Reno 1868's 1st place is nice but might be unsustainable
Reno won again last night.
It took a penalty save in the 64th minute to ensure that they would come away with all three points which puts them on 12 with 5 matches played ahead of Sacramento with 9 points from 6 matches.
A draw would have much fairer result given the xG for the teams and after watching the match both teams probably feel like they should have scored more if not for some poor finishing (got to love lower level soccer baby!).
I am still getting used to the USL but I'd imagine that in normal times the road team is probably at a pretty big disadvantage. The travel budgets for these teams cannot be large and even with things regionalized a team like Reno has to travel quite far to get to most of their matches.
In that sense with Reno having played four of their five matches on the road it probably is less of a big of a deal that they have mostly been out played this season on the xG. The test if they are actually a good team will come during this run of matches at home to see if this has been a fluke or not.
xG by match so far...
Tacoma 1 (1.0) - Reno 3 (1.7), 1.5 xPoints
Sacramento 1 (2.3) - Reno 0 (0.5), 0.2 xPoints
Portland 1 (0.8) - Reno 4 (2.5), 2.3 xPoints
Las Vegas 0 (1.7) - Reno 1 (1.2), 1.0 xPoints
Reno 2 (1.9) - Tacoma 1 (1.8), 1.4 xPoints
Reno have scored 10 goals on 7.8 xG, while they have allowed 4 on 7.6 xG. The +6 goal difference really seems to be falttering themselves at the moment and the 12 points looks mighty inflated next to the 6.4 expected which puts them much closer to Tacoma and Sacramento.
The good thing about over-performing is that even if you are lucky, you don't have to give the points back. Hopefully this is a lot of road effects and Reno can perform at home while continuing to collect points.
I will admit it is cool to have a local team to support and I just wish that I could actually attend these matches in person instead of just watching on TV.