The Rest of the Story: 2023 MLS preview, part 3
Moving West...
Austin
2022 Record: 16W 8D 10L +16GD 56Pts (2nd in West, lost Conference Final to LAFC)
2023 Elevator Pitch: The team that the stats heads reallllly want to see regress to the mean. That’s right, they massively outplayed the underlying numbers last year. They had a word xG in 2022 than the Chicago Fire.
Yes, the Fire.
How it goes right?
The addition of Gyasi Zardes could be sneaky good. Zardes gets a bad rep in MLS, but he just does his job everywhere he goes. In general, this doesn’t look like a bad team, but to repeat 2022 will require some magic that the data suggests isn’t there.
How it goes wrong? Beyond the above mentioned regression to the mean, there are some major questions at the back (note: kind of like 3/4 of the league…). Looks mostly like a team that will be around the home playoff line.