CCSG By The Numbers: 2025 Roster Breakdown (Part 1)
Welcome to this year’s edition of the article series that bums everyone out because their favourite player doesn’t have enough blue boxes! To be completely honest, I delayed finishing up all the stats work I had lined up because I wanted to coast on the high of the final just that little bit longer, and to keep pretending that every player who suited up for ATO this year was perfect and God’s gift to mankind, but alas I have a job to do.
As a refresher, my work can be summarized concisely thusly: it is a ranking system that looks at the statistical impact of all CPL players in a given season, comparing them to each other and their positional peers to determine who performed well or poorly, and what the dimensions of their impact were. While that description is a little esoteric, I have written an entire article breaking down the process, linked here, which goes into much more detail about what goes into the model and what the numbers represent. I highly recommend checking that piece out if you are new to my work, as all the numbers can be a little overwhelming. It also talks about the inherent biases of advanced analytics.
Like last year, this series will present a reverse ranking of all the ATO players this year, based on their overall and adjusted WPA, or Weighted Percentile Average score. There were 25 outfield players who logged minutes this year; however, two have been excluded from this list as they had too small a sample size to effect a proper analysis–Jason Hartill (three whole minutes!) and Richie Ennin. Each article will feature five players (except the first, which will have three), to make a total of five articles. Alongside the graphs, I will include a little summary of which stats jumped out at me, a few aesthetic thoughts, and an overview of their contract situation in 2026. If a player’s status is uncertain, I’ll give my thoughts as to what the club should do. A summary of the rankings is included at the bottom of every article. With that out of the way, and a reminder that no matter how much orange there is on a player’s card, they’re still a CPL champion (!)–let’s get started!
#23 - Jean-Aniel Assi (Winger/Wing-Back, 31.2 WPA)
As with all three inclusions in this article, Assi had a comically small sample size, so these numbers don’t really mean much–few minutes leading to statistical extremes. You could maybe say he was a good dribbler, but that’s about it. You might remember he played for Ottawa in 2023, and when he did he was a decent chance creator, but woeful just about everywhere else. His crossing and general distribution had room to improve, as well as his defensive metrics when he played at Wing-Back. By the time he suits up for Atleti in 2026, it will have been two full years of growth, so we will hopefully see lots of improvement from him in a larger sample.
2026 Contract Status: Signed through 2027, with an option for 2028.
#22 - Ralph Khoury (Forward, 32.0 WPA)
Small sample size, statistical extremes, etc., etc. but I am shocked that his duelling and tackling rank so high for a player this young–usually they score very poorly in that regard. I will say that I liked the flashes that Khoury showed in his few cameos, bringing a youthful energy and spark to the team in late-game situations. He is under contract for some time, so he has lots of runway with which to work and show his talent in more minutes.
2026 Contract Status: Signed through 2027 as an Exceptional Young Talent, with options for 2028 AND 2029.
#21 - Antonio Álvarez (CAM/WB, 32.4 WPA)
On loan from Club América, Álvarez was brought in late in the season with the intention to fill two holes in the squad–the depth options at CAM behind Ballou Tabla and David Rodríguez, and at WB behind Gabriel Antinoro and Kevin dos Santos. Unfortunately, Álvarez got injured after his third appearance and did not lace them up again, making his loan spell a disappointing one. As with Khoury, I liked his few stints, and his time with ATO will be one of unfulfilled promise.
2026 Contract Status: Loan presumably at an end.
That does it for this article, as we got the really small samples out of the way, and prepared for the next four articles, nicely balanced at five players apiece. The next article, breaking down players #20-16, will be out in the coming days, and there will be at least one surprise! See you then!
About Alexander:
When he isn't busy playing or watching sports (or going to school at uOttawa), Alexander is managing his Atlético Ottawa database, which he started in 2020, and tracks everything you can think of about the club and its players. He also runs a BlueSky account dedicated to analyzing and rating CPL and NSL players using statistics, CPL by the Numbers.
