Yesterday, I presented a framework for assessing individual players. Today, we’ll look at that data to judge the US’ performance relative to their talent. This analysis will focus on two attributes of these national teams: their average talent and the consistency of that talent.

Average Talent

The table below shows the average starter rating as complied according to yesterday’s rules for the teams in the May 26 FIFA Top 25.

Team	Ave	Team	Ave	Team	Ave
1-Brazil	9.45	11-Russia	8.82	21-Nigeria	8.73
2-Spain	9.55	12-Egypt	6.45	22-Norway	7.73
3-Portugal	9.36	13-Greece	8.36	23-Ukraine	8.64
4-Netherlands	9.18	14-USA	7.73	24-Switzerland	8.27
5-Italy	9.09	15-Serbia	8.18	25-Slovenia	6.64
6-Germany	9.27	16-Uruguay	8.45
7-Argentina	9.27	17-Mexico	8.36
8-England	9.27	18-Chile	7.82
9-France	9.82	19-Cameroon	7.82
10-Croatia	8.73	20-Australia	8.00

A look at these numbers reveals that the only teams with an average above 9 are the same teams that finished higher than the US in the hypothetical single table purposed on Tuesday (Czech Republic has an average player rating of 9.36). Also notable is that the current top nine teams all have an average over 9, while Croatia and Russia are close to this level. Below is a graphical view:



The vast majority of countries fall in a consistent pattern. Only Egypt falls drastically outside of the pattern, with France and Slovenia to a lesser extent. The US falls squarely in the midst of this trend.

Drastic deviations from the pattern can occur when a national side under or overachieves its talent base or when the talent bases are incorrectly valued on the international market. In the case of Egypt, whose national team consists mainly of domestic players and thus not having the boost that being involved in European competition gives, I would suggest that the deviation is one of undervaluation of Egyptian talent instead of their overperformance. Slovenia’s plight is similar in that the club market is lagging behind the Slovenian rise in talent. In the case of the France, there is probably a mix between being overrated based on reputation and an element of underachievement. The US' placement on this graph suggests that, on average, players starting for the USMNT are correctly valued on the international market. The results obtained by the US are consistent with that talent and suggest that with the talent available, the US should obtain results that maintain a FIFA ranking that bounces around between 15 and 25.

Consistency

The correlation between average talent and FIFA rank is unsurprising. However, there are multiple ways to a get to an average. Teams can average an 8 by fielding eleven players ranked 8 (Team A) or by fielding three 10s, five 8s, and three 6s (Team B). Because these two teams have the same average, they will likely also have similar FIFA rankings. However, how they are likely to get those rankings in significantly different ways.

On Tuesday, I posed the question of why countries like Nigeria and Cameroon gain over 40% of the possible points against top 10 teams while others like the US, Switzerland, and Egypt are below 20% of points taken against those same foes. The answer, in part, is the consistency of talent on their team.

In the above Team A and Team B examples, Team A should play consistently like an 8. Regardless of which players see the majority of the time on the ball and exert the majority of influence in the game, the level of play should be consistent. This results in regularly beating teams worse than it and regularly struggling against more talented teams. Team B on the other hand has three players that would be equal on the field against a top team. When these players dominate the game for Team B, the team can play well above their average of 8. When these top players do not play well and cannot control the game or the 6s on the team are exposed, this team can also play well below their average of 8.

The below graph looks at the highest ranked three players for each of the teams in tiers two and three from Tuesday’s post versus the percentage of points taken against the top ten results:



Because the number of observations for some of these countries is too low to perform meaningful analysis, the below chart combines the countries with the same combined rating. Honduras and South Korea were combined and given a value of 25.5. Egypt also did not have enough data, but with no logical combining partner, this data point was removed in the combined analysis.

Combined Rating	Percent of Points Earned
30	22.2%
29	31.9%
28	31.1%
27	22.3%
25.5	15.2%

This data has a correlation of .58, or what is generally viewed as a strong correlation. This means that 58% of the variation in points earned correlates with the variation in combined ratings. While correlation does not equal causation, the correlation here is stronger than the correlation between points against the top ten and the average talent for these same teams.

Using the trendline for this data, the expected value for the current US team is 22.5%. Applying that ratio to the 19 games that US has played against top 10 teams in the last 8 years would give the US an expected 13 points taken. The US has taken eight in these games, but holding the US to that standard is disingenuous. The US was not putting multiple starters into European tournament knockout rounds throughout the past 8 years. A more accurate average combined rating for the past eight years would be around 25. At that level, the expected value is 10 points taken, or only two more than were taken during this stretch. Moreover, the past 12 months, the US has taken 20% of points against the top ten. Here, the difference between the 20% earned and the expected 22.5% is negligible.

As discussed on Tuesday, the US has been a very consistent team, performing above the average of its tier against weaker competition but under its tier against better competition. In large part this is a function of the consistency of the US talent pool. The US "A" team consists of 7s, 8s, and 9s at nearly every position, but with no superstars the US has had a difficult time breaking through against top teams. Cameroon and Nigeria have had much better success against top teams, but their ranking is below the US because of losses to inferior teams. With the current talent pool at Bradley's disposal, the statistics show that the US’ performance is predictable and comparable to similarly situated teams.

Tomorrow, in the final installment, I’ll look at where all this data gets us and what it might mean for the future of US soccer.