Those all are the same thing you know. If you find those "overly complicated", that's really your problem. I can't argue that you don't find it overly complicated, obviously it's a fact. All I can say it's not the "average person's" overly complicated.
Yes, I understand they are all the same thing. I also understand you required FOUR different definitions while attempting to describe your "simple" idea. Maybe you're the one who's below average.
To quantify the debate better, let's look at the following example (which may be a bit extreme, but just to illustrate the point). Based on a 34-game schedule, assuming 46 points are needed to reach the playoffs, a number of W-L-T combinations could achieve that. Which of the below combinations would reflect a "better team" over the course of a season? (without taking into account of the other factors such as GD, GS, etc...) Team A: W15-L18- T1 for 46 points. Team B: W6-L0-T28 for 46 points as well.
Even if I am below average myself (that's a different debate), what does that mean for the idea? I beleive you called the tiebreaker overly complicated, and not myself. Anyways, I was just pointing out their equivalency by mentioning all four. Not sure what's wrong with that. I can track several concepts at once without being confused. Guess that doesn't work for everyone.
The rule's effect on San Jose was not the point of my post, having known that SJ would score the most goals and have the best GD at the time the rule was announced. The point of my post was that NY and LA would benefit, and they have, at the expense of Vancouver and Houston/DC.
Frankly, your example illustrates why wins/losses/ties cannot be used as a tiebreaker beyond the weight given to wins in the table. You have to move to a different metric; one that has not been included as (wins/ties/loses already have). AM I in love with total goals. No as I don't see it as a measurement of team success; but I understand the thinking - to improve offensive game plans
I enjoy offensive play very much as well, though would think that there should be an emphasis of balance between offense and defense, for a team to be successful in the regular season, playoffs and international tournaments. Still prefer GD over GF as the 1st tie breaker...
Well, am merely stating a FACT. Otherwise, just name ONE league other than MLS that favour a team with inferior head to head record and worse GD, how about that?
Head to head is not unusual, actually... http://www.theoffside.com/world-football/tie-breakers-for-football-teams-level-on-points.html
OK, more common than I thought but still not usual. Only five of those 20 leagues listed use it as the first tie-breaker. (They list six but one of those is MLS.)
OK, other than most leagues do not use H2H as a top tiebreaker at all, Belgium meets your criteria of ignoring H2H and GD. Point being many (most even) could have a team with a losing record against the other team actually advancing; whether it be by GD, most wins, or GS. As Newtex pointed out, only five leagues would consider H2H first.
Hey he said ONE. I think the point of all this discussion is that YES Goals Scored is an outlier as the first tiebreaker; but there is no real standard. GD is certainly more common, but leagues set it up to match their schedule, their fans expectations, and the targets set forth by the league; not based on a mythical recipe for how to handle ties. Not counting the MLS, based on the link (and a few have changed) 52% use GD, 26% use H2H, and 21% use wins. After the first tie break - it is ALL over the map.
Yeah, but let's not pull a CNN and dismiss it as all being equal. MLS is an outlier on this matter, and the reasoning provided is pretty weak sauce. On the other hand, I will say one thing. It probably does open up a 3-0 game a lot more than GD. The reason is that you don't care if you lose 8-0, you're not trying to "stop the bleeding". As it may actually make those games more interesting. Also, you are probably much more likely to see GKs come up for corners at the end of games, cuz who cares if you lose by two. So based on that, maybe it does have some real merit, that GD wouldn't afford. I don't think it will generally encourage more offensive play in normal game situations any more than 3 points for a win already does. But the above situations may be specific times, where behavior would be influenced. I just think it would really suck if a team lost on a tiebreaker to another team that had got its ass handed to them all season. Especially if that team also had a much worse win-loss differential due to three points for a win.
I think the point here, is they are all relatively arbitrary. You can use whatever you want to justify any of the tiebreaks but there is no standard, they all have different combinations of the top three save a few repeats, and frankly it doesn't matter if everyone knows the rules going into the season. I tend to agree that it won't matter, but as I said earlier you would have to compare goals for game in the past to goals per game in a few years to even attempt a loose correlation. But again, you know the rules heading into the season. And as we look at this across the world, your hated scenario could happen in all but a handful of leagues that use wins first (which appears to be what you said above).
How is this an argument when debating the merits of a system? Everyone keeps saying this on this site like they're John Madden or something. Also, it wasn't actually true this season, they changed the rules mid season. But that's a smaller point. You can make up any bullshit rule and apply it fairly to all teams, doesn't mean that some rules are better than others. What if it wasn't Goals scored, instead they made the first tiebreaker the fair play table? No wait, how about corners conceded (since a team that conceded many corners clearly was involved in exciting games)? How about number of goals scored with feet (the league thinks headers are boring). We'd all know it before, so we can name any bullshit criteria that makes the game more exciting is still fair. Not saying we should use wins first...in fact if anything I think that we should use the opposite by using win loss differential (but that would definitely make us an outlier, and maybe a separate convo). I have said that GD makes sense due to unbalanced schedule.
No.. They made the rule change public mid-season. When they released the change, they said the season was done prior to the start of the season.
I think you missed my point. WHATEVER you pick, it is an arbitrary indicator of one's teams worth over another when they have tied on record. There is no right or wrong answer. Just because you don't like it doesn't make it any worse than GD, wins, W-L, whatever. They are all a made up attempt to separate what an entire season has already calculated are equal. In essence they are all valid and they are all crap.
This seemed a bit mysterious to me. Why wait to announce it? And I seem to recall Bruce Arena, and not sure maybe others, speaking about it after the announcement in a way that seemed to indicate he wasn't aware of it. Maybe I'm "misremebering" things, but it seemed that whole announcement was a bit odd somehow.