There's the traditional box score. And then there's Beyond the Box Score, available on SportingKC.com. Take the below example for Sporting KC midfielder Oriol Rosell from Saturday's 3-0 win at Montreal.
Looks a lot more like binary code than a man of the match performance, no? Now consider the following.
VIDEO: ROSELL IN RIGHT SPOT
Rosell's lone shot, at the 16-minute mark, earned the game-winning penalty kick and resulted in a red card to Montreal midfielder Collen Warner for his goalline handball(s). And with that man advantage, Rosell led Sporting KC to a record-setting display of dominance from a passing and possession perspective.
Since Opta -- a worldwide leader in the collection and distribution of detailed performance data in sports -- began tracking Major League Soccer statistics in 2011, no club had logged as many attempted passes and successful passes or controlled as much of the possession in an MLS match (regular season or postseason) as Sporting Kansas City did on Saturday at Stade Saputo. And it wasn't even close, as illustrated by the numbers in the charts below.
TOP FOUR: PASSES AND SUCCESSFUL PASSES IN MLS MATCH (SINCE 2011)
<strong>Team</strong> |
<strong>Opponent</strong> |
<strong>Date</strong> |
<strong>Passes</strong> |
<strong>Successful</strong> |
<strong>Accuracy</strong> |
Sporting KC |
at Montreal Impact |
5/10/14 |
803 |
739 |
92.03 |
Sporting KC |
vs NE Revolution |
11/6/13 |
673 |
566 |
84.10 |
Sporting KC |
vs NE Revolution |
3/17/12 |
660 |
565 |
85.61 |
Salt Lake |
at Seattle Sounders |
10/17/12 |
646 |
563 |
87.15 |
TOP FOUR: POSSESSION PERCENTAGE IN MLS MATCH (SINCE 2011)
<strong>Team</strong> |
<strong>Opponent</strong> |
<strong>Date</strong> |
<strong>Possession</strong> |
Sporting KC |
at Montreal Impact |
5/10/14 |
78.18 |
Salt Lake |
vs Chivas USA |
5/7/11 |
74.52 |
Sporting KC |
vs Chicago Fire |
3/16/13 |
72.8 |
Salt Lake |
vs LA Galaxy |
4/27/13 |
72.24 |
Sporting Kansas City also claimed the second spot in two other statistical categories on Saturday: touches (961) and passing accuracy (92.03). But back to Rosell, who himself set single-game records for attempted passes, successful passes and touches by an MLS player since the start of the 2011 season.
In the second half alone, Rosell successfully completed 90 of his 91 passes to finish with 160 total successful passes on Saturday. To put that in perspective, Montreal recorded 173 successful passes collectively as a team.
TOP FOUR: PASSES AND SUCCESSFUL PASSES IN MLS MATCH (SINCE 2011)
<strong>Player</strong> |
<strong>Match</strong> |
<strong>Date</strong> |
<strong>Passes</strong> |
<strong>Successful</strong> |
<strong>Accuracy</strong> |
Oriol Rosell |
SKC at MTL |
5/10/14 |
166 |
160 |
96.39 |
Kyle Beckerman |
RSL at SEA |
10/17/12 |
135 |
122 |
90.37 |
Osvaldo Alonso |
SEA vs NE |
4/13/13 |
116 |
108 |
93.10 |
Dax McCarty |
NY vs SEA |
7/15/12 |
111 |
104 |
93.69 |
TOP FOUR: TOUCHES IN MLS MATCH (SINCE 2011)
<strong>Player</strong> |
<strong>Team</strong> |
<strong>Opponent</strong> |
<strong>Date</strong> |
<strong>Touches</strong> |
Oriol Rosell |
Sporting KC |
at Montreal Impact |
5/10/14 |
174 |
Kyle Beckerman |
Real Salt Lake |
at Seatte Sounders |
10/17/12 |
148 |
Matt Besler |
Sporting KC |
vs NE Revolution |
11/6/13 |
141 |
Osvaldo Alonso |
Seattle Sounders |
vs NE Revolution |
4/13/13 |
132 |
Still skeptical? See the data in action. Rewind your DVR and check out Sporting Kansas City's second goal on Saturday in the 34th minute: a 21-pass scoring sequence that starts with a goal kick from Eric Kronberg on one end of the field and ends with a first-time finish from Paulo Nagamura into the back of the net 120 yards away. At the core of that buildup is Rosell, contributing to six of the 21 passes.
To cap it all off, the 21-year-old Spaniard is not only asserting himself as one of the league's leading distributors but he is also doing the defensive work one would expect for a team that leads Major League Soccer with a 0.66 goals against average. Rosell ranks second among all MLS players in interceptions since the start of the 2013 season -- trailing only teammate Aurelien Collin -- and has won 37 of his last 40 tackles in MLS competition, a 93 percent tackle success percentage.
