The short answer is yes.
That is to say, Canada has been most successful with him. Since his first call-up in 1997, the National Team has been at its best with Nash in the side.
With Nash on the pitch Canada has been 0.29 goals-per-90-minutes better than their opponents. Stated another way, when Nash has been playing, Canada outscores its opponents by 1 goal every 315 minutes.
This sounds like a modest accomplishment, but, since 1993 only two other players, with comparable minutes played, have a positive goal differential.* With Dwayne De Rosario on the field Canada is plus 0.11 goals-per-90-minutes, or 1 goal every 834 minutes. With Jim Brennan on the field Canada is plus 0.10 goals-per-90-minutes, or 1 goal every 906 minutes.
Moreover, since Nash’s first call-up, Canada has a massive deficit without him on the field. Overall, they are -29 goals without Nash over that period. This rates out to -0.41 goals-per-90-minutes, or a 1 goal deficit every 218 minutes.
0.29 goals to the good with Nash on the field, -0.41 goals without him; that’s a difference of 0.70 goals-per-90-minutes with Nash and without.
Most of this advantage came on the offensive end. With Nash, Canada scored 1.35 goals-for-per-90-minutes; without, they scored just 0.84. Surprising, Canada has also been better on the defensive end when Nash has played, they allow 1.06 goals-against-per-90-minutes with him, 1.25 against without.
There are obvious rebuttals to the argument for Nash. All of them are easily disproven.
Has Nash played against weaker Teams, and/or been left out against stronger teams?
No. The average FIFA rank of the opponent Canada has faced with Nash was 52.7; the average FIFA rank without Nash was 57.6.
Has Nash played in a disproportionate number of friendlies or non-competitive matches?
No. 62.5% of his minutes have come in competitive matches, like Qualifiers or the Gold Cup. Only 53.2% of the minutes Canada have played without him have been in competitive matches.
Are Nash’s numbers skewed by the recent Gold Cup?
No. In fact, Canada with Nash performed better in the period from 1998-2000 than from 2005 to the present.
Is Nash’s sample size too small, has he played too little to judge him accurately?
This is arguable. Overall, Nash has played only 25.9% of the minutes he might have since his first call-up. And from early 2004 through late 2006 he didn’t appear at all. However, since 1993, only 17 players have appeared in more matches than Nash, and only 26 have played more minutes.
* Minutes played statistics and proper substitution information is only available from mid-1993 on. Please feel free to help update my database with any game reports you may have.
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5 comments:
Do you know the results for when Nash, DeRosario and Brennan have been on the pitch at the same time?
Not yet. I haven't quite gotten the numbers to that point. But how certain pairs and trios have played together is my next project.
You have must have a pretty impressive database of Canadian stats to do an analysis like this.
I'm not sure how impressive it is...the sources of info are few and far between. Before 1992 or 93 all I have is starts, subs and goals, that is literally all I could reliably find.
I'm looking for a way to make this info available on this blog for people to access...not sure how to do it.
My thoughts on this would be that Nash is a fringe player, thus he's probably only included for less prestigeous games, or minnows where Canada is in the position of being favourite. The USA has several of these guys too...they only play the early WCQ games against the smaller nations that the US is expected to beat. In fact, the US has been known to name entire squads just of MLS players for such games.
It's an interesting piece, but all else being equal Martin Nash doesn't start for the CMNT.
Just my opinion, and clearly, I've done a LOT less research on this subject than you!
Al
(aljarov)
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