Major League Soccer Dataset

Overview

NOTE: As of now, the source of player data that I had used has changed. So unless I find a new source/figure out how to retrieve it from the changed website, that part of the dataset won't be updated anymore. The tables, matches, and events parts are all fine and will be updated around midweek while the season is going.

NOTE: Version 31 doesn't contain an updated table. I will try to soon either fix how I get it or just compute that information based on the game data.

This dataset contains player, game, event, and table data from Major League Soccer (MLS).

There is currently information on over 6000 matches and almost 420,000 events from those matches.

For an introduction to the data, check out this kernel.
For a quick overview of what data is available for what years, visit this spreadsheet

Player Data

• all_goalkeepers.csv - all goalkeeper data from every season of MLS through 2020
• all_players.csv - all outfield player data from every season of MLS through 2020

Game Data

• matches.csv - match data from the 2001-2021 seasons

Event Data

• events.csv - events from games from the 2008-2021 seasons

Tables

• all_tables.csv - end of season / current standing of tables for every season through 2021

Dataset Updates

V21 - all_tables.csv updated, now has 1996-2020 and additional columns; includes a section for each conference and then (for most years) an overall table as well
V8 - matches.csv now 1996-2020 (dates look a little different for this period)
V4 - all updated with matches through 8/17/2020 (except all_tables.csv, webpage with the table seems to be down)
V3 - events.csv and matches.csv now 2001-2020 (events only available for 2008 onwards)
V2 - events.csv and matches.csv now 2012-2020

I plan to update this dataset weekly while MLS games are being played.

Acknowledgements

Image: https://www.houstondynamo.com/post/2020/06/10/mls-back-all-26-teams-resume-season-espn-wide-world-sports-starting-july-8
Player Data: https://www.mlssoccer.com/stats
Match Data 1996-2000: https://fbref.com/en/comps/22/44/schedule/2000-Major-League-Soccer-Scores-and-Fixtures
Table Data: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Major_League_Soccer_season
Other Data: https://www.espn.com/soccer/league/_/name/usa.1/

All data was scraped from the above two sources by me. My code is here.

Inspiration

There's a myriad of questions that can be asked about soccer teams and players.

• What stats impact the chances of a team winning the most?
• Which players have the best win rate and worst win rate over the years?
• Which goalkeepers have performed the best?
  etc.