Following yet another frustrating home loss on Wednesday night, there’s a lot of consternation within the Seattle Sounders fan community about talk surrounding xG. There are folks who think stats are bunk and that soccer isn’t played on a spreadsheet. There are also folks who see the numbers as the be-all and end-all trump card when discussing matches. People, broadly speaking, should try not to find themselves firmly in either camp but instead realize that numbers and stats are a tool to investigate what’s going on at any given point.
Before we really dive into the nitty-gritty of what the heck is going on with the Sounders, it’s important to level set what we’re actually talking about when there is a discussion happening about expected goals.