Stan Sansone Houston, Texas What constitutes, or what is the definition of, a shot and an assist? Are there definitions or conventions associated with statistical record keeping? Mike Woitalla: Let’s start with assists, Stan. Coincidentally, Soccer America Magazine columnist Paul Gardner wrote an in-depth article about the concept of awarding assists in his “SoccerTalk” column in the Sept. 20 issue. Here’s an excerpt from the column in which he outlined Major League Soccer’s policy: “In short, the assist is a highly slippery concept. But it is an important one. The MLS definition: ‘The player(s) whose pass(es) leads directly to a goal without a break in possession is (are) credited with an assist(s).’ To break the passing sequence, an opponent must ‘gain control’ of the ball. No more than two assists on a goal are permitted. “A straightforward, workable definition, one that tries to remove subjective opinions from the process. But not entirely satisfactory as it opens the door to meaningless assists … The MLS regulations admit that ‘there is no distinction between passes that exhibit a high degree of skill, vision and/or accuracy and passes that do not.’ MLS awards two points for a goal, one for an assist. “FIFA has no written definition of an assist. Despite this vagueness, it uses the assist count as a tiebreaker to decide top-scorers: At the U-20 World Cup earlier this year in Nigeria, both Pablo of Spain and Mahamadou Dissa of Mali had five goals, but Pablo took the Golden Shoe as he had two assists to Dissa’s one.” Stan, MLS also awards an assist to the player who takes a shot that forces the rebound (off the goalkeeper, post or crossbar) that a teammate slots home for a goal. This is consistent with the NCAA’s policy for college scorekeeping. And the NCAA also permits the awarding of up to two assists. Now to shots. Here’s MLS policy as defined in its media guide: “MLS keeps both ‘shots’ and ‘shots on goal’ as separate categories. A ‘shot on goal’ is defined as any shot that goes into the goal, is saved by the goalkeeper, or is blocked by a player other than the goalkeeper in the six-yard mouth of the goal. A shot which hits the crossbar or either post is not considered a shot on goal. To be recorded as a shot, however, the ball can also fly high over the goal or just past the post, which as any fan and frustrated forward knows, are the most common results.”