Quakes have 50 points versus 32 for 6th place Dallas. Dallas has 7 remaining games, so any combination of the Quakes earning or Dallas dropping 4 points puts SJ in the playoffs.
Yeah - the soonest the Quakes could clinch a playoff spot would be Sept 8. If the Quakes beat Chivas on Sept 2, and Chivas loses both on Aug 29 at New England and Sept 8 at Seattle (or loses one and draws the other), then the Quakes clinch a playoff spot. Then the next interesting milestone is to clinch a top 3 spot in the West, as that avoids the "play in game" that the 4th and 5th place teams have to play. That's not likely to happen until late September/early October.
Back when we always went to the playoffs, didn't we have some on this board who would run all the numbers, assign probabilities? I seem to remember some comprehensive data that was totally confusing but impressive and reassuring.
http://www.sportsclubstats.com/USA/Earthquakes.html All we need is a point to clinch playoffs. Supporter's Shield, at this point, can't be clinched until the end of the season. Of course, that changes if SKC falls
Nah, we've eliminated Portland, Colorado, and Dallas (unless they can score 19 more goals than us in the remaining games ,) but Chivas can still finish with 60 points. We will have to sweep them in our home and home over the next two weeks to clinch, their magic number is 10. (11 if you think they can outscore us by 35)
Technically we can clinch over Chivas before our second match against them...if Chivas lose at New England this Wed, lose to the Quakes Sunday, and then lose to Seattle on Sept 8.
Several times in the past I've built web apps that scrape the MLS website and generate a magic numbers matrix. It's that time again. http://soccer.wombatnation.com/ Dallas and Colorado can no longer pass us and Portland is soon to join them. We need to amass 10 more points versus Chivas to eliminate them. A six point swing with a victory over them on Saturday will take care of most of that. Fellow software engineer geeks might note some gratuitous Twitter Bootstrap and jQuery action. The backend is built with Python and Flask. It's not much, but it was a fun weekend project. I'll throw the code up on Github when I get a chance.
Or the Quakes only need 9 more points (or 8 points and maintain more goals scored) versus Vancouver to make the playoffs. Also the Quakes need 22 points (or 21 points and maintain more goals scored) versus KC to win the Supporter Shield and 21 points (or 20 points and maintain more goals scored) versus sounders to win the western conference.
Thanks for sharing this, nice job. However I think you need to adjust your logic, as right now the "Magic Points number" is the number where teams could not PASS, but could still TIE each other. Although the Quakes have the most goals scored (first tiebreaker), that could change so your method could be a bit misleading. For example, the "Magic number over LA" is 11, but LA could realistically catch up to San Jose on goals scored and if the two teams end up tied, LA would win the tiebreaker. You either need to clarify that those are the magic numbers for doing no worse than ending up even with each other, or else add 1 point to all of the magic points to be a true "magic number" for teams to clinch over another team.
It's not goo dto think about numbers, just get you're head down and playsoccer & try and win as many games as possible and then evaulate things a little later. Were basically there now anyways it's just who we play but it does'nt really matter if it's Seattle,Houston,New York,RSL,LA, all theses teams are just as good as each other.
I've thought about enhancing it in the past to take into account the tie breaker logic, but it has been either poorly documented (and sometimes not documented) on the MLS site or too complicated due to dependence on data not in the standings table. I'll see if I can clarify the wording without making it even more complicated. If I can squeeze out a few hours of coding, I was planning to add some hovers that provided more detail about the data.
Magic number down to 8 (9). (I apologize if you wanted more than 20 hours delay on the New England Chivas game, mainly because... my God, you want to watch New England Chivas you poor soul!)
The New England-Chivas match was crazy entertaining (see crappy defense). Loved Shalrie going back to NE and dropping a brace on his old team (I was 90% sure he was going to get his hattrick and game winning goal, but alas) including a ridiculous GOTW candidate curler from outside the 18.
I added the [R] to the thread title so this can be an off limits thread for those wishing to avoid spoilers from here on out. Feel free to update when the final whistles blow.
I did some maths real quick. It's actually not that complicated, we need another 8 points regardless of anyone elses results and were in. If Chivas won every single game we would be tied with them if we get the 8, obvisouly there not gonna win every game. If we beat them the next 2 games then were offically in.
We just need a win and a draw, not even two wins. (Also, if we win this weekend we'll probably have clinched before facing them again as they need to beat Seattle while we are off.)
All we need is a point to clinch playoffs. We have 50pts with 26GP while Dallas (in 6th place) have 32pts with 28GP. If Dallas wins every game from here on out they would get 18pts, resulting in 50pts. So if we get 51 with a draw today then we're through. Or instead of doing all this calculation just go to sportsclubstats.com
Just visiting http://www.sportsclubstats.com/USA/MLS.html which seems to think the top five spots in the west are pretty much decided. Maybe we should just skip straight to the playoffs?
Our magic number is down to 1. We currently have 53 points, and 54 would mathematically guarantee a playoff spot. We cannot be caught by Dallas, Portland, or Colorado. To clinch at least 5th place we therefore need to finish ahead of at least one more team. The max points for both Vancouver and Chivas is 55, so for sure 56 points for us would mean we clinch. However, things are better than that since Vancouver plays Chivas on Oct 3, and it's impossible for both teams to win that game. If the game is not a draw, the loser's max will be 52, which means we will still clinch with 53. If that game is a draw, both teams' max points will be 53, which would mean the very worst case for us is a 3-way tie for 4th/5th/6th place on 53 points. And even if all that happened, we'd still only miss the playoffs in the insanely unlikely case that both Vancouver and Chivas scored enough goals to beat us on the tie-breaker.
If we lost every remaining game 10-0, Chivas and Vancouver would still both have to average over 4 goals a game to pass us!
Dallas hosts slumping Vancouver next week, and if they win they will be only 1 point behind. Unfortunately for Dallas, Vancouver's remaining schedule includes two home gimmies against Colorado and Portland. If they win those two Dallas is toast, but then again Vancouver only has 2 wins in their last 11. Chivas has a ton of games left but their schedule is brutal. (6 straight matches against winning teams, followed by a home-and-home with Dallas in their final 3).
Basically, there is no chance in hell we will miss the playoffs, so let's all stop counting the numbers after the decimal place on our 99.99% odds and focus on winning the Western Conference and the Supporter's Shield!