Creation of goal scoring opportunities by means of different types of offensive actions in US major league soccer

Purpose
The aim of the study was to describe how scoring opportunities emerge and finish in Major League Soccer, taking into account offensive and defensive tactical indicators.

Methods
The total of 360 team possessions that led to scoring opportunities during 30 random matches from Major League Soccer were analysed. For each possession, 14 dimensions were evaluated by means of observational methodology.

Results
The scoring opportunities were created in 52.8% by organized attacks, in 25.3% by counterattacks, and in 21.9% by set pieces. Organized attacks were characterized by starting in non-invasive zones (57.1%), performing a non-penetrative action (72.6%), and making 4 or more passes (70.1%), while counterattacks started primarily in invasive zones (87.9%) and were bound with performing a penetrative action (96.7%) and making 3 or less passes (70.3%). Chi-square analysis showed that scoring opportunities created by organized attacks had more proportion of previous actions in wide areas (p = 0.034), while counterattacks showed more passes in behind the defence from central areas (p = 0.001). As for the final action, counterattacks achieved more penetration over the opponent defence than organized attacks (p = 0.036) but for both types of attacks, the opponent defensive zone was the space majorly used to finish. For set pieces, corner kicks created 46.8% and free kicks 45.6% of the scoring opportunities.

Conclusions
Goal scoring opportunities from organized attacks started more frequently in non-invasive zones, showed a greater proportion of non-penetrative actions, were built up by means of longer passing sequences, used more the wide areas of the pitch, and achieved less penetration over the opponent than those from counterattacks.