Sometimes the Solution Is Just to Sign Antoine Griezmann

Orlando City’s season resumed on July 22 at San Jose, and in the exactly one month between that game and the home game against Real Salt Lake on Aug. 22, the club played nine games. What is rest and recovery, anyway? Three of those matches were in the Cash Grab Leagues Cup and the other six were in MLS regular-season play, and the Lions are performing better during this portion of the season than they did before the World Cup break.

As it turns out, Orlando City had a pretty tough schedule during Leagues Cup, as Monterrey and Club León have both reached the semifinal round, and the Lions ended up going 1-1-1 in the three games. They really should have gone 2-1-0 but let their concentration slip at the end of the third game and allowed a tying goal in the final seconds.

It was not surprising that Adrián Marín was involved in that late goal, as he has struggled during the last few weeks, but it was surprising that Antoine Griezmann also played a role in allowing Atlético San Luis to even the game. Griezmann was overly unselfish and turned the ball over when he could have iced the game by shooting it himself, either scoring an insurance goal or running the clock out.

While attempting to pass instead of shooting turned out to be the wrong decision in that game, the French superstar has been just shy of brilliant overall since joining Orlando City, leading the team back into the playoff hunt (the Lions would make the playoffs if the season ended today) and bringing qualities to the field that few in the world can.

Since play started back up, Griezmann has five goal contributions during MLS games, which leads the team and ranks tied for sixth across the entire league. His attacking style of play has added a new dimension to the Orlando City attack, as evidenced by some of the advanced stats tracked by Futi:

Futi’s tracking breaks a full game down into smaller chunks, which they call phases of play:

These are labels for familiar situations in a football (soccer) match that help us describe what’s going on beyond “Well, a bunch of people sure are chasing a ball around.” Phases break the game into bite-size chunks to make it easier to digest.

You can read more about Futi’s explanation of phases in the full article, but suffice it to say the coders who log each game break down each part of it into hundreds of phases, and when Griezmann is involved offensively or defensively, he is part of a positive result (a.k.a., winning the phase, nearly two-thirds of the time). The only Orlando City player with a higher win percentage is rising star Justin Ellis, one of the most highly touted players to ever come through the Orlando City academy system and a player in the Griezmann mold, learning from Griezmann himself.

For context on phases won, 63% is right there with some of the best players in MLS. For example, Grizi is slightly below Lionel Messi (68%) and Evander (65%), but above Denis Bouanga (62%) and Carles Gil (61%). League average is….50%, because it has to be. Math!

The French attacker also already leads the team in completing passes that progress the ball at least 10 yards toward the opposition’s goal in the attacking two-thirds of the field and ranks behind only speedster (though somehow not among the fastest in MLS in the new EA Sports FC 27) Iván Angulo for total progressive plays per 90 minutes. Griezmann’s gravity on offense has opened up room for his teammates, and since the World Cup break the Lions are one of only nine teams to improve in goals scored per game rate post-break as compared to pre-break:

Griezmann is contributing heavily on defense as well, as he drops deeper than most forwards — perhaps even all forwards — throughout the game and is always actively engaged defensively. American Soccer Analysis already ranks him fourth among forwards in its “interrupting” metric (the one defense-specific sub-metric that goes into goals added), despite how few minutes he has played, and after allowing 2.93 goals scored per game before the break, the Lions have only allowed 1.17 since they returned to action. Orlando City is among only 10 teams in the league that are scoring more goals and allowing fewer goals than the league average since the World Cup break:

Adding one of the best players in the world has made the team better; thank you, Andrew, for the insight.

Even with Griezmann’s addition, the Lions are still at risk of missing the playoffs and need to stack up wins in the final weeks of the season to ensure that they play in the postseason for the seventh consecutive season. In his six MLS games with the team, Orlando City has picked up 10 points, and had it been playing at that same 1.67 points-per-game pace all season, the team would be in fourth place and comfortably above the line.

Major tests still remain, as every team left on the schedule is either currently in a playoff position or within four points of one. At some point soon, however, Orlando City will get a boost from the return of Martín Ojeda, who despite not playing since May is still tied for 11th in goals scored and is seventh in goals scored per 90 minutes.

Griezmann is tied for 17th in goal contributions per 90 minutes among players who have played at least as many minutes as he has (as an aside, if you throw out minimum minutes requirements, Orlando City’s Ignacio Gómez leads the league in this category, with his one goal scored in only 13 minutes played). Once everyone is healthy, Orlando City will resemble more of a many-headed hydra than a lion with all of the team’s attacking talent, and with a pair of tremendous passers in Ellis and Griezmann leading the attack and finishers like Daryl Dike, Martín Ojeda, Marco Pašalić, and Tyrese Spicer roaming around the opposition’s box, the offense could still improve even more than it has already.

The Lions need wins, not draws, so they need to take that possibility and make it reality. The defense has improved but is still leaky, so wins are more likely to come by scoring two or three goals rather than trying to hold a 1-0 lead. The next two games — at Minnesota and home vs. San Diego — are eminently winnable, and a three-game run of wins over teams from the west would be best if Griezmann and the Lions are really going to be beasts in the east.

Vamos Orlando!