Who's Making the Most Out of Set-Pieces in the MLS?
Viz of the week Bar charts

Who's Making the Most Out of Set-Pieces in the MLS?

The Son
The Son

Welcome to the first edition of the Viz of the Week newsletter where I'll be featuring a new visual each week and sharing the code behind it.

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With the MLS being one of the few professional leagues in action at this point of the year, I decided it was time to create a viz to showcase a couple of stats on what's been happening on the football grounds in the United States.

In this featured visual we'll be exploring the percentage of goals and chances (expected goals) that are generated via set-pieces and corners for each Major League Soccer side.


Percentage of goals and expected goals from set-pieces and corners.

Main takeaways

San José tops the MLS when it comes to goals scored from set-pieces and corners, with 8 goals scored from these types of situations – representing 32% of the side's total goal tally.

Interestingly, Minnesota United have scored 40% of their goals from set-piece situations, despite just creating 24% of their expected goals from these types of chances.

On the other hand, Inter Miami who are 8th in the MLS Eastern Conference have just created a single goal from dead-ball opportunities.

Finally, Nashville and Philadelphia should be making much more from their set-piece opportunities as they have just scored 4 and 2 goals, respectively, from these positions – despite their xG numbers of 6.8 and 4.6, respectively, suggesting they have missed out on at least two goals from these types of chances.


The code

If you're interested in replicating the above visual download the zip file below to get access to the code and data behind it.

If you enjoy these posts and charts, please help me by subscribing to my website and sharing my work.

Until next week! 👋



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