Striking Up a Partnership- Who Should Start with Sabo?

With the return of Alvaro Saborio to the line up, one of the main questions that RSL fans have been asking is who is the best forward to team up top with Sabo when we play our traditional diamond formation? The debate has raged on Twitter and on Big Soccer about who the best of our four remaining players plays best with Saborio. I thought I would take a look into this question.

It is a tough question to answer because it leads to many other questions. You have to look at how well the player is playing. How does each player do when they start? How do they do off the bench? And how well do they play with Sabo? I am going to try and tackle each one of these on a statistical level.

As far as statistics goes, I like looking at a stat that I call Minutes per Team Goal (MpTG). This stat takes a look at how often the team scores while a particular player or players are on the field. It gives an overhead view of how well the team plays while that player is either on the field or off of the field.

First, I am looking how each player is playing overall.

Player	Min	Team Goals	MpTG	Min not played	Team Goals	MpTG
Sabo	925	14	66.07	1235	25	49.4
Findley	914	13	70.31	1246	26	47.92
Plata	1164	22	52.91	997	17	58.65
Sandoval	623	13	47.92	1538	24	64.08
Garcia	738	17	43.41	1418	22	64.45

The first thing that stands out here is that Saborio's numbers are higher compared to some of the other forwards. This is because the first few games of the season that Sabo played in, the team really didn't score that many goals. Since he has come back, his MpTG stat has dropped dramatically. Another thing that is interesting is that the team scores the lowest rate while Findley is on the field and the highest rate when Findley is not on the field.

Since we are trying to figure out who is best as a starter along with Saborio, I thought it would be important to see how each player has done actually playing as a starter. 

Player	Min	Team Goals	MpTG
Sabo	897	13	69.00
Findley	839	11	76.27
Plata	956	14	68.29
Sandoval	538	10	53.80
Garcia	477	8	59.63

Here we see that every player has a higher rate than the stats above. That is because more goals are scored in the second half after subs comes in. Subs will almost always have better stats per minute than starters. I did find it interesting that Sandoval has the best stats while playing as a starter. Again the team has the lowest scoring rate while Findley is a starter.

Maybe a better way to look at this is to see who is the best coming off the bench. Here are the stats the forwards have when they are not starting the match. One thing to note here is that the sample size for some of the forwards here is very low. 

Player	Min	Team Goals	MpTG
Sabo	28	1	28
Findley	75	2	37.5
Plata	203	8	25.38
Sandoval	85	3	28.33
Garcia	261	9	29

Again you can see right away that the stats are much lower when they come in off the bench. Many people including Coach Kreis have commented on how well Plata does off the bench. The stats backs this up with Plata having the best MpTG off the bench. 

Finally, it is no question that Saborio will be starting. So lets take a look at how each player plays with Sabo.

Players	Min	Team Goals	MpTG	Min not played	Team Goals	MpTG
Sabo/Findley	369	4	92.25	1791	35	51.17
Sabo/Plata	234	7	33.43	1926	32	60.19
Sabo/Sandoval	71	1	71	2089	38	54.97
Sabo/Garcia	335	6	55.83	1825	33	55.3

The biggest number that jumps out is the MpTG for the Sabo/Plata combination. Plata does seem to have great chemistry with Sabo and this stats backs that up.

The last thing that I did was ask other RSL fans what they thought. Who did they think should start with Sabo. Here are those results.

Findley- 52%

Plata- 34%

Garcia- 13%

Sandoval- N/A

But do any of these stats answer the question of who should start with Sabo? Maybe, but probably not. I love looking at stats but I am the first to admit that they don't tell the whole story. What do you think? Who do you think should be starting with Sabo?