The Blowout Comb Thread

It seems like that's been the case for at least the last half decade, it's not uncommon for top teams to have at least one lopsided loss on their record. Not something you see in other leagues but makes sense given parity and travel.

 

In the 2018-2019 Premier League, the top four clubs played 140 games not double-counting the games they played against each other. They had only 2 losses by at least 3 goals, which were when third place Chelsea got combed twice. One was 6-0 at champion Manchester City and the other was 4-0 at 14th place AFC Bournemouth. The 128 games between a top four club and another club had the top four club get combed once in 2018-2019, never in 2017-2018, once in 2016-2017, twice in 2015-2016, and never in 2014-2015. That's 4 times in 640 games, which is 1 in 160, which is 0.625 percent.

 

I have an old database which agrees with wikipedia tables for 1996-2016, I went through and picked out the combs for that period. I can't be positive the data is 100% accurate, or that I didn't miss one in my quick check, but here's what I came up with:
1996 (10/160 6.25%)
1997 (10/160 6.25%)
1998 (12/192 6.25%)
1999 ( 8/192 4.17%)
2000 ( 9/192 4.69%)
2001 (12/158 7.59%)
2002 ( 6/140 4.29%)
2003 ( 4/150 2.67%)
2004 ( 4/150 2.67%)
2005 ( 3/192 1.56%)
2006 ( 5/192 2.60%)
2007 ( 8/195 4.10%)
2008 (11/210 5.24%)
2009 ( 8/225 3.56%)
2010 ( 6/240 2.50%)
2011 ( 8/306 2.61%)
2012 (11/323 3.41%)
2013 (15/323 4.64%)
2014 (12/323 3.72%)
2015 (14/340 4.12%)
2016 (10/340 2.94%)

Of note, the highest rate was in the shortened 2011 season, neglecting that, the highest rates were in the first 3 seasons which all somehow landed on the exact same ratio of combs/not. We're now regularly breaking into double digit combs per year, but we also have a lot more games than we used to. Highest total number of combs in the dataset was 15 in 2013.

I could farm out 2017-2019, but that would take a lot more time than the ~30 mins it took me to yank out the above.

Edit: Note, this is only for regular season MLS. No US Open Cup, Canadian Championship, or playoffs included.

 

EDITED:
Assuming soccerway is correct and I didn't miss any (it was an easy way to get 2017-2019 results in an easy to scan manner):
2017 (32/374 8.56%)
2018 (22/391 5.63%)
2019 (20/272 7.35%)

2017 is the king. That is by far the highest rate of combs for any full season, and also beats the shortened 2001 season. 2019 has some headway to pick up if it wants to catch 2017. 2019 is even behind 2017's pace on absolute numbers of combs (at the current rate, 2019 will hit 30).

 

We were close in a few games this weekend, but alas only one comb:



D.C. United
1

FINAL

5
Philadelphia Union

 

I use Soccerway for some things, but for easy to scan results for a league, I recommend https://www.flashscore.com/football/usa/mls/results/ and equivalent pages for past seasons and other leagues.

 

LAX 4-0 SJ

 

I wonder if FCD's Michael Barrios had the latest goal to make a comb. FCD led 4-0., Houston scored in the 80th, and Barrios scored in the 90+6th to make it end 5-1.

 

September 14: Chicago 4-0 FC Dallas
September 15: Los Angeles Galaxy 7-2 Sporting Kansas City

Does anybody know how many times a team scored at least 2 goals and got combed?

 

Regular Season only:
2000 - Miami over DC (at DC)
2001 - Miami over Dallas (at Dallas)
2003 - Columbus over Chicago
2004 - DC over NYR
2011 - Philadelphia over Toronto (at Toronto)
2011 - Seattle over Columbus
2012 - Seattle over Chivas (at Chivas)
2016 - DC over Chicago
2017 - Dallas over Salt Lake
2017 - Salt Lake over LAG (at LAG)
2018 - Salt Lake over LAG
2019 - LAG over Kansas City

12 of them in the 24 seasons. Unsurprisingly, they're more common in recent years than in early years, simply because we have more total games in a season now. 5 of them were done while away, which seems weird.

If you want the way that this last one was unique? This most recent one was the first one where a team scored 2 goals, and were still combed with more than the requisite number of goals. Said more simply, this is the first time someone scored 2 goals, and lost by more than 4. All of those other ones were by a 6-2 scoreline.

 

I tweeted that at

On September 15, Los Angeles Galaxy beat Sporting Kansas City 7-2. Citing username "aperfectring" at https://t.co/QonYOm4zr5 it was the first time an MLS game had the losing club score exactly 2 and the winning club score at least 7.

— Evan Jones (@EvanJ3535) September 22, 2019

and cited you. I don't tweet about soccer much, but feel free to read me at https://twitter.com/EvanJ3535 and you don't have to be logged in to read it. If you are not logged in, it uses Pacific Time, which is your time. If you already a member or want to join, you can follow me.

 

Username looks like a bot. I should probably report it.

 

/shrug I don't care so much about attribution, but thanks anyway. I do happen to have a twitter (same username), but it's been YEARS since I did anything there.

 

Any team scored 3 and combed?

 

Nope

 

Close:
05/06/98.....Los Angeles 7-4 Colorado (Almost with 4 goals)
06/16/01.....Dallas 6-3 Colorado
09/12.09.....Dallas 6-3 Los Angeles

 

FC Dallas 6-0 Sporting Kansas City

How many combs were there in the regular season?

 

After regulation ended 1-1, Toronto scored 4 goals in the first half of extra time, and nobody scored in the second half of extra time, so Toronto won 5-1. It was the 13th comb in the MLS Playoffs, and the first comb in extra time.

 

MLS is Back, and so is the Comb Watch. Columbus has it going on Cincinnati. . .

 

Dear Lord, Cincy had a wretched defense last season, but it was even worse last night. CBus could have scored eight.

 

I hate to bring it up but KC beat Houston, 4-0, on March 7. It was never posted in this thread.

 

FWIW, not MLS but worth a mention, we had a very rare double comb today in England, as Wigan thrashed Hull 8-0 in the Championship.

Even worse than it looked. Last goal in the 65th. 7-0 at half. 1st goal in 1st minute.

https://www.espn.com/soccer/scoreboard