Digging into knowledge round Sounders’ harm scenario

One phrase greatest describes the Seattle Sounders’ latest kind: Painful. 

Sure, the group snapped their record-breaking shedding streak by beating Querétaro FC 3-0 on Sunday, and that’s nice. But the truth that they even had a seven-game shedding streak in any respect is painful. They had been outscored 17–3 in that stretch and seemed downright dangerous doing it. 

It’s symptomatic of some very actual issues that didn’t magically resolve themselves this weekend. I gained’t attempt to listing all of them, however the obvious downside is ache itself.

I don’t imply the form of psychological ache we expertise once we lose 5–1 to Portland at residence, and the entrance workplace makes no effort to publicly deal with it. That did damage, however I’m speaking in regards to the literal, bodily accidents that 9 – sure 9 – gamers are nursing proper now.

The previous few weeks, the harm listing might virtually fill a beginning 11. Here was the listing on matchday 19:

1. Pedro de la Vega – Knee (Out)
2. Yeimar Gómez Andrade – Calf (Out)
3. Jordan Morris – Quad (Out)
4. Nikola Petkovic – Knee (Out)
5. Cristian Roldan – Quad (Out)
6. Hassani Dotson – Hamstring (Questionable)
7. Kim Kee-hee – Hamstring (Questionable)
8. Alex Roldan – Hip (Questionable)
9. Ryan Sailor – Knee (Questionable)

Pedro de la Vega managed to return off this listing on Sunday, solely to return with a brand new harm a matter of minutes later!

It’s dangerous. And when issues are dangerous, it’s simple to leap to conclusions. One such conclusion I’ve heard is that one thing’s uniquely improper with the Sounders, and that no different group has to take care of so many accidents. In truth, Brian Schmetzer even stated that they’re going to look into whether or not they’re “overcooking” the gamers in coaching, and if that’s resulting in irregular harm charges. 

It makes you surprise: Is our harm listing irregular?

It’s a testable speculation. There are knowledge simply sitting there to investigate. Someone simply needed to do it. 

Perhaps to ease my very own ache, I reminded myself how a lot enjoyable I’d had doing knowledge evaluation for this web site years in the past, dusted off my occasion of R, and wrote a brand new webscraper.

I used to be in a position to pull collectively each matchday harm report from the MLS web site for the reason that begin of 2024. Excluding suspensions and call-ups, I counted up accidents by group by August 1st of this yr. The dataset contains 7,676 distinctive participant accidents throughout all groups and common season video games.

The outcomes? The Sounders are within the higher finish of MLS’s harm rankings, however not off the charts.

Perhaps it’s chilly consolation, however over the previous 2.5 seasons, the Sounders averaged 4.3 injury-related absences per sport. That’s tied for fifth worst within the league with Miami and Nashville, however solely slightly bit above the league common (3.6). The most-injured group is RSL, averaging 5.1 harm absences per sport since 2024. The healthiest is Austin with 2.1.