MLS Power Rankings: Three teams in the running for league's best MLSsoccer. Lets start the season with a batch new power rankings.
My ratings are still very dependent on last year's ratings. It will take about 5-7 weeks to truly show this year's form as opposed to the end of last season's form. Elo Ratings Rtng Team (Chng) 1682 Los Angeles Galaxy (+12) 1629 Sporting Kansas City (+16) 1592 Houston Dynamo (+14) 1588 Seattle Sounders FC (-24) 1578 San Jose Earthquakes (-30) 1578 Real Salt Lake (+30) 1534 New York Red Bulls (-1) 1534 DC United (-14) 1534 Columbus Crew (+19) 1517 Chicago Fire (-12) 1512 Montreal Impact (+24) 1489 FC Dallas (+9) 1434 Colorado Rapids (-9) 1426 Vancouver Whitecaps FC (+8) 1418 New England Revolution (---) 1417 Philadelphia Union (-16) 1410 Portland Timbers (+1) 1327 Toronto FC (-8) 1301 Chivas USA (-19) West Average: 1498.44 East Average: 1501.4
I will start posting my ELO+ ratings again in a few weeks, once every team has played a handful of games. The numbers are too "bouncy" to be meaningful until then.
I went back and forth on whether or not I should carry ratings over from last season and ultimately decided that there's enough turnover and parity in MLS that I should start from scratch. These ratings are based just on one game then (or 0 games in NEs case) and will swing pretty rapidly until each team gets five or so games under their belt. Full writeup
Another iteration, with a bit of a quirk. Having a different amount of games played this early in the season lead to a few wacky quirks, namely Seattle being ranked below Colorado, despite having only lost one game to Colorado's two losses. Is a match quirk and should be rectified once each team has five games under their belt. I could get in and fudge the numbers a bit but I've decided to take a very hands-off, minimalistic approach this season. Full writeup.
Quite a bit of rating movement here, but not a lot of positional movement. The two that really stick out to me here are Toronto and Chivas. They both won, but they were in quite the hole and it's going to take quite a bit more to dig themselves out. Elo Ratings Rtng Team (Chng) 1682 Los Angeles Galaxy (---) 1606 Sporting Kansas City (-23) 1592 Houston Dynamo (---) 1588 Seattle Sounders FC (---) 1587 San Jose Earthquakes (+9) 1565 Real Salt Lake (-13) 1547 DC United (+13) 1527 Montreal Impact (+15) 1525 New York Red Bulls (-9) 1519 Columbus Crew (-15) 1494 Chicago Fire (-23) 1463 FC Dallas (-26) 1441 Vancouver Whitecaps FC (+15) 1441 New England Revolution (+23) 1437 Philadelphia Union (+20) 1414 Colorado Rapids (-20) 1395 Portland Timbers (-15) 1350 Toronto FC (+23) 1327 Chivas USA (+26) West Average: 1495.77 East Average: 1503.8
Still don't have the maths falling quite right for the five teams a game behind, but the numbers are starting to shake out a little bit. Next week will likely be a little kinder to Seattle (if they dont lose) and a little harsher to LA (if they don't win).
Lots of draws this week, so really not a lot of positional movement. If Chivas continue to get results, they will start moving up places next week. LA has quite a bit of wiggle room before they drop from the top. Shockingly, SKC stays in #2 here, which is more tantamount to the fact that no other top-dwelling teams (SJE, SEA, HOU, RSL, DCU) had good results this week either. Elo Ratings Rtng Team (Chng) 1670 Los Angeles Galaxy (-12) 1598 Sporting Kansas City (-8) 1588 San Jose Earthquakes (+1) 1578 Seattle Sounders FC (-10) 1576 Houston Dynamo (-16) 1556 Real Salt Lake (-9) 1550 DC United (+3) 1532 Montreal Impact (+5) 1522 New York Red Bulls (-3) 1518 Columbus Crew (-1) 1502 Chicago Fire (+8) 1479 FC Dallas (+16) 1448 Philadelphia Union (+11) 1441 Vancouver Whitecaps FC (---) 1430 New England Revolution (-11) 1423 Colorado Rapids (+9) 1405 Portland Timbers (+10) 1345 Toronto FC (-5) 1339 Chivas USA (+12) West Average: 1497.66 East Average: 1502.1
Still-perfect Montreal Impact surge to top of the MLS Power Rankings MLSsoccer Montreal has a coach where TFC should had four years ago..
Not a whole lot of commentary to add this week. Things starting to shape up. Again, these are results based, so while I think teams like Seattle and New York can still get it together, they've not had a good start to the season, which is what is reflected here. Full write up.
And, what the hell, never too early in the season for a graph, right? SHFR trends for the first four week. Note that the y axis is a log. LA's high rating makes a linear chart hard to read. Should clear up in a few weeks once LA levels out a bit (assuming they lose a game or two...).
Is there a website or websites that allow visitors to vote on power rankings? (ESPN has a Top 25 ranking vote for readers for NCAA Football. I hope there is an MLS version of that.)
Elo Ratings Rtng Team (Chng) 1674 Los Angeles Galaxy (+4) 1598 San Jose Earthquakes (+10) 1595 Sporting Kansas City (-3) 1582 Houston Dynamo (+6) 1568 Seattle Sounders FC (-10) 1542 Montreal Impact (+10) 1538 Columbus Crew (+20) 1536 Real Salt Lake (-20) 1530 DC United (-20) 1512 New York Red Bulls (-10) 1499 FC Dallas (+20) 1459 Chicago Fire (-43) 1448 Philadelphia Union (---) 1435 Vancouver Whitecaps FC (-6) 1433 New England Revolution (+3) 1419 Colorado Rapids (-4) 1405 Portland Timbers (---) 1382 Chivas USA (+43) 1345 Toronto FC (---) West Average: 1501.77 East Average: 1498.4 There is a little bit of movement starting to take place here. Sporting Kansas City finally falls from #2, Chivas makes a lot of headway with their road win and finally digs out of the cellar, and Montreal continues to leapfrog. At this point the numbers are showing about 1/3 2013 form and 2/3 end of 2012 form. About 8-10 more weeks before this starts to resemble the standings at all. Here is the end of season prediction so far, which looks a little more similar to what you'd might expect: End of Season Points Predicted Team Pts Pred Los Angeles Galaxy 7 69.774 San Jose Earthquakes 7 59.660 Houston Dynamo 6 57.499 Montreal Impact 12 57.380 Sporting Kansas City 5 56.986 Columbus Crew 7 53.052 Seattle Sounders FC 1 51.673 Real Salt Lake 4 49.946 DC United 4 49.338 FC Dallas 9 48.173 New York Red Bulls 2 45.436 Philadelphia Union 6 41.078 Vancouver Whitecaps FC 6 39.257 New England Revolution 4 38.002 Chicago Fire 1 36.010 Chivas USA 7 34.174 Colorado Rapids 1 32.923 Portland Timbers 2 32.040 Toronto FC 3 26.267
Just about at the magic 5 game point for most teams where the ratings will actually start looking good. Here's the shakeout for this week. Things starting to look pretty good in my mind. And a graph, for those graphically inclined. Full writeup.
I am delighted to see that vividox has started posting his MLS Elo ratings and points projections here. Enough games have now been played in 2013 for me to do likewise with my ELO+ ratings and points projections. The idea is similar, but there are a few key differences: A perfectly average team has a rating of 100, rather than 1500; a 150-rated team is roughly 50% better than average, while a 50-rated team is about 50% worse than average. All teams begin the season with a rating of 100; there is no carry-over from one year to the next. Home-field advantage is calibrated to the average actual performance of home teams so far this season, and is updated with each new result. The weight assigned to each outcome is based on the average number of games played per team; so it is the same for all rating calculations at any point in time, but changes with each new result. There is no "bonus" for winning by multiple goals. With that brief introduction, here are the 2013 MLS ELO+ ratings and points predictions for 04/07. Code: Rank Team ELO+ Rank Team Points 1 DAL 138 1 DAL 68.8 2 CHV 136 2 CHV 67.8 3 MTL 129 3 MTL 64.8 4 SKC 128 4 SKC 61.1 5 CLB 116 5 CLB 56.1 6 LAG 115 6 LAG 55.4 7 PHI 111 7 PHI 52.2 8 HOU 106 8 HOU 51.2 9 VAN 106 9 VAN 50.7 10 POR 105 10 POR 46.9 11 TOR 99 11 TOR 44.9 12 SJE 91 12 SJE 40.1 13 NYR 83 13 NYR 36.1 14 COL 81 14 COL 35.0 15 CHI 79 15 NER 34.3 16 DCU 77 16 DCU 33.7 17 NER 75 17 CHI 33.2 18 RSL 72 18 RSL 32.3 19 SEA 53 19 SEA 20.4 The average number of games played per team is now 5.2 (K=38.8), and so far home teams have a winning percentage of 0.663 (H=33).
Sporting have it on lockdown as their rise continues MLSsoccer Castrol Index Weekly Top 20: Donovan Ricketts rises to the top for Portland Timbers MLSsoccer