Why Mallory Swanson is scoring so many goals for the USWNT and in NWSL (2024)

Two years ago, Mallory Swanson was left off the United States women’s national team squad for the Olympics. This year, she looks like a locked-in, first-choice starter for the USWNT for the upcoming World Cup. The Chicago Red Stars attacker has scored in every single one of her USWNT appearances this year and has eight goals in her last six national team games, including four in the SheBelieves Cup en route to a tournament MVP award.

It’s the latest development in Swanson’s roller coaster of a young career, having gone from top prospect, to dropped from the national team, to superstar by age 24.

That said, it would be dishonest to not mention up front that Swanson is on the type of hot streak that no player can stay on for very long. Those eight international goals in six games have come from 3.44 expected goals (xG), which would be a pretty dramatic overperformance even for the world’s best finisher. But her 0.61 xG per 90 minutes over those games is very similar to what she put up in NWSL last season (0.58), which was well above average for an NWSL attacker (0.36).

So yes, regression is incoming, but not the truly alarming kind. She really is getting world-class attacker-level chances, at a rate she didn’t for club and country in the preceding years.

If you’re wondering what’s changed for Swanson recently, the answer is… a lot. Some of what she’s improved at is purely anecdotal, and some is observable, though not easily quantifiable. The thing she’s gotten a lot better at that we can actually measure is finishing quality. She’s making better runs, and she’s getting more shots, but the most dramatic difference in her game from 2021 to today is where she’s placing her shots.

So briefly, the anecdotal: When Swanson was left off the Olympics roster in 2021, USWNT head coach Vlatko Andonovski says he had a frank conversation with her about what she needed to work on, both on the field and in terms of her mentality.

“That was a little bit of a wake-up call, a moment for her to decide the direction that she wanted to take,” Andonovski said after the United States’ win against Japan on Feb. 19. “I’m glad she took the direction that she did, she’s now in really good space.”

HBO aired a piece during SheBelieves Cup where Swanson and her husband, Chicago Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson, talked about how she overcame that setback. Mallory gave Dansby a lot of credit for helping her to change her mental approach to becoming the best player she could be. The broadcast team and Andonovski proceeded to discuss this ad nauseam, so I apologize for bringing it up again, but if the player themselves puts a lot of weight behind the role their personal relationships played in the development of their career, it’s worth a mention.

As for the observable: Swanson is demonstrably timing her runs better on counterattacks. Her goal against Japan was a great example of the difference just a half-second of superior anticipation can make.

VOLUME UP 🔊@MalPugh's 6th goal of 2023, as called by @AndresCantorGOL on @NBCUniverso / @peacock 🎙️ pic.twitter.com/InJtMGBTVq

— U.S. Women's National Soccer Team (@USWNT) February 20, 2023

Swanson has always had outstanding pace and dribbling ability, but two years ago, she doesn’t start sprinting that early, and not necessarily into the perfect space either. If the Mal Swanson of two years ago was on that pitch, Japan defender Shiori Miyake intercepts Alex Morgan’s pass.

Making better-timed and better-angled runs has resulted in Swanson getting more and higher quality shots off on a consistent basis in NWSL. In 2021, Swanson averaged 3.09 shots and 0.3 xG per 90 minutes for the Chicago Red Stars. In 2022, she had 4.28 shots and 0.58 xG per 90.

Swanson was actually a touch below league average in xG per 90 for forwards with more than 300 minutes played in 2021, but she jumped to 83rd percentile in 2022 — only Alex Morgan and Sophia Smith, her starting lineup mates on the USWNT, were better.

But the really dramatic change in Swanson’s game has come from the quality of her shot placement, even more so than where she’s shooting from. There’s a pretty clear difference in just her basic stats: Swanson put 50.8% of her shots on target in 2022, compared to 40.8% in 2021.

But we can get an even better idea of how well Swanson is placing her shots from her post-shot expected goals (psxG) numbers, which have seen a truly dramatic shift.

Post-shot expected goals is a measure of how likely a shot is to go in based on its placement. A 0.01 xG chance can have a post-shot xG of 0.99 if it’s rocketed into the corner, and a 0.99 xG chance has a psxG of 0 if it’s skied over the crossbar.

Like regular xG, psxG models can vary based on the depth and quality of available data, but the basic idea is the same: Looking at thousands of historical shots, what are the chances that one placed in this spot will result in a goal? This makes psxG a decent way of measuring how well attackers are finishing (and conversely, an excellent way to measure goalkeeper shot-stopping ability)

In 2021, Swanson was actually a minus shooter, with 6.17 psxG from 6.85 xG. In 2022, she was one of the best shooters in the league, with an outstanding 12.76 psxG against 8.84 xG.

The shots that she used to hit right at the keeper or wide of the goal started going in the corner. Her goal above against Japan is a great example: Opta gave it an xG value of 0.34, but a psxG value of 0.99. Yes, it was a big chance, but one that only gets scored a third of the time. She placed it in a spot that no goalkeeper could save.

Swanson had a few more shots exactly like this in NWSL play. This one against OL Reign was a 0.32 xG shot that Swanson placed for 0.95 psxG.

This is just unreal, @MalPugh 😱@chicagoredstars | #MKOT pic.twitter.com/YWEBidBqaf

— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) June 4, 2022

Here’s another against Orlando: 0.36 xG, 0.95 psxg.

Make that 2️⃣ on the night for @MalPugh! 👏

The forward tucks her effort into the far corner for her eighth goal of the season for @chicagoredstars.#LOUvCHI | #MKOT pic.twitter.com/yBlCNZf00J

— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) August 28, 2022

Out of Swanson’s 10 chances with a value of 0.3 xG or higher, she scored three and put eight of them on target. Of those eight, only one had a psxG value lower than the initial xG value. She beat the keeper or forced her to make a difficult save on 70% of those high-value shots. In 2021, Swanson only had five chances with an xG value that high. She put three on target, and she only had a psxG value higher than the initial xG value on one of them. She scored none.

In one year, Swanson went from being a below-average shooter to one of the world’s best. If she can keep it up during the early part of the NWSL season, she’s going to comfortably hold off all of the challengers for a starting spot on the wing for the USWNT heading into the World Cup.

(Photo: Sam Hodde/Getty Images)