Miles Byass is a U.S. Soccer youth national team player, a former Top 100 club prospect and a two-time member of the Discover Europe travel squad.

His weekly blog is an open and honest take on his thoughts about the game.

Today, Miles wonders why we obsess over goals and undervalue assists

Check out Miles' past entries on a wide-range of topics (on-field friendships, love for defenders, pain of losing)

What is better, an assist or a goal? Everyone knows the goal scorer will say the goal and the assist man (or woman) will say the assist but which is truly more important? Why is it that an assist is 1 point and a goal is 2? I mean, in all honesty there is no goal without an assist. But I guess if you're using that logic then there is no assist without the goal, so this seems like it could be a never ending argument.

Some may say it’s much harder to score than it is to pass the ball but passing involves the same steps as scoring. I mean half the time people score they're “passing” the ball into the net. There are those goals that are just unbelievable strikes but there are also assists that are just unbelievably accurate and precise balls. Get my point when I say this could be a never ending argument?

Do you think Didier Drogba will say that the assist should get 2 points leaving the goal with 1 point? Do you think Xavi believes the goal is more important than the assist? The thing is, both the assist and the goal are equally important. Goals are needed to win and assists are needed for goals so in essence they belong in the same category of importance. In my mind if a goal is worth 2 points then we should petition to make assists worth 2 points. Why should goal scorers get most of the credit and more points when the person who gave the assist could have easily tried scoring themselves and not passed the ball? It’s the same concept as forwards and defenders; the person giving the assist does a lot of work and gets no credit. In my mind this is an outrage. I love scoring and all but I say damn with the goal scorers, let’s praise the assisters!

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