Site Survey Going Into Year 3
by Dave Clark on Aug 27, 2010 12:14 PM PDT
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PrintWe've now reached the point where Sounder at Heart has been around for three years. We grew from a wordpress site with 33 visits in the first month (helped by www.prospectinsider.com), to www.SBNation.com's 2nd soccer site with ~50,000 visits in August.
Something has convinced you to keep coming here. I have a lot of theories as to why (Jeremiah Oshan! and the excellenet welcome and participation from those people at www.lookoutlanding.com - Graham, Kirsten, Aaron and many of you).
But I"m wondering what you the readers want to see more of? What would convince you to read more? What would convince new people to read?
How can we help you?
Thanks by the way, these first two years have been a blast. Just a lifetime more of this.
Sounder in Sport - Sounder in Life
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Gald to have been a part of it, Dave.
Especially that 33.
I’d love to see more of the interviews of yore. Love the stats, love the multiple-posts-for-each-game.
Mostly, it’s just a nice place to hang out.
by Cornchops on Aug 27, 2010 1:28 PM PDT via mobile reply actions
You may have been half of those 33
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
Tactics
Enjoy the stats and asking the willingness to ask the management the tough questions. I would like to see some more analisis of specfic plays. Why they worked or didn’t ect… No offense to the other contributers, but more Dave please. Keep it up, you all are a fantastic time killer!
by soccerfan on Aug 27, 2010 1:56 PM PDT via mobile reply actions
I have a plan for breaking down Goal Scoring plays again
I just ran out of time to do it like I did last year.
But I have a tool now.
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
Congrats
Glad to see how far the site has come. Its been great to watch the site grow from its humbple beginnings. I feel that you’re (we’re!) building a Sounders community focused more on tactics, stats, and evidence based performance reviews, instead of the typical
“soap opera” style seen on other soccer sites.
I would love even more tactical discussion. I like how this site focuses more on Montero changing position then him “trying harder.” Well done guys. Congrats
Love the stat work
You guys do the best job in the Seattle market of presenting fact based analysis and I think that’s why the site is getting more popular.
The other thing I enjoy is the scouting reports, I always find that useful while watching the game.
Best Sounders Site
Congratulations on the three year anniversary. This is far and away the best Sounders site. The thing I appreciate most is your comments thread and the willingness to answer questions or correct us. To the point of calling down the Sounders front office for answers. :-)
Agreed with the above comments
beyond stats and tactical discussions, I think you guys do a great job of informed opinion and discussion on this site and always back up analysis with fact or reason. At that point, it’s possible for any readers/commenters to have interesting, productive discussion with each other and often the authors in the comments section. It’s a great combination.
I’d also agree that I’d like to see more tactical discussion. I really enjoyed a lot of the stuff you posted earlier this season in that vein.
Lurker
This seems fitting as a place for a first post…As someone who is new to watching soccer, and is stuck in South Dakota with no directTV, I’m curious on how I can better watch the Sounders (fitting as a Mariners fan) and other teams (have to cheer for American’s in Europe). That may be something you cannot solve, but wishful thinking.
Anyway, when I do get to watch games via the Fox Soccer Channel, can you help teach me what to watch for? I’ve been watching baseball all my life, as well as football/basketball I understand what I’m looking at. In soccer I have a hard time watching anything, but the ball.
I also picked up Football Manager 2010, and took over the Sounders, and played out a few seasons. Its hard for me to play however, as I have come to find, soccer seems to be a lot more about the team than it is the players. While I’ve been a Mariners fan watching great stars move on, I feel like in soccer their life span on a team is much shorter.
Another thing I do not understand about the MLS, is the salary rules, and reading a few posts across the SBNation, it sounds like there’s many “exceptions” made for teams like LA.
I guess to sum up my long winded post, I would like some more introduction type coverage. I love how this site is trying to get deeper into soccer and grab more out of statistics, because I love the SABR stats in baseball, but I need to fill in the gap with some general knowledge before I get to that point.
Thanks!
by JWAY on Aug 28, 2010 8:04 AM PDT reply actions 1 recs
Also...
What are all these tournaments they play mid-season? Is there some sort of a formal/general playing schedule to make sense of all of this? Thanks!
I find my self in a similar position as JWAY
Minus the South Dakota thing. It seems like alot the basics are skipped over on websites and even the announcers when you watch the game on TV. I know enough to know that I don’t know enough about what i’m watching.
Most of my knowledge of soccer thus far is from playing fifa 09…..I’m not sure if thats a good or a bad thing.
Funny thing is..
That I hate it when baseball has to cater to novice fans… Shame on me, because now that I’m in that position, I need it to hook me.
i feel the same about football.
I used to cringe for every sunday/monday night game with Madden.
That's two votes for more Primer level material
Which is a tag on this site.
We also have some stories on formations and player roles featured and placed in the left sidebar.
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
by Dave Clark on Aug 28, 2010 11:35 AM PDT reply actions 1 recs
Primer level material
is a great idea. I don’t know how many people know exactly what PP90 is. Other tactical understanding about formations and other things could also use some intro things as well. Perhaps it’s a limitation of the blog format, but how many people actually click on tags? I wouldn’t put it past you to have a statistic about how often a tag link is used. ;-P
P.S. It was fun meeting you at the Gorilla FC pregame the other day.
-Ben R.
I'll make it even easier
Here is the primer tag. This will give you all the ‘primer’ stories in one spot. Anything else they write that is ‘primer’ level stuff will be tagged with it. Click the link under the Read More: at the bottom of the stories.
Long term qualitative analysis
One thing I have liked is the little bit of qualitative analysis I have seen as of late, or at least I’m noticing it more as of late. The thing is it really is only there on a game to game basis, and even then it is not as strong as I would like. Firstly is there any way we could see more qualitative analysis of players or the team as a whole in a bigger picture sense of the entire season and not just game to game. I know we talk about PPM, SOG conversion, and other stats, but sometimes I feel like that gives an incomplete picture or an explanation of WHY those stats are the way they are.
Also on a game to game basis I think a bit more qualitative description on tactics would be nice. Basically this world cup I fell in love with zonalmarking.net and their style of review. Very tactics oriented which kind of reminded me of this site, but much more colorful in the way the games were analyzed in and not only in terms of statistical relevance. I know you guys have done some stuff on tactics and positioning, but generally in the very abstract, not game specific sense.
It’s not to say you guys don’t do qualitative analysis or do it well, it just doesn’t seem to to be a regular feature in blog posts, especially post game write ups and analysis on league standings.
-Ben R.
I'd be interested in highlights of Sounders history
I really love the design of the this Who Are Ya shirt, but my first interaction with the team was a game at Memorial Stadium in the 90s, when they had a weird penalty shootout where attackers started at midfield.* The only players I know from the last few years of USL-1 are Levesque, Le Toux, and Maykel Galindo, who had that awesome defection story.
Maybe it’s already been covered elsewhere, but I haven’t seen interesting, humorous, thoughtful write ups about bits of Sounders teams of the past. Obviously, I care way more about the present, but this would be neat.
*Google tells me Penn State’s intramural program uses (and describes) the midfield shootout format.
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