mlssoccer.com adding fire to the debate of who is a better holding mid: http://www.mlssoccer.com/video/2012/04/27/power-5-generals-alonso-tackles-top-spot Alonso is a fantastic player, I'm not going to argue against that, but I just don't get how you can put him above Beckerman. Even when Beckerman is playing bad (as he has this year) he still does his job better than Alonso. When you are this tightly ranked, I look at head to head matches. Kyle has owned Seattle in these games, Alonson struggles to handle Javi
I'm not an imbiber myself, but for those of you who are: Rimando gets a kick out of Epic’s seasonal beer
If I'm not mistaken, the thinking was that Estridge is a player further along than Diogo in his development, and that he could be a player who can get minutes this season. Diogo, for all his talent and skill, wasn't ready — Jason was certainly first to acknowledge that. It speaks more to the squad restrictions that are in place than anything about the player aside from a relative comparison with Chris Estridge. Interestingly, Jason also made statements indicating that he wanted to keep Diogo "in the system", though I'm not entirely sure what that would entail.
beckerman GOTW winner http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/2012/04/27/fans-hail-beckerman-strrike-att-goal-week
Same here, Lambe's was amazing. Beckerman's was...meh.... Though if we were ballot stuffing, why couldn't the rest of the league counteract us? Are we seriously the largest online presence?
I don't know about that. They ended up with a player (Estridge) who was selected ahead of Diogo in the draft. I think they still like Diogo, but always knew he was a long term prospect. He's been an attacking player all his life until the end of college, and he needed alot of work to turn him into an MLS quality defender. Most college kids struggle adjusting to pro level fitness, and speed of play. Enzo struggled initially more than most, but is starting to look decent in reserve games.
when I watched Kyle's two defender cross over goal last week I thought GOTW. when I saw the rest of the nominees I thought no way. It use to be Seattle would stuff the box for weak GOTW or saves of the week by Keller. Probably since Seattle, Portland, or LA didn't have a nominee there was no one else stuffing the box this week.
To be fair to Seattle, each expansion team has had their turn in enthusiastically voting for their guys' goals. Including us.
Looking at the upcoming schedule...despite another 3 games in 8 days, MLS hasn't been unkind to us. New England: We get a week off prior to this game on 5/5. They play Colorado in Foxboro on 5/2 and then have to fly out to the RioT. Chicago: They play at Chivas on 5/4. We will have played on 5/5, and both teams will fly back to Toyota Park to play on 5/9. Seattle: Seattle hosts LA on 5/2, Philly on 5/5, travels to Dallas on 5/9 and host us on 5/12. That's four games in 11 days. So despite playing 3 good teams, and in two venues where we often struggle, we shouldn't be less fresh than our opponents. We may even be more fresh than New England and Seattle. All this 'well rested' math never seems to add up, but I'll take a reason for optimism. Let's earn some serious points and expose San Jose for the faux princes of the West that they are.
I like your points Quib, but nobody has played as many games as we have so far this season. In fact, only three other teams have played 9 games. This is a double edged sword. On the one hand, we can use these games to get more experience on the squad. That would suggest we are coming into form quicker than other teams... I'm not too certain this is happening. On the other hand, the more likely scenario, is we are getting burned out in the beginning and will be chasing in these games coming up. A full week's rest, this early in the season, shouldn't be as valuable as it has become for us.
I agree. Even with a week's rest, we will have played 3 games in 8 days three times, which is a much more congested schedule than any other team in the league. Then we get two long breaks in May and then into June. Those breaks may help give some of the injured guys time to recover, but if we're not playing competitive games during that time, it doesn't help us much in terms of fitness. Also, when we get back from our 3 weeks hiatus, we play another 3 games in 8 days (@ Chivas, LA, San Jose). Sheesh... Maybe the break from May 26 - June 16 will give us time to play an Andy Williams testimonial match?
What is with the three week break? I guess I just thought this compact schedule so far was to help us have more time off during CCL later this year. If we don't have any meaningful games during that time (even Open Cup would at least be something)then that upsets me a bit about how much MLS is screwing us with this schedule.
Good point. NER plays Chicago the 2nd of June, Vancouver plays Houston the 10th of June but no one else plays either week. So it does look like most everyone has May 26 - June 16th off. So we shouldn't be any better or worse off then anyone else after the break.
Geek Out Boys and Girls! This is a press release on the use of Pro Zone software in a research study on efficiencies and inefficiencies in salary allocation in MLS. A link at the bottom of the press release leads to a fairly short article that caused me to have a wondrous geek attack. http://www.prozonesports.com/news-a...or-mit-sloan-sports-analytics-conference.html
Interesting article, but I wish they had shown whether their measure translates into actual performance. E.g., to what extent can they predict the outcome of a match by using the average AREA measure of the players? Still interesting that they show that there is a ton of variation in performance for a given salary (indicating a very inefficient market), and that DPs aren't worth it based solely on their performance on the field. Thanks for the link. Wish I had more time to do this kind of thing...
from the first line of the conclusions section: basically its a tool they use to measure player performance but in their eyes they dont think it's capable of being accurate enough for teams to accumulate talent in a manner to effect win-loss totals. as fans i dont think it can be used accurately enough to predict wins/losses based on current roster compositions.
Yeah, I saw that, but if it actually has no impact on a team's win-loss record what's the point of the exercise? If a player's AREA score doesn't help a team win games, it's a fairly useless measure of player output. Seems like they should at least report its ability (or lack thereof) to predict win-loss. It's got to have at least some predictive power, right?
more likely they just dont want to have any responsibility claims against them when a team spends X amount of dollars composing their roster after their model....and it subsequently fails to result in team success. guess we could call it the MLS version of Money Ball, it would be interesting to see a team actually model their roster after this. doubt it happens. also to consider is the great amount of parity in the league. we've seen teams go about WILDLY different ways of putting their roster together and have great amounts of success. teams can spend a ton (LA) and win, teams can spend not so much (columbus, RSL, Colorado, etc) and win. teams can use international stars, or homegrown players, or NCAA players, etc etc and can all win...or lose a lot in either direction.
This is part of what makes MLS interesting to watch. IIRC, in Soccernomics they pretty much show that salary is the only thing that matters in European leagues--whichever team pays its players the most usually wins. That creates a few big games throughout the season when the top dogs go against each other, but also a lot of less-exciting soccer in between. The salary cap in MLS forces teams to compete by pursuing these different strategies. It's not just an arms race. In fact, the teams that are following the "arms race" strategy of having lots of DPs aren't dominating the league, and yet are spending WAY more than the average team.
Coming in at number 258, up one whole spot from last year, with an average salary of $149,926 per player, your Reaaaaaalllllllll Salt Lake: http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/7850531/espn-magazine-sportingintelligence-global-salary-survey-espn-magazine lol, of the 278 teams surveyed, the columbus crew came in dead. freaking. last.