What about RSL’s Yura, an interesting by RSL BOZ
April 10, 2009 by f4denz.
So within the Real Salt Lake world there are many opinions, and opinions are a lot like arm pits everyone has a couple and almost of them stink, that being said I have been thinking for a couple days about a post over on rslboz.blogspot.com (you have to scroll down a bit, since I couldn’t find a permalink). The article I am talking about is “The Yura Project” by Truhlk, which looks at some of the stats in Yura past and present, it is an interesting look but really ends up being an open question, without much of a conclusion drawn.
I love it when people offer opinions and create their own content, without trying to grind an ax or prove a point. It leads to good conversations (even if they are done online), so if I had been sitting with the writers of that piece here are a few points I would have brought up:
Yura is a work in progress
So the article really points out that Yura takes a lot of shots and has a lot of them on goal, this year through two matches Yura has 10 shots, with 5 on goal but no goals. For me that is a really small part of the overall development of Yura, one has to always keep in mind that Yura is 21 years old and been playing organized soccer since 2000. Yes he played for 5 years before being a first round draft pick in 2006, 4th overall by the KC Wizards, so any real judgment on his career at this point is way premature in my mind.
So I am going to look at the numbers just a little bit differently, because forgotten in the review was a major stat and that is minutes played. Strikers are creatures of habits and streaks and to form either you must play a lot of minutes, in his career Yura has just 2,623 minutes. That has been spread out over 57 matches and 25 starts, he has responded with 136 shots (1 shot every 19 minutes), 56 shots on goal (1 every 46 minutes), 12 goals (1 every 218 minutes).
In comparison consider a player with a longer career and distinguished resume, he played 25,242 minutes and took 743 shots(1 every 34 minutes), had 381 shots on goals (1 every 66 minutes), and scored 108 goals (1 every 233 minutes). Yes our very own Jason Kreis, the first player to ever score 100 goals in MLS, and the guy who is working to turn the RSL strikers into our versions of Lethal Weapons. You also have to understand the statement earlier this year, when Jason said he didn’t think either Robbie or Yura needed to score 10 or more goals this year for RSL to be successful, and he pointed to the 2008 MLS champion Columbus Crew as proof. Is comparing Yura to a multi-time All Star, a Golden Boot winner, and a MLS MVP? Of course it isn’t so let’s take a look at a couple other comparables:
Jeff Cunningham
The only RSL player to ever score more than 10 goals in a season is Jeff Cunningham, so what were his numbers? Jeff played in 31 matches, starting 25 and playing 2404 minutes, he took 83 shots (1 every 29 minutes), had 45 shots on goal (1 every 53 minutes), and 16 goals (1 every 150 minutes). That was a golden boot winning year, Yura takes more shots and actually gets more shots on goal, but he finishes less. So what about comparing Jeff’s entire career to date, 18,975 minutes lead to 635 shots (1 every 30 minutes), 306 shots on goal (1 every 62 minutes), and 104 goals (1 every 182 minutes). Once again Yura takes more shots, and gets more shots on goal but he falls short again on actual goals. This isn’t surprising Jeff is veteran and has been playing the game for 20 years and has earned 10 caps for the US National team.
Robbie Findley
So let’s take a look at the guy who is playing next to Yura this year and has similar numbers, Robbie has played 2,989 minutes in 56 matches, 31 of them starts. Please remember that Robbie’s numbers are boosted just a bit by the great week last week when he earned his first hat trick. Robbie has 82 shots (1 every 36 minutes), 37 shots on goal (1 every 81 minutes), and 17 goals (1 every 176 minutes). So Yura takes more shots but gets 41 percent on goal, Robbie takes fewer shots but gets 45 percent of them on goal, Yura converts on just 9 percent of his shots and Robbie converts on 20 percent of his.
Conclusion
I think that Yura will continue to improve as he gets more playing time, expectations that he would score a goal in each match is simply unrealistic when you understand that even in a golden boot year Jeff only scored once every 150 minutes or once every 1.2 matches. During his career Jeff averages one goal every two matches, Jason averaged one goal every 2.6 matches, yet both ended with over 100 goals. Right now Yura is scoring once every 2.4 matches, somewhere in between and for a kid who has played the game for less than 10 years that isn’t a bad place to be.
I think both Robbie and Yura have what it take to be major scoring forces in MLS, both are young and are still learning. I think both will score more than 10 goals this year if they get over 2000 minutes and so far both are on track. Nobody knows when injuries might hit, we also could see newcomer Luis Miguel Escalada come to form and challenge for minutes. I actually expect this to happen sometime in May, learning what is wanted and expected from the RSL staff takes some time, you only need to remember back to the progression of newcomer Jamison Olave who went from the bench to being a top 10 defender in the league.
I am on record as disagreeing with Jason about needing a 10 goal scorer, we have so many weapons that have the potential to score goals this year (Johnson, Morales, Mathis, Williams, even Beckerman) but I believe to improve on our 2008 season we need to have the ability to rely on a striker to finish chances and take advantages of opportunities. We didn’t do that against Seattle and lost, but we did do that in force against Columbus and the results were impressive. Expect two of our strikers to break out this year, and I think it will come down to who can stay healthy, because those will be the players getting enough minutes to develop good habits and get on a streak. I think Yura will be one of those guys.
Coming Soon
Friday I will do my match preview, and Saturday with the early match time I will do my best to post my pictures from the match before Easter Sunday, until then I am
OFF MY SOAPBOX