End of Year Review- The Defense

When looking over the course of the whole year, the RSL's defense had a very up and down season. They started off the first few months with some of the best defensive rates in club history. Then about two-thirds through the season they were leaking goals at an alarming rate. But, by the end of the season they came back strong and have played fantastically so far through the playoffs.

What was the cause of the up and down season? Injuries played a huge role and National Team call ups were a factor as well. By the end of the year RSL had used 8 different center back pairings and 3 different keepers in MLS play. The team ended up giving up 41 goals on the season or a goal every 74.63 minutes. All things considered, it is really remarkable that RSL did not give up more goals than they did.

Here is a breakdown of how each player did over the course of the year. MpCG stands for "Minutes per Conceded Goal" or how long it took for a goal to be scored while they were playing. Unlike my Minutes per Team Goal stat that I use for offensive players, the higher the number the better with MpCG.

Player	Min	Goals	MpCG
Schuler	1440	15	96.00
Beltran	2230	26	85.77
Wingert	1742	22	79.18
Watson-Siriboe	630	8	78.75
Borchers	2520	35	72
Salcedo	1070	15	71.33
Palmer	1198	17	70.47
Mansally	774	11	70.36
McDonald	270	5	54.00
Maund	270	6	45.00

With how he has been playing in the playoffs, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that Chris Schuler led the team in MpCG. He was the biggest reason that the team had the defensive turnaround towards the end of the season. In fact if you only look at the games he has played since coming back from injury (including playoffs), RSL is only giving up a goal every 150 minutes!

Next is a breakdown of how the team played when a particular player was not on the field. The "difference" column is the difference between when a player played compared to when he didn't play. 

Player	Min not played	Goals	MpCG	Difference
Beltran	830	15	55.33	30.44
Schuler	1620	26	62.31	33.69
Wingert	1318	19	69.37	9.81
Watson-Siriboe	2340	31	75.48	3.27
Mansally	2199	29	75.83	-5.46
McDonald	2700	35	77.14	-23.14
Palmer	1853	24	77.21	-6.74
Salcedo	1900	24	79.17	-7.83
Maund	2700	34	79.41	-34.41
Borchers	540	6	90	-18

It is pretty crazy to think that the team gave up a goal every 55 minutes when Beltran was not on the field. I decided to take a closer at this. Beltran missed 9 games on the season. In 6 of those 9 games the team gave up 2 or more goals. Although he did struggle in a couple games down the stretch, Beltran is a pretty vital piece of the defense.

The other thing that I found interesting in looking at this is that the team actually played pretty well when Borchers was not in the match. This somewhat surprised me.

Finally, here is a look at the centerback combinations that played this season.

Player	Min	Goals	MpCG
Borchers/Schuler	900	8	112.5
Schuler/Salcedo	90	1	90.00
Borchers/Watson-Siriboe	270	3	90.00
Schuler/McDondald	90	0	90.00
Schuler/Watson-Siriboe	360	5	72.00
Borchers/Salcedo	979	14	69.93
Borchers/Maund	270	6	45.00
Borchers/McDonald	180	5	36.00

It should come as no surprise that Schuler and Borchers were RSL's best centerback duo. They have wonderful chemistry and have been playing great together in the playoffs. It is a bit surprising that the team gave up so many goals when Borchers was paired up with almost anyone else.