1. Chicago Red Stars 2. Orlando Pride 3. Houston Dash 4. Portland Thorns 5. Boston Breakers 6. NC Courage 7. Seattle Reign 8. Sky Blue FC 9. FC Kansas City 10. Washington Spirit Chicago Red Stars over Portland Thorns in OT Houston Dash over Orlando Pride by a big score Houston Dash over Red Stars by 2 goals to win title.
Hah. No. Much as I don't care for him, even I hope he has learned from his mistakes... as well as there is something about having a team that didn't go through a massive transformation in the off-season. More important on the attack than people give credit. This team is good enough to win the title even with partially competent management.
Guess we'll see. Heard he really lost the locker room, which is tough to earn back. Had one player attribute the relatively strong finish to the season to the fact that the schedule was so packed, they didn't have time to practice so team just played on its own without direction. The Williams/Campbell situation and Henninger getting waived isn't going to help much either. Suspect those two will be at each other all season.
On the eve of the season, we posted our interview with U.S. Dept. of State Sports Envoy & former USWNT / current Washington Spirit player Joanna Lohman. She's a great guest, and in the discussion Joanna touches on her rise through the sport and her awesome advocacy work as she finds creative ways to leverage her platform as a soccer pro. We'd be honored if you'd take a listen (and share!): SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/diplosport/diplosport-podcast-134-joanna-lohman iTunes: http://apple.co/2bnO1ro
1. Chicago 2. Portland 3. North Carolina 4. Orlando 5. FCKC 6. Sky Blue FC 7. Boston 8. Seattle 9. Houston 10. Washington Semis: Chicago over Orlando; regulation Portland over NC; regulation Final: Chicago over Portland ; regulation
As a reminder, we'll be accepting ladders (and edits to existing ladders) all the way through week 12, but it's -1 point per week after the very first game kicks off. =-)
Guess I'll toss my hat in. 1. North Carolina 2. Portland 3. FCKC 4. Chicago 5. Sky Blue 6. Orlando 7. Houston 8. Seattle 9. Boston 10. Washington Edit: forgot playoffs. NC over Chicago Portland over FCKC Portland wins it all I think I have FCKC too high based on their midfield but they have an amazing backline and scoring power back. Seattle I think lost too much. And having watched a lot of Rosengard, I don't know if Marta will solve Orlando's midfield woahs but saves them enough from being even lower. I can see Chicago running into the stale issue that Seattle had last year. And now you lose even more during camps/NT games depending how early they get pulled, since I don't trust Ellis not to do that. But I think Dames is a better strategic coach over Harvey.
1. Chicago Red Stars 2. Portland Thorns FC 3. North Carolina Courage 4. FC Kansas City 5. Seattle Reign FC 6. Orlando Pride 7. Sky Blue FC 8. Houston Dash 9. Boston Breakers 10. Washington Spirit 1v4: Chicago over FCKC 2v3: Courage over Thorns Final: Chicago over Courage
Well, I feel a little bit like a cheater by posting my ladder prediction three weeks into the season... anyway, here it is: 1. North Carolina Courage 2. Portland Thorns 3. Seattle Reign 4. Chicago Red Stars 5. FC Kansas City 6. Boston Breakers 7. Orlando Pride 8. Sky Blue FC 9. Houston Dash 10. Washington Spirit North Carolina Courage over Chicago Red Stars; regulation Seattle Reign over Portland Thorns; penalty shootout Seattle Reign over North Carolina Courage in overtime (SR revenge from 2014; NC will be a shield winner with a record score, as SR were in 2014, but they will lose the final too! )
I'm starting to think I should retool my ladder... Doing so would mean losing the 6pt bonus for only making one prediction, on top of the 1pt/week penalty, but I think putting my top four as ORL-CHI-KC-HOU means I have at least 15pts on the board I can potentially re-take. I mean, I still think they each can make the playoffs - especially with the parity we've seen so far this season - but while it's certainly possible for all four to get in, that might be too much of a stretch at this point. I may wait one more week to pull the trigger on that re-predict...
Well, when I predicted Chicago Red Stars in play-offs, I didn't know they were going to sign Yuki Nagasato. Now I am happy that I happened to have predicted four Japanese players in play-offs! (Nagasato > CHI, Kawasumi + Utsugi > SEA, Kawamura > NC)
Well, it's a week or so later than I meant it to be, but I really think I need to retool my ladder at this point. I'm losing 6pts for not sticking with the original, plus losing 7pts for it being after week 7, so hopefully my original ladder was awful enough that I make those 13pt up with my new ladder. Just quick hits instead of big explanations b/c people have seen how the teams are lining up already. 10. WAS - Pugh isn't enough. 9. NJ - should be at 7pts instead of 13pts right now were it not for HOU 8. HOU - Big ? now that coaching is finally changing. Could likely be competitive here on out, but big hole early season. 7. KC - Dropping from my previous prediction largely since their offense just isn't clicking. 6. ORL - sixth, but I'm betting not far out from the playoffs - lack of results thus far is somewhat bad luck. Losing Harris hurt but they'll get Morgan back soon enough. 5. SEA - biggest benefit of HOU, KC, and ORL dropping 4. BOS - squad is good and will mature as season progresses 3. POR - also benefiting from HOU/KC/ORL 2. NC - eating my words about their scoring output 1. CHI
Yes, but how fit will she be? The relapse of her hamstring injury in yesterday's Champions' League final was quite worrying...
I'm not sure if I would call that a full relapse if it was never fully taken care of in the first place, which is what I'm guessing happened... But either way, that's why I say "soon enough" instead of just "soon".
Since all four playoff teams are now known (though seeding is not), I guess it's about time to blow the dust off this thread and get ready for scoring everyone's ladders! For everyone still doing the weekly predictions (thank you, by the way, for picking up the scoring for those!) I'll reminder you to look back at the first post here for how the weekly playoff predictions should be scored (though also remember that we scrapped the "total goals" +1). Side note: I'm really glad I re-did my ladder at this point, since I think just glancing at it that I earned back the -13 I earned for making the change. X-D There's still a week left in the season, but I have 4 non-playoff teams exactly correct and the group of top 3 teams correct too.
I just need a clarification: some of us went as far as predicting the outcome of play-offs at the beginning of the season already. Of course many of those predictions are now wrong, because most often there aren't even the correct teams in them. So I ask: is it possible to make new predictions after the actual play-off matches are decided? And in this case is there a penalty for those who had already made their play-offs predictions?
The playoff predictions you made at the beginning of the season were specifically made as part of the ladder predictions, so those aren't going to be re-predicted but also aren't supposed to be. That's why there's a different "playoffs weekly predictions" scoring category. Basically you should keep going with the weekly predictions thread, predicting the games anytime between when team are announced and when kickoff is, with the new points system (each game is worth up to 8pts instead of up to 4pts). We're not expecting people to have gotten the four playoff teams, the two finalists, or the eventual winner correct based from their preseason guesses, but if they did get some of those correct, those are extra ladder points. =edit= And I just realized that I forgot to make playoff predictions for my revamped ladder... whoops. =-/ =edit2= Though I guess my original playoff predictions still work for me newer ladder... Can I keep those?
Ok. Get it. But now I need another clarification. I am specially referring to this part of the ladder prediction's rules: Let's assume someone correctly picked just 1/4 or the teams in play-offs, let's say North Carolina for instance. Thus the first play-off match he was predicting, let's say North Carolina-Seattle, is not going to exist. At its place there could be a North Carolina-Chicago, maybe. Now, what if he had predicted North Carolina advancing to the final with a particular score in OT, and this does happen? Does he get the points even if NC won a completely different game from the one he had predicted? Well, I guess that we should assume that any prediction that wasn't explicitly overwritten has to stay. And that the final rankings and the play-offs are so clearly distinct that a revamped ladder prediction can't actually overwrite the whole of the previous one if it doesn't contain both parts. So I'd say that you should keep your original play-off prediction. Yes, it's a little odd that it's not consistent with the final positions you predicted in your re-vamped ladder, but, after all, no-one ever said that it has to be. It could have even been a strategy (although no-one consciously followed it ): I predicted a ladder, but then I make totally disjointed play-off predictions with different teams, just in the case that I completely miss somewhere; at least a part of my predictions has a chance of being correct!
I did pretty well on the predictions -- except that I predicted Orlando for last place. Well, to make excuses, we didn't know that Marta would play for Orlando.and I discounted Alex Morgan as oft-injured and over-the-hill. Wrong!
The original playoff predictions were only for which team advanced and how, not who they faced or what exact score they advanced with. If you predict NC to advance, you get points no matter the opponent, plus more points if they advanced the way you said they did. So hopefully that answers your questions. Actually, we did say that the ladder-predicted playoffs had to be consistent with your ladder - someone corrected a 1v3/2v4 prediction from earlier, though it still would have worked out anyway. And, now that I'm looking for a third time thanks to your post, I realize my "edit2" from before was incorrect. My original predictions for who advances from the SFs is consistent with the current standings, but not with my revamped ladder prediction since I bumped ORL out of the playoffs in my second ladder. So I'd say I can't get points from ORL potentially making the final.
Thanks and yes, it answers my question in a clear way. Oh, I didn't remember that. So, yes, I am sorry to have made you noticed that, but it looks like you can't keep your play-off prediction...