2013 Open Cup Predictions/ Discussion

10/14 to MLS sides. Remember last year? Yeah, where are all those people now?

 

Banned from the boards?

 

not seeing the sources for these figures but according too wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Lamar_Hunt_U.S._Open_Cup#Third_Round
at Portland 10,984 (very good as always)
at Houston 2,917 (not great at all)
at Carolina 8,121 (good for them)
at Columbus 1,302 (very bad)

 

http://www.socceramerica.com/article/51857/carolina-and-tampa-bay-knock-off-mls-powers.html

 

Do you think I just make this shit up? Seriously?

 

Portland was 10,924. (http://www.portlandtimbers.com/news...ers-5-wilmington-hammerheads-1-jeld-wen-field)

Also, this from Crew coach Robert Warzycha:

“To be honest with you, I’m glad it’s over."

Yeah, out for revenge, they were. Critical that they get revenge. Oy.

 

So with two games missing (at Rochester and at Fullerton), the third-round average was 5,506, higher than last year's and the highest since 2009 (when there were only eight third-round matches).

Home teams advanced in 11 of 16 third-round matchups, making them 33-19 in terms of advancement this year.

 

I find it amusing there are far more posts on attendance than who won.

 

i didn't know you edited the page, can't trust wiki 100% without checking sources. could look a fool if i quoted something without checking my sources.

 

I didn't edit the page.

If I give you a number, it has a source.

 

Because, at the end of the day, an MLS team is going to win.

 

94% of the time

 

I was just adding last nights figures as i didn't see them but covering my back by saying my only source was wiki which can be dodgy at times. not criticising your figures.

 

Sorry, I see what you did. You didn't see a source for their figures. No worries. My bad.

Anyway, records by level:

MLS 11-4-1 (.719)
NASL 5-3-2 (.600)
USL Pro 12-8-3 (.587)
PDL 13-15-4 (.469)
NPSL 2-7-2 (.273)
USASA 2-7-1 (.250)
USSSA 0-0-1 (.500)
US Club 0-1-0 (.000)

 

Yeah, those Houston numbers are good for our city. We don't include those tickets in our season package, the team rarely takes the games seriously, and the only way to avoid paying 50% extra in nothing but fees was buying the tickets at the box office. Not to mention that our regularly used parking lots were closed, so we all had to find street parking somewhere or deal with some concert next door.

 

Cross posting over from the thread in the MLS forums:
OK, I guess I will start posting the ELO rankings I've been keeping track of for about a year now. I don't know how regularly I will update them, and once all lower division teams leave the tournament there will be no point in posting beyond that, since the ratings won't change until next year.

I went back to the beginning of the MLS era in the USOC, and put in every game. Instead of using individual teams, I used the leagues as a whole: MLS, D2 (now NASL), D3 (now USL Pro), D4 (historically PDL, but also NPSL), and D5 (USASA and other national amateur associations). I use the ELO method described here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Football_Elo_Ratings with a K weighting of 15 for all games. I count games which went to penalty kicks as ending tied, otherwise the result is based on the result of the game, and the goal differential is based on whenever they finally stopped playing. A difference in rating of 100 is assumed to be the difference in performance for the home team in a match between two equally skilled teams (or in this case leagues).

Code:

Div.  End2012 Pre-Rd3  Post-Rd3  RdDiff YrDiff
MLS  1703    1703    1721      +18    +18
NASL  1631    1621    1624      + 3    - 7
USL  1570    1565    1549      -16    -21
D4    1348    1371    1365      - 6    +17
D5    1247    1241    1241        0    - 6

With the current ELO ratings, it would seem that an average MLS team on the road to an average NASL opponent should be a coin flip. However, I will make one note: since the K weighting is rather low, and we haven't had tons of games played since all US MLS teams entered the tournament proper playing lower division teams, I'm not sure that the difference between leagues has appropriately stabilized yet. Based on the relative changes in the third round, though, I think it is getting close.

In round 4, only 4 games will influence the ELO ratings, so the changes should be relatively minor, unless there are some upsets, or a road blowout with Chivas winning. To give you an idea, the 5-1 Timbers win netted MLS +5 (and thus USL -5) because an MLS team at home is rather expected to win, and Carolina's 2-0 win over LA netted NASL +12 (and thus MLS -12).

 

Anybody know when they will announce the potential pairs for the next round? The bracket for the rest of the tournament? etc

 

Id guess the draw for the Quater final stage will be made after this round.

 

Last year they announced the QF pairings three days before the Round 4 matches: http://www.ussoccer.com/news/lamar-...open-cup-quarterfinal-pairings-announced.aspx

Last year, there were three weeks between R4 and QF. This year there are two. No doubt they have been in talks / bids with the clubs. It might be highly-dependent on which teams want to bid to host. (The hosting fees get heftier at this point.) And I'm not sure how this year's R4 being MLS-heavy impacts the whole discussion / bid process.

At this point I'll wonder if the one-round-ahead pairings can be revisited. Look at R4: two Florida teams (from different leagues), and they both get long trips (one to Portland!). Chivas to Carolina? (Of course, had LAGalaxy won, this would have been an in-stadium derby.)

The whole west-region teams always turning into a flight (either to an out-of-region team, or the o-o-r team flying West) needs a refresh. Here's my idea [which I'll admit, I hadn't actually bracketed out yet, to see how last / this year's brackets would look like]: The West is bracketed in a traditional 16-team format, while the other three regions (or "the rest of the country" if you prefer) can continue in the current "staggered bracket" format. Yes, that would mean that western MLS teams would have to play six matches instead of five, but I would think of this as a slight change in relation to not having cross-country flights every round.

 

Because congesting the west's MLS+USOC+CCL schedule, more than it already is, is the solution here... No matter how you structure it, you still end up with a "sparser" west and a "less sparse" central/south/east. At least we will for the foreseeable future since most of the larger markets in the west already have MLS teams, and thus aren't likely to get lower div teams as well.

Introducing all teams from a league at a certain level is the only fair way to to do the competition. Unfortunately since we have such a large country, this means lots of travel. However, the alternative is a much MORE compromised competition in my opinion.

 

Keep it Regionalised till the last 8 maybe, I do like keeping teams in the same division apart as long as possible also, hard to arrange both of these with the MLS entering at the later stage aswell.

 

I don't know if we talked about it, or if I just missed it...

But, CONGRATS to FC Tucson for their $15,000 prize money for best finish for PDL. All PDL clubs got knocked out in the third round, but FC Tucson won the tie-breaker because they knocked out professional clubs in back-to-back rounds.

 

Quarterfinal pairings are out.

http://www.ussoccer.com/news/lamar-...-the-2013-lamar-hunt-open-cup-determined.aspx

Home team first:

Wednesday, June 26
DC United (MLS)/Philadelphia (MLS) v. New England (MLS)/New York (MLS)
Chicago (MLS)/Columbus (MLS) v. Kansas City (MLS)/Orlando City SC (USL Pro)
Salt Lake (MLS) /Charleston Battery (USL Pro) v. Carolina Railhawks (NASL)/Chivas USA (MLS)
Dallas (MLS)/Houston(MLS) v. Portland (MLS)/Tampa Bay Rowdies (NASL)

 

That's big for them. Well done.