The possession discussion has assumed a frantically confused tenor in recent months. It’s as though the hive mind of the global soccer fan has tired of the intricate Barcelona-esque passing networks to such a fantastical degree that it’s decided to snap the other way entirely. Instead of deifying possession, there’s an increasingly vocal subset that’s begun to evangelize for a more balanced approach. Play out of the back, yes, but don’t demonize a varied approach. Suddenly a bit of Route One doesn’t seem as out-of-style as it did even a few years ago.

With a few notable exceptions, the movement has largely been positive in the sense that it’s brought context to our ongoing debate as to how we quantify possession stats and how they continue to mold and fit into our understanding of how their utility fits into the construct of an average game. The extremists exist, as they always do, but we’re lucky that those advocating for 70+ percent possession or pure over-the-top long ball rarely get much attention anyway.

In MLS, that reality is unique. Here are some numbers, and then we’ll talk about what they mean in a minute.

Elementarily put, pure possession is a decent enough predictor of a winning team in MLS, and the causal effect is not coincidence. Teams that’ve won the possession battle are a combined 30-20-29 in 2014. Not bad, and a decent predictor, but hardly ironclad. What is of note, especially at the top, is how these MLS teams arrive at these figures. There’s hardly any split at all.

In MLS, there’s startlingly little separating the possessor and the out-possessed. There have already been 10 occasions this season where two opponents have been within less than a single percentage point of splitting the possession perfectly evenly at 50-50. That’s eight percent of every game in MLS this season. In 79 games this season, the winning team is averaging 53.1 percent possession. Thin margins.

At their barest, these numbers clearly enunciate the league’s parity-driven atmosphere, which is as alive as it’s ever been. That won’t come as a shock, but this is an interesting way of framing the discussion. MLS is essentially taking a paring knife to the ubiquitous and frankly somewhat tiring discussion of pure possession, and the league has generally done so organically.

The most interesting game within the sample was Toronto’s 2-1 win over Seattle on the second weekend of the regular season. Since the 2014 season got underway on March 8, that game contained the greatest possession disparity at 68.2-31.8. Unpredictably, it was TFC, which once led 2-0 in the first half, that made off as the clear losers in the possession metric. Typically, this is the sign of a trend. When this extreme, statistics provide a rough map into the ravines and switchbacks that dovetail off into the future.

MLS, though, is almost literally unpredictable, even for stat-heads. Not only have the Sounders not replicated that figure in the seven games they’ve played since, but they haven’t even been remotely close. Their possession percentage numbers since that game: 44.9, 37.1, 50.6, 49.9, 51.8, 57.4 and 54. Their record in those games: 5-1-1. Four games as the possessor. Three as the out-possessed. Confusion in pure possession is the league’s rhumb line.

The Sounders have been involved in a game in which they’ve held nearly 70 percent possession against a fellow (healthy) big spender, a game in which they’ve held 37.1 percent possession at home in the rain against Columbus and were involved in a 50.1-49.9 split against FC Dallas that was the closest the league’s gotten to an even 50-50 possession game all season. Vegas must absolutely detest MLS.

This is illustrative beyond the Sounders themselves. It proves that there is little room for much territorial dominance where sheer possession is concerned. MLS has somehow managed to become one of the only statistically concerned leagues in the world (of which I’m personally aware) that has managed to subtly begin to excise talk of pure possession numbers. It’s not something we discuss much because in all honestly, it’s largely irrelevant in most MLS matches. When you routinely see a team snap up between 45-50 percent possession in a game – a losing metric, no? no – and win anyway, it begins to become a bit rote. You watch for other things.

This is different elsewhere. Fans slobber over the newest Iniesta chart, go weak in the knees over a Bayern Munich team tally (1,000 passes? 1,000 passes), dig deep into how badly Manchester City tied the possession noose around the opponent. And that’s fair to an extent, so long as it’s accompanied by a healthy helping of perspective – which it often is not. For a number of reasons, this simply doesn’t happen in MLS with any regularity. For better or worse (and I’d argue that there are both sides of the good and evil split at play here), the league’s lens simply turns elsewhere. Namely, we are beginning to look more and more toward the specifics underneath the sheer passing umbrella than the umbrella itself. Where did those passes go? Where were they made? What did they lead to? We need context. Through a number of factors – and yes, fewer technically able players is among them – MLS is providing that context. Possession matters, but it’s hardly the guiding metric. It’s simply one of them.

The shifting of the discussion is a positive, and MLS is proving itself again to be a league on the move. Still, this isn’t entirely rosy, considering the league parity is in one sense keeping a handful of teams from fully utilizing a play-from-the-back method Hugo Perez is popularizing here among YNT watchers with the U15 BNT. There’s simply only so much one can do.

Look at it this way. You’d look relatively silly spouting off the supreme value of pure possession when the stats bear out that it’s a good but hardly gospel way to win in MLS. You have a 37 percent chance of winning a game in MLS this season if you win the possession battle. Does that deserve deification? Let’s move the discussion.

Thankfully for us, MLS is helping.