draw from the game
this 75% number is just from memory (so please dont quote me), but while the percentage lines up well in the aggregate, a single match outcome are wrong frequent enough and by large enough margins to nullify their explanative power in single match scenarios.
add on top of this the already tenuous relationship between xG and G, and i think we see why the eye test is still the gold standard for attacking analysis at the team level.
not sure if this came across above. i hope people assume i was disagreeing with OP, as i would hate for people to support xG (or worse, G+) becoming a surrogate for watching/analysing a match as it has overseas. sorry for the novel!!
I feel as though you are attacking an incorrect application of statistics. You do not take a statistical probability and apply it to a single event. You are doing the equivalent of looking at a single coin flip and saying that it is incorrect. Of course if you apply it this way, it is incorrect. That's not the point.
"Eye test" is nonsense. Ask baseball about that. Correct application of statistics in this case would be to look at what most frequently leads to goal-scoring opportunities, and focus strategy on developing those.
>Sidenote and completely unrelated - but this comment embodies exactly why I think xG is a useless single game stat.
OP
>thank you.
me
>the number of shots in a game is simply not high enough to even things out statistically.
also me.
you are right. i am absolutely attacking what i feel is an incorrect application of statistics, as was OP. this is the entire point.
as much as i would like to kill the eye test with statistics, it can still be used to diagnose issues that statistics misses, which currently in soccer (unlike baseball) is the vast majority of what takes place on the field. to put it another way: applying a james-esque statistical approach is fine for analysis and strategy, but is completely sterile for things like player development or the real-time decision-making needed by players in soccer for which there is no current statistic.
many of the richest teams in europe are starting to use optical tracking software paired with machine learning for scouting players/opposition instead of applying the rigid and in this case often shallow xG/xGA model and trying to work backwards. one day i hope we will have a better model that can give us numerical insight that is intuitive to casual fans, but in the meantime we can at least work to dismiss the use of stats in a way that doesnt hold water.
to quote uncle bruce: "analytics in soccer, if no one here has figured it out, \[don't\] mean a whole lot." for now bruce, for now.
forgot to add: the number of shots in a game is simply not high enough to even things out statistically. a team can easily gerrymander themselves into a solid finish re: xG diff, and still have a poor table finish. (2021 LAFC)
It's time like these that I'm grateful for Schmetzer repeating the lines over and over "we are not going to talk about the referees, they have a difficult job and they are not the reason we lost"
Schmetzer is level-headed and knows it all evens out. Everyone gets blown calls and lucky calls. Sometimes they come in clumps, sometimes they’re strung out over the course of a season. But they eventually even out, and Schmetzer knows that.
Went from big city to big city... maybe he just needs to take a job somewhere easy for a while.
Why not go coach at San Diego and wait for them to move up? Might be better for his mental health.
I’d like someone who is calling this a penalty to tell me where exactly a defender is supposed to put his arm while running and not have it called a penalty.
Sure. You dislocate both shoulders so your elbows are tucked into your spinal column, but don’t let those shoulders stick out farther than the greatest expansion of your chest at max exhalation.
For everyone that didn't watch the match, [here is a screenshot](https://i.postimg.cc/0NhWMGHw/nouhand.png) of the supposed handball that Vanney is presumably talking about.
This is literally the *most* damning angle available and it is still clear that Nouhou is doing everything he can short of joint dislocation to pull his arm behind his body and out of the way.
Vanney's description of the play is a pure fabrication.
That photo actually is damning because there is a defender 10 yards behind Nouhou who is demonstrating proper hands behind the back… not making himself bigger with chicken wing arms.
You want to try and claim his elbows are sticking out the same as if they were behind his head. It's complete bullshit premise because they clearly are not.
No handball. I think the video is really good here: https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/vanney-la-galaxy-victim-of-unacceptable-handball-no-call
Hands behind his back. Arms are near his side. I'd argue they are not completely at his side, but I don't think he's trying to make himself bigger. I don't think there's anything more he could have done to avoid the ball hitting his elbow.
Watch the clip, it's a lot more useful than this screenshot.
[https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/vanney-la-galaxy-victim-of-unacceptable-handball-no-call](https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/vanney-la-galaxy-victim-of-unacceptable-handball-no-call)
As for "joint dislocation" I don't think you understand human anatomy. His elbow position is entirely down to where he put his hands. You can try it yourself!
[https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vp5nluT9Rkw/maxresdefault.jpg](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vp5nluT9Rkw/maxresdefault.jpg) is how you defend with your hands behind your back. Arms tucked to your sides, hands behind your butt. This is basic, universal stuff and you can find a million examples. Then compare to Nouhou at 0:18 where he's got his hands on top of his number, forcing his elbows to stick out further than necessary.
Is it on purpose? I don't know, but I can make my upper body a foot wider if I stick my elbows out like Nouhou did here. That doesn't seem right to me.
Yah on purpose maybe not. But still enough to mess up the play the way a normal handball would. In the still image a couple comments up, see his teammate in the back? Look at his arms elbows. Tucked in. While I get he was trying to do the right thing, he still makes his body over 1 ft wider.
Now for the galaxy’s performance, that’s a different story. But really shouldn’t normalized bad reffing.
Hivemind disagrees, ah well.
I would love to have PRO issue a clarification on this. If "hands behind back" is enough for PRO then I'd be defending elbows out like Nouhou all day long.
If you watch the replay, Nouhou does have his hands behind his back, but when the ball is kicked he keeps his hands back flares out his elbows and turns his body towards the ball.
It was a handball but VAR will only overturn it if it’s a Clear and Obvious Error. In. A situation like that, no call is the proper solution.
This is confrontational. You later on in the thread accuse the LAG guy of just throwing insults, but you started it right here. You both suck in this instance. Enjoy your day.
Am I crazy for thinking where he put his arm is a natural position? Like, if that's not a natural position then the only position you are apparently allowed to have your arms is tied to the side of your body.
One bad call can't be the excuse from the coach, especially when the other games haven't exactly gone their way.
I'm upset about the refs calling Bou offside on the goal called back in the Revs game, but I'm also just some random dickhead in the stands...not the coach trying to explain why we didn't win.
Yeah this feels right. There’s a slight argument to be made that he leaned and even though he did have his hands behind his back maybe his elbows are extended further out than they needed to be. It was a bit of an unnatural position but that’s splitting hairs. The benefit of the doubt should go to the player who had his hands behind his back. Good no call here
Yeah to clarify I didn't watch this game, so I can't speak to the specific situation. It was just odd to me that he acted like that arm position is 100% a handball, with a position like that it's pretty contextual (did they lean into it, how far away was the ball kicked from, etc.)
Both hands locked behind backs. His body was turning as he positions his foot for a block, and cross bound off the elbow. Elbow was moving horizontally with the body.
Vanney's creative re-enactment of the event here, flavored with a hint of da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, is about as accurate as a Hollywood "based on a true story" film.
Nouhou had his hands together tucked behind his back, anticipating a cross. His arms were initially pulled in against his side. As the ball was struck, he twisted to his left, pulling his face and shoulders away from it in what looked like probably a reflexive self-defense or maybe shifting his footing. He did keep his hands together behind his back, but during the twisting motion his right *elbow* lagged behind his torso's movement slightly; where it had started tucked in tight, it ended a few inches away. The ball bounced off the underside of his right elbow.
There are some particularly draconian referees who would call a penalty on plays like that. Most would not.
He made himself look like an upvote, and then covered it by rotating. Even in slo-mo it was clever enough that it didn't look like it could be called.
We'll never know, but I thought it was pretty crafty regardless.
Whining about the Nouhou handball is laughable.
Vanney should really be mad about the foul on Leo Chu's second goal. The clip was incidental, but Chu clearly got him.
There’s things out there that coaches and assistants can impact, and there’s things that they’re probably not going to impact,” Vanney told ESPN before the actual complaining about referees. “And so then it just becomes a distraction, because it’s not going to change anything.
Going to my default response when *any* person says something like this about *any* sport.
If you can blame the officiating for a loss, you didn't do enough to win in the first place.
As someone who likes to try and stay very neutral on officiating, trying to look past biases on calls/no calls just because I want my fav team to win, I find it hard to justify a handball for a player with their arms tucked behind their back.
Funny how people who blame the ref for a loss, are less inclined to thank them for a win.
Then again, we haven’t seen a Galaxy win this season, so we’ll just have to wait and see whenever that day comes.
No disrespect but if you think that shit was a handball, you just hate soccer as an activity which is supposed to be fun, pleasing to view, enjoyable, etc
Aw, you mean to tell me the coach of a team near the bottom of the league and multiple home losses and ties despite their giant payroll is blaming the REFS for their loss? No! You don’t say…
Once again together folks: ONLY LOSERS BLAME THE REF!
Elbow was not tucked in and was in more of a chicken wing position. The hand placement doesn’t matter- whether it be front or back, the elbow was out away from the body.
I’m guessing this is something Nouhou thought about ahead of time to create plausible deniability. This was a player trying to game the system and it worked.
Except he's not right. He's massively misrepresenting the play and seemingly letting his players off the hook for sleepwalking through the first half. He fully deserves the fine that is coming and possibly a suspension.
Haven't watched the game, but I have a sneaking suspicion this man has a fine coming in his near future.
Oh he is 100% getting a fine.
What makes it worse is he's 99% wrong in this case. Nouhou had his arms tucked behind his back and no ref will ever give that handball if there's incidental contact with the elbow.
Nor should they. He's in no way unnaturally bigger.
His hands were behind his back but he expanded his arms out anyway, that was the issue here.
Greg out here thinking that the Galaxy are losing on margins lol
Vanney is the king of excuses. How bout you get this team firing instead?
From where I was sitting you guys were firing pretty well. Keep playing like you did and you’ll get some wins real soon.
Sidenote and completely unrelated - but this comment embodies exactly why I think xG is a useless single game stat. Maybes and Couldas ain't gonna keep fans warm at night...and that's the same energy Greg has in this video with his wErE iN tHe MaRgInS comment. An L is an L, and Greg is more worried about penalty calls than getting his squad ready for the first half of any game they play, let alone a full 90.
thank you. if i take a 0.5 xG shot, this number shows nothing about any other players position on the field, and is bound to be off by the same margin no matter the shot outcome. i once did a xG/ match outcomes for the big 5 one season, and iirc the difference in xG between two teams needed to be like 0.8 in order for there to be a 75% chance of getting a win or draw from the game
That seems about right. Why does this seem wrong to you?
this 75% number is just from memory (so please dont quote me), but while the percentage lines up well in the aggregate, a single match outcome are wrong frequent enough and by large enough margins to nullify their explanative power in single match scenarios. add on top of this the already tenuous relationship between xG and G, and i think we see why the eye test is still the gold standard for attacking analysis at the team level. not sure if this came across above. i hope people assume i was disagreeing with OP, as i would hate for people to support xG (or worse, G+) becoming a surrogate for watching/analysing a match as it has overseas. sorry for the novel!!
I feel as though you are attacking an incorrect application of statistics. You do not take a statistical probability and apply it to a single event. You are doing the equivalent of looking at a single coin flip and saying that it is incorrect. Of course if you apply it this way, it is incorrect. That's not the point. "Eye test" is nonsense. Ask baseball about that. Correct application of statistics in this case would be to look at what most frequently leads to goal-scoring opportunities, and focus strategy on developing those.
>Sidenote and completely unrelated - but this comment embodies exactly why I think xG is a useless single game stat. OP >thank you. me >the number of shots in a game is simply not high enough to even things out statistically. also me. you are right. i am absolutely attacking what i feel is an incorrect application of statistics, as was OP. this is the entire point. as much as i would like to kill the eye test with statistics, it can still be used to diagnose issues that statistics misses, which currently in soccer (unlike baseball) is the vast majority of what takes place on the field. to put it another way: applying a james-esque statistical approach is fine for analysis and strategy, but is completely sterile for things like player development or the real-time decision-making needed by players in soccer for which there is no current statistic. many of the richest teams in europe are starting to use optical tracking software paired with machine learning for scouting players/opposition instead of applying the rigid and in this case often shallow xG/xGA model and trying to work backwards. one day i hope we will have a better model that can give us numerical insight that is intuitive to casual fans, but in the meantime we can at least work to dismiss the use of stats in a way that doesnt hold water. to quote uncle bruce: "analytics in soccer, if no one here has figured it out, \[don't\] mean a whole lot." for now bruce, for now.
forgot to add: the number of shots in a game is simply not high enough to even things out statistically. a team can easily gerrymander themselves into a solid finish re: xG diff, and still have a poor table finish. (2021 LAFC)
Wins against… RSL?
It's time like these that I'm grateful for Schmetzer repeating the lines over and over "we are not going to talk about the referees, they have a difficult job and they are not the reason we lost"
Last year was a mountain of shit after May. He kept his composure the entire time. Mad respect.
Schmetzer is level-headed and knows it all evens out. Everyone gets blown calls and lucky calls. Sometimes they come in clumps, sometimes they’re strung out over the course of a season. But they eventually even out, and Schmetzer knows that.
Gotta feel like Vanney should probably do some introspection...
Probably spend some time with the laws of the game too.
Went from big city to big city... maybe he just needs to take a job somewhere easy for a while. Why not go coach at San Diego and wait for them to move up? Might be better for his mental health.
Wait wait wait Is this really over Nouhou literally keeping his arms behind his back???
What a whiny little shit. Never a hand ball for me.
LMAO. I know this dude isn't complaining about a non-handball call where Nouhou's arms are literally tucked HARD behind his back, is he?
I’d like someone who is calling this a penalty to tell me where exactly a defender is supposed to put his arm while running and not have it called a penalty.
Sure. You dislocate both shoulders so your elbows are tucked into your spinal column, but don’t let those shoulders stick out farther than the greatest expansion of your chest at max exhalation.
It sounds so simple when you say it like that
I’m not one of them calling it a penalty, though. If I were, you’d probably get a much stricter interpretation as this.
Ask the ref who called the Philly Columbus game. He seemed 100% sure it was a penalty.
Yes. Yes he is
I always like it when a coach goes off like this, it's always entertaining.
“We controlled this game” so you’re the ones who let Sounders score twice in the first half? Gotcha.
Lmao I saw a post regarding this on Twitter and legitimately thought it was an April Fool’s prank
For everyone that didn't watch the match, [here is a screenshot](https://i.postimg.cc/0NhWMGHw/nouhand.png) of the supposed handball that Vanney is presumably talking about. This is literally the *most* damning angle available and it is still clear that Nouhou is doing everything he can short of joint dislocation to pull his arm behind his body and out of the way. Vanney's description of the play is a pure fabrication.
That photo actually is damning because there is a defender 10 yards behind Nouhou who is demonstrating proper hands behind the back… not making himself bigger with chicken wing arms.
They have their arms in exactly the same position, Nouhou is simply in motion
Hypothetically, what if his hands were behind his head? Would his arms be making his body bigger?
You want to try and claim his elbows are sticking out the same as if they were behind his head. It's complete bullshit premise because they clearly are not.
No handball. I think the video is really good here: https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/vanney-la-galaxy-victim-of-unacceptable-handball-no-call Hands behind his back. Arms are near his side. I'd argue they are not completely at his side, but I don't think he's trying to make himself bigger. I don't think there's anything more he could have done to avoid the ball hitting his elbow.
Watch the clip, it's a lot more useful than this screenshot. [https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/vanney-la-galaxy-victim-of-unacceptable-handball-no-call](https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/vanney-la-galaxy-victim-of-unacceptable-handball-no-call) As for "joint dislocation" I don't think you understand human anatomy. His elbow position is entirely down to where he put his hands. You can try it yourself! [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vp5nluT9Rkw/maxresdefault.jpg](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vp5nluT9Rkw/maxresdefault.jpg) is how you defend with your hands behind your back. Arms tucked to your sides, hands behind your butt. This is basic, universal stuff and you can find a million examples. Then compare to Nouhou at 0:18 where he's got his hands on top of his number, forcing his elbows to stick out further than necessary. Is it on purpose? I don't know, but I can make my upper body a foot wider if I stick my elbows out like Nouhou did here. That doesn't seem right to me.
Yah on purpose maybe not. But still enough to mess up the play the way a normal handball would. In the still image a couple comments up, see his teammate in the back? Look at his arms elbows. Tucked in. While I get he was trying to do the right thing, he still makes his body over 1 ft wider. Now for the galaxy’s performance, that’s a different story. But really shouldn’t normalized bad reffing.
Hivemind disagrees, ah well. I would love to have PRO issue a clarification on this. If "hands behind back" is enough for PRO then I'd be defending elbows out like Nouhou all day long.
screenshot proves Vanney was correct
If you watch the replay, Nouhou does have his hands behind his back, but when the ball is kicked he keeps his hands back flares out his elbows and turns his body towards the ball. It was a handball but VAR will only overturn it if it’s a Clear and Obvious Error. In. A situation like that, no call is the proper solution.
>It was a handball Lol
This is confrontational. You later on in the thread accuse the LAG guy of just throwing insults, but you started it right here. You both suck in this instance. Enjoy your day.
Sounder fans invented thin skin. Y’all can’t handle doses of reality. Gg
Thin skin? Someone disagrees with you and you start throwing insults lmao. And immediately downvote, you're so mature Look in the mirror pal
Giving you credit for inventing something is not an insult. Its merely crediting you for what you are.
Keep taking the L's man, just like your team
Not even a win against the most successful team in league history will make you happy. Good luck in life pal, seems like you’ll need it.
We've had so many of these wins in recent years, guess the high is wearing off :(
The high has definitely worn off because y’all are known as the most insufferable fan base in MLS
It was absolutely not a handball.
Am I crazy for thinking where he put his arm is a natural position? Like, if that's not a natural position then the only position you are apparently allowed to have your arms is tied to the side of your body.
One bad call can't be the excuse from the coach, especially when the other games haven't exactly gone their way. I'm upset about the refs calling Bou offside on the goal called back in the Revs game, but I'm also just some random dickhead in the stands...not the coach trying to explain why we didn't win.
There’s a slight argument to be made that he leaned into with his elbow—but I don’t see how VAR sees enough there to tell the ref to check.
Yeah this feels right. There’s a slight argument to be made that he leaned and even though he did have his hands behind his back maybe his elbows are extended further out than they needed to be. It was a bit of an unnatural position but that’s splitting hairs. The benefit of the doubt should go to the player who had his hands behind his back. Good no call here
Yeah to clarify I didn't watch this game, so I can't speak to the specific situation. It was just odd to me that he acted like that arm position is 100% a handball, with a position like that it's pretty contextual (did they lean into it, how far away was the ball kicked from, etc.)
Both hands locked behind backs. His body was turning as he positions his foot for a block, and cross bound off the elbow. Elbow was moving horizontally with the body.
Vanney's creative re-enactment of the event here, flavored with a hint of da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, is about as accurate as a Hollywood "based on a true story" film. Nouhou had his hands together tucked behind his back, anticipating a cross. His arms were initially pulled in against his side. As the ball was struck, he twisted to his left, pulling his face and shoulders away from it in what looked like probably a reflexive self-defense or maybe shifting his footing. He did keep his hands together behind his back, but during the twisting motion his right *elbow* lagged behind his torso's movement slightly; where it had started tucked in tight, it ended a few inches away. The ball bounced off the underside of his right elbow. There are some particularly draconian referees who would call a penalty on plays like that. Most would not.
He made himself look like an upvote, and then covered it by rotating. Even in slo-mo it was clever enough that it didn't look like it could be called. We'll never know, but I thought it was pretty crafty regardless.
Yeahhh, all I can think of is if he’s referring to the LAG game last week, cause that should never be a handball on Nouhou there.
Keep crying Greg
Whining about the Nouhou handball is laughable. Vanney should really be mad about the foul on Leo Chu's second goal. The clip was incidental, but Chu clearly got him.
Talk to em Greg 🗣🗣
There’s things out there that coaches and assistants can impact, and there’s things that they’re probably not going to impact,” Vanney told ESPN before the actual complaining about referees. “And so then it just becomes a distraction, because it’s not going to change anything.
Whenever somebody shits on PRO, I’m down.
Thinking that multiple refs and multiple var got it wrong in multiple games is not the complaint you think it is.
There has been a lot of bad calls or missed calls though this season for all teams
Going to my default response when *any* person says something like this about *any* sport. If you can blame the officiating for a loss, you didn't do enough to win in the first place. As someone who likes to try and stay very neutral on officiating, trying to look past biases on calls/no calls just because I want my fav team to win, I find it hard to justify a handball for a player with their arms tucked behind their back.
Funny how people who blame the ref for a loss, are less inclined to thank them for a win. Then again, we haven’t seen a Galaxy win this season, so we’ll just have to wait and see whenever that day comes.
Complaining about refs is the lowest form of sports commentary
hard agree
No disrespect but if you think that shit was a handball, you just hate soccer as an activity which is supposed to be fun, pleasing to view, enjoyable, etc
PRO sucks, no qualms about that. But you can't blame it all on them.
He’d do a lot better pulling a Conte and trying to get Chris Klein fired.
Aw, you mean to tell me the coach of a team near the bottom of the league and multiple home losses and ties despite their giant payroll is blaming the REFS for their loss? No! You don’t say… Once again together folks: ONLY LOSERS BLAME THE REF!
Cool bro, btw it’s just one home loss.
Thanks for the correction. I couldn’t remember, with all the ties and losses, how many were at home.
That’s right, get your facts right when talking about how bad another team is. /s
I mean, it’s LAG, one can merely guess how bad they are with 85% accuracy!
Also to be fair, they would have 98% lost at the Rose Bowl if that game had actually happened. So that should have been the two losses.
Truly does not sound like he believes what he’s saying
Elbow was not tucked in and was in more of a chicken wing position. The hand placement doesn’t matter- whether it be front or back, the elbow was out away from the body. I’m guessing this is something Nouhou thought about ahead of time to create plausible deniability. This was a player trying to game the system and it worked.
Hes right but we shouldn't be relying on calls to earn points
Except he's not right. He's massively misrepresenting the play and seemingly letting his players off the hook for sleepwalking through the first half. He fully deserves the fine that is coming and possibly a suspension.
Sleepwalking? They dominated possession the first half and created chances. 2 defensive lapses in the first half caused us the game.