Freshness

ATX 2 - 0 STL

0 goals on 2.52 xG

2 goals conceded on 2.17 xG

and a completely and utterly brutal xG timeline to look at:

Shameless plug, check out SoccerDatavizer.com.

CITY after 10 games played:

• 6 points on 15 expected points

• 9 goals on 16.07 xG

• 18 goals conceded on 13.82 xGA

With the weekly CITY manager comparison looking like this:

The theme continues - Damet’s side continues to perform well in just about every expected metric you can find, whilst continuing to underperform all of those expected metrics in actual metrics.

With 30% of the MLS season already behind us, lines are being drawn in the sand: Those on the expected side can continue to point at the should be and could be, and they would be right in doing so, while those on the actual side can point at the results, and they would be right in doing so.

A weird, unrelated coincidence - CITY, from 2023-2025 underperformed xPoints by -9.4. Based on the beliefs of the Temple of Progression/Regression to the mean, you’d expect that to correct itself. Instead, CITY has doubled it, with -9 xPoints in 2026.

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The xProblem

CITY, once again, underperforms its xG in Austin. In fact, it’s the second-worst xG underperformance in club history, at -2.52.

Three players have taken 10+ shots so far for CITY in MLS play, and all three are underperforming their xG: Becher is -2.89, Hartel is -0.85, and Teuchert is -1.14. Many people are jumping on the anti-Becher train, and I think some of it is, frankly, unfair, because he has shown improvement in other aspects of his game. But, and this is a big but, he had the fourth-worst xG underperformance MLS has seen in the last 14 years and has the second-worst in MLS so far in 2026 (ironically behind goal-scoring extraordinaire Heung-Min Son, who hasn't scored so far in 2026 but does have an MLS-leading 7 assists). There are an overwhelming number of data points at this stage suggesting he is not going to go on a massive hot streak to progress toward the mean.

I want to reiterate that Simon Becher alone is not the xG problem. He is a significant contributor to it, but good soccer teams have a multitude of primary and secondary goal scorers, whereas City has no primary goal scorer and currently only Hartel as a secondary goal scorer.

And it’s also not fair to say that xG underperformance is the reason this team has 6 points in 10 games. For as bad as the offense has been (-7.07 xG underperformance), the defense (-4.18 xGA underperformance) deserves its fair share as well.

CITY has shown an ability to score once, and not much more than that, in any given 90+ minutes of MLS gameplay. CITY has also shown an inability to keep the ball out of the net, ever.

I made a comment over a year ago, when the criticism of Olof was reaching a boiling point, that while his defensive style was off-putting to many, the game is easier when you only have to score once to win.

In no way am I turning this into a pro-Olof, anti-Damet conversation, but I think that comment holds water today.

CITY has zero, 0, clean sheets so far, and we’ve been held to 1-1 draws three times. Scoring goals is hard. Having to score multiple goals every week is even harder.

If CITY only had to score once to win, there is no question we’d have more points than we do right now. And if CITY could score more than once, we’d also have more points than we do right now.

So you are more than right to point the blame at the offense, especially when you see a miss like that Hartel-Becher debacle, and say, “This offense is not good enough to win games.” But you’d also be right in saying, after watching the 9 goals conceded in the last three games, that “this defense is not good enough to win games.”

But don’t you worry, if we know anything about 2026, it is that consistent underperformance will warrant replacement in the starting lineup.

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How Dare You

To quote from Matthew Doyle’s latest Power Rankings:

I can’t keep writing the same thing every week. I just can’t.

Retweet, reskeet, repost, whatever it is these days.

Courtesy of my friends over at Red Smoke Rising, we have, in writing, this… inexplicable quote from Yoann Damet:

Why is it unexplicable, you might ask? Here is a fresh, made-to-order new CCT viz: the Minute Budget.

“Again, it was the third game of the week for us, and I think we lacked a little bit of freshness in some key moments.”

Roman Bürki has played every minute of every game so far in 2026. That’s fine; no issues there. Jaziel Orozco, prior to his injury, had played 99.7% of all available minutes (sitting out just 3 minutes). Timo Baumgartl has also played every minute of every game in 2026. Dante Polvara is 26 minutes shy of a perfect appearance record and hasn’t had a minute off since Matchday 5 on March 21st. Lukas MacNaughton has featured exactly as you’d expect from a depth center-back: 15-to-30-minute cameos at first, followed by essentially every minute of every game following Orozco’s injury.

As a reminder, CITY had played 11 games prior to the Austin FC (ATX) match. Mamadou Mbacke—of whom I’m not a huge fan—was not rostered for MD1. He then sat on the bench for eight games, totaling just 42 minutes before ATX. Fallou Fall—of whom I am a huge fan—was injured for MD1–3 and was left off the gameday roster for the following four games. He played eight minutes in the Open Cup—not at LCB or LWB, but endearingly at Left [Wing/Mid?]—before returning to the bench for the next three games. That is eight minutes total prior to ATX.

How dare Yoann Damet use “freshness” as an excuse? Who decided to play Orozco, Baumgartl, Polvara, and MacNaughton every available minute? Whose decision was it to keep the Senegalese players off the roster or use them as mere cheerleaders on the sideline?

Conrad Wallem has struggled; he has now started 11 of 12 games and logged 950 minutes. Rafael Santos was previously undroppable, playing 612 minutes in the first seven games. During that same span, Tomas Totland was a substitute, then injured, then an unused bench option, totaling only 31 minutes. Since then, the roles have flipped: Totland has started four of the last five games (405 minutes), while Santos has managed only 79.

Again: how dare Yoann Damet use freshness as an excuse? Whose decision was it to play Santos for 612 minutes while Totland got 31, only to now grind Totland for 405 minutes while Santos gets 79?

Chris Durkin has already played over 1,000 minutes—93% of the season—and has started all 12 games. Daniel Edelman had started 10 of 11 games and played 88% of minutes before missing the gameday roster entirely due to exhaustion. Miguel Perez, clearly the third-choice CM, started MD2 (with Hartel absent) and the Tulsa game. Outside of that, he’s been an unused substitute six times and had played only 57 minutes off the bench prior to Austin. Tomas Ostrák was unavailable for the first five matchdays. He was then left off the roster twice, played 15 minutes against Tulsa (scoring in the process), and has been excluded from every roster since. Zero MLS minutes; heck, zero MLS gameday appearances.

Whose decision was it to play Durkin and Edelman together so constantly that Edelman was too tired to even make the bench in Austin? Whose decision was it to let Perez, the depth CM, sit on his hands and jog on the sideline while the starters tire out every week? Who has decided to excommunicate Tomas Ostrák from the squad altogether?

Up front, there has been an ever-rotating cast: Simon Becher has played a lot of minutes, Sergio Córdova features regularly, and Brendan McSorley has subbed on 10 times (ironically, not in the two victories over MLS opponents). Sang-bin featured early but hasn’t been seen since his training injury. Pompeu is out for the season. Teuchert has appeared in nine games.

You get the point. The “attackers”—excluding Marcel Hartel, who has started 11 of 11 games and played all but 33 minutes—have played 12%, 24%, 18%, 30%, 51%, and 70% of available minutes. That represents some level of rotation, even if playing Becher and Córdova’s minutes together is silly.

Eduard Löwen’s unavailability hasn’t helped. He missed the first eight games but is seeing his minutes increase: 8, 14, 40, and finally a 61-minute start against ATX. That should help alleviate the miles on Durkin and Edelman’s legs, provided Perez and Ostrák aren’t seen as viable options. Never mind—he’s playing at the R10.

My stance is to never believe what a person says into a microphone; it is almost always a half-truth or a non-truth. But this Damet quote is very much the truth. It was the third game in a week, and it was obvious the team lacked “freshness.”

However, that isn’t a defense. It’s the opposite. It’s damning. It’s Damet-ing.

As this season unfolds, I’m coming around to a wild idea: CITY might need to hire a manager. Damet can clearly coach. You can see his well-drilled ideas translating from training to the pitch. The pivot from the “hit-and-hope” soccer we previously saw in STL to this 2026 side is a stark contrast. But I’m not sure he can “manage.” He certainly hasn’t shown much in that regard so far.

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Thanks for reading.

#AllForCITY, forever and always.

#DiegoOut