CCSG By The Numbers: 2024, An Analytical Breakdown - Part 1

One of the most crucial tasks in the off-season is casting an eye towards the season that was, especially the players. Were they as good as you thought? Were they worse? Did they live up to expectations? and so on. That is what I am here to do, using advanced analytics. If you are familiar with my work, forge on ahead, if you aren’t, it might be beneficial to consult this article I penned to introduce the layman to analytics and my model. Last year I grouped players by position, however this time I want to pen these in a reverse countdown, from worst to best. Thankfully for me, there were 20 players that ended the season with ATO, making it easy to separate them into four groups of five (Jonathan Grant and Noah Verhoeven, who didn't appear for ATO this season, have been omitted, as has Aboubakary Sacko, who departed halfway through). Here are players 20-16:

#20: Jesus Del Amo - CB

I might as well say immediately, most of this first cohort of players did not play many minutes - in fact, only two played more than 1000, and those are players #17 and #16. The fewer minutes you log, the fewer chances you get to make an impact, and there is a general positive correlation between minutes played and final WPA grade (also because the better you are the more you will play). Del Amo is one of the unlucky few, playing less than 600 minutes in seven games. That being said, it was still a poor showing for the Spaniard in those games, in which he started six - most glaringly for a Centreback, recording zero (0!) blocked shots and winning only a third of his tackles, and he didn’t even make up for it with a decent physical presence. In a small sample, extremes are common, like his 95.8 Pass% grade, and while this does indicate he held onto the ball well when he had it, it wasn’t enough to save his rating. Is it possible that these marks could have evened out over a longer sample size? Yes. Is it possible that he might’ve been able to have a more positive impact given more time to mesh with the team? Also yes. However in the small sample we were privy to, he wasn’t able to. 

CONTRACT STATUS: Out of Contract for 2025.

#19: Zachary Roy - FB

Unfortunately for me, Roy was essentially never used in 2024, only playing eight games and starting twice. This means his paltry 158 minutes gives my model absolutely nothing to chew on. Clearly Carlos González had no faith in him as starter, or even as a late sub, as most of his minutes came in ones or twos at the end of a game. Even after he showed flashes in 2022, he was only a warm body for ATO in 2023 and 2024, and his percentile ranks reflect this, with a lot of extremes and nothing of significance. 

CONTRACT STATUS: Club Option for 2025.

#18: Kevin dos Santos - WM

Even more so than the player preceding him, KDS saw only fleeting glimpses of the field in 2024, however this time it was because of a devastating injury in his second game with ATO, and he only regained his fitness in time to log eight more appearances with only one start. His injury was an early turning point in the season, forcing Bassett out wide and testing winger depth, almost certainly to detrimental effect. He will hopefully come back stronger in 2025.

CONTRACT STATUS: Under Contract until 2026.

#17: Dani Morer - FB

The first player on this list who played any significant minutes, but unfortunately for him and ATO, he ranks the lowest among anyone on the team with 1000 minutes or more. He started his season extremely strong, at one point marking assists in three straight games, and five in nine. However, he cooled off as the season progressed, finishing with just seven in 30, and no goals. While this did set the club record for helpers, his offensive prowess overshadowed his weaknesses in other aspects of play, especially his defensive game, most notably his inability to win ground duels, registering in the bottom 16th percentile in that metric. He was also extremely foul-prone, giving away almost two more per 90 than he drew, giving one the impression that he wasn’t quite ready for the physicality or refereeing standard of the Canadian game (his size didn’t help matters), and he failed to intercept the ball with anywhere near the acumen of his peers.

While his electricity going forward cannot be ignored, with a 90+ rank in Key Passes as well as an 85+ Cross Accuracy grade, and he won a lot more tackles than the eye test seemed to suggest, it wasn’t enough to boost his final WPA rating. Morer’s continued selection over other options down the stretch, like Kris Twardek (a much better defender), might, in retrospect, feel like a tactical mistake on Gonzalez’s part. 

CONTRACT STATUS: Loan Set to Expire for 2025.

#16: Luke Singh - CB

When looking at the raw numbers, Singh actually doesn’t look too awful at first glance, certainly not 16th of 20 awful. He was markedly above average at ball distribution, with an accuracy of 88.8% which equated to a 91.1 percentile rank, and was good in both clearing the ball and blocking shots. Singh also wasn’t bad at contesting duels, both on the ground and in the air, and completed more than half of his long balls, all of these ranking above average when compared to his peers. However, when looking at his weaknesses, you start to see why he ranked below average WPA-wise, and as the second-worst CB in the entire league. His tackle success rate wasn’t anywhere close to par, he didn’t contribute offensively (certainly compared to last season), and didn’t recover the ball through interceptions well either.

These holes in his game, combined with the fact that his strengths, apart from his passing, weren’t nearly good enough to make up for them, paint a vivid picture of how he fell as far as he did. While he began the season as a week-in-week-out starter beside Amer Didic, the need for U21 minutes pressed Tyr Walker into service, and Singh became the odd man out, even more so when the young defender proved his worth, as we shall see in later articles. Even when Gonzalez switched to a 3-CB system, the new shiny toy in Del Amo eclipsed Singh’s star, even if statistically Singh was the better option. 

CONTRACT STATUS: Loan Set to Expire for 2025.

And that’s the first batch of players analyzed! In the coming days and weeks the remaining 15 will get posted, slowly climbing the summit to the best players from the 2024 season. As you’ll come to see, only these five explicitly failed to meet expectations, while the rest performed at or above average. This begs the question - how did this team fail so spectacularly? The answer to that is up to you, dear reader.

2024 ATO ranks:

1. ?
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?
5. ?
6. ?
7. ?
8. ?
9. ?
10. ?
11. ?
12. ?
13. ?
14. ?
15. ?
16. Luke Singh - 52.9 WPA
17. Dani Morer - 44.9 WPA
18. Kevin dos Santos - 43.5 WPA
19. Zachary Roy - 35.8 WPA
20. Jesús Del Amo - 34.8 WPA

Unranked: Jonathan Grant, Noah Verhoeven, and Aboubakary Sacko

About Alexander:

When he isn't busy playing or watching sports (or going to school at uOttawa), Alexander is busy 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 players using statistics, CPL by the Numbers.