Finding the best under-25 centre-forwards in the USL 2019/20 season – data analysis

European football and American football has been brought back into action with the likes of Premier Leauge, Champions League, and Europa League coming into action and nearing their termination.

In the US, the MLS Is Back Tournament was recently concluded with the Portland Timbers picking up the trophy. Various youngsters are rising up from MLS and for some, their talent has been enough for them to make the move to Europe. Miguel Almirón is one such example who moved to Newcastle United from Atlanta United. Another one  Diego Rossi is rumoured to leave for the Premier League.

One league that has rather gone under the radar and yet promises big talent is the USL. The league below the MLS, the USL is a competitive league with free-flowing football  or should one say soccer. In recent years, we’ve seen big clubs sign players from lower leagues with success. Kostas Tsimikas’ signing for Liverpool from Olympiakos is a recent sign of this. West Ham were targeting Wigan Atheltic full-back Antonee Robinson for many days only for the American to set sign to Sheffield United.

Clearly, there is value in scouting lower league markets. In this data analysis, we’ll use data and statistics to scout the USL for forwards and find the best centre-forwards under-25 from last year.

Contextual Primers

Before we start on our analysis journey, there are a few contextual reminders to take note of.

First of all this data analysis report is supposed to narrow down our scouting options and as such, it is not the be-all-end-all of analysis. My attempts will be to use data to narrow forwards to those who show the most promise.

Second of all, I am analyzing forwards under the age of 25 and will be considering every forward who has played more than 900 minutes to minimize the impact of inflation

In addition, I recognize that not every centre-forward is the same. As such, I will be analyzing shooting statistics to find the more goal-hungry forwards and attacking passes to find the more creative forwards.

Analyzing goal-scoring forwards through shooting metrics

Many centre-forwards who score many goals need to land themselves in the box many times and shoot from there successfully. The best forwards like Timo Werner, Robert Lewandowski, or Harry Kane have done this to an exceptionally high standard. With this in mind, let’s analyze strikers and their performance in the box.

Here we see touches in the box per 90 on the x-axis which informs the performance of strikers in coming inside the box. Those who come inside the box often have more chances at the goal and as such, we see a normal positive correlation.

I have plotted the size of the dots as the percentage of shots these strikers get on target. Immediately, four centre-forwards stand out. Frank López from OKC Energy FC, Ropapa Mensah from Pittsburgh Riverhounds, Tom Barlow from Red Bulls II, and Danny Musovski from Los Angeles FC are the main outliers.

Mensah,