

Posted by

Sam Gregory ,

August 21, 2014 Email

Sam Gregory

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MLS Rookie of the year candidate and Canadian-born FC Dallas forward Tesho Akindele has been attracting a lot of attention recently, especially after his recent hat-trick in a 5-0 win over San Jose. The scoring troubles of Canadian forwards have been well documented, so when a player like Akindele starts to score at the rate he has been there is going to be a fair amount of excitement. It is still important however to step back and look at what type of player Akindele really is at this stage of his career (It’s also important to remember the Calgary-native is only 22).



A quick look at Akindele’s numbers from MLS this year paint an extremely promising picture. Seven non-penalty goals and a non-penalty goal per 90 rate of 0.55. Scoring more than a goal every two matches is almost unheard of for Canadian strikers over the last few seasons.







Akindele is playing really well and scoring at an impressive rate. In fact even beyond other Canadian strikers if we compare Akindele to every other striker in MLS who has scored seven goals or more, of which there are twenty-five, Akindele has the eighth highest non-penalty goal per 90 rate. Essentially Akindele is scoring right now at a rate only matched by the elite strikers in MLS: Defoe, Wright-Phillips, etc.



The concern is looking at the shots, shots on target and scoring percentage numbers. Based on shot analyses done in leagues all around the world shots and shots on target have been found to be much more repeatable and sustainable numbers than scoring percentage.



Amongst these twenty-five strikers who have scored seven or more goals in MLS the average shots per 90 is 3.03 and the average shots on target per 90 is 1.31, both significantly above Akindele’s numbers of 1.89 and 1.10 respectively. Even more troubling is the average scoring percentage of these strikers (goals per shot) is 16% whereas Akindele has a scoring percentage of 29%. This suggests that Akindele is probably due to regress and isn’t creating enough chances to maintain a rate of 0.55 non-penalty goals per 90.



Akindele’s numbers are a little more comparable to the twenty-one MLS players who have scored five or six goals this season. This group averages 2.46 shots per 90 and 1.03 shots on goal per 90. The average scoring percentage among these players sits at 15%, still almost half of Akindele’s unsustainable conversion rate of 29%.



So the numbers suggest at this stage in his career Akindele does not look like a player who can maintain a rate of a goal per every two games. That being said he has plenty of time to improve, this being his first season of professional soccer. However, given his shot and shot on goal numbers we can figure out what type of player he is right now by comparing him to other MLS attackers.



Using a simple linear regression model (similar to the idea of a “line of best fit”) we can estimate how many goals the average player would score with his shot numbers. Looking at the full sample of forty-six MLS players with five goals or more the season the model predicts that Akindele should be scoring at a rate of 0.42 non-penalty goals per 90. This is obviously a drop below the rate he is scoring at right now, but it is still very impressive for a Canadian striker in his first year of MLS.



So is Tesho Akindele going to solve all of Canada’s scoring woes immediately? No, he is probably scoring at an unsustainable pace right now and will not continue like this for the rest of the season. Should we be still excited about Akindele? Absolutely, he is still young, has already shown a disposition for scoring goals and is putting up very encouraging numbers for his debut season.



Really any Canadian who can get into a position like this and finish so wonderfully is worth being excited about.



