As of this afternoon based not on current form but on won/loss/tie records roughly 25 games into the season we have two somewhat "upper tier" teams of Montreal at 1.65 pts/gm and Portland at 1.71 pts. But after that one half of the teams in the league (9 teams) are bunched together all averaging from 1.50 to 1.58 pts/game. That extrapolates over a 36 (is that right?) game season to the incredibly narrow range of 54 pts to 57 pts. So basically at the current clip exactly one half of the teams in the league are on a pace to be within 1 win of each other at the end of the 36 game schedule. Parity much? I'm pretty sure this is by far the most even the league has been at this point. Right now 1 single win could easily mean the difference at the end of the season from ending in 3rd place in the SS race to missing the playoffs entirely. Is this a coincidence this year or a sign of ever increasing parity across the league in years to come? Why so much parity - more teams taking advantage of DP's, coaching and scouting getting better so that even salaries = even teams, or what? Curious what others think.
From www.mlssoccer.com/standings/supporter-shield as of 11:35pm 8/21/13. The site reads slightly different now for Portland even before tonights game is finished, not sure what is up with that. If 34 games then final range is 51 to 54 pts, so same idea.
Well, the parity certainly makes MLS an "interesting" league in that it is a planet unto itself. You know that the majority of owners and certainly the SoccerDon are thrilled over these prospects. What better way to keep the league growing and healthy than having a bunch of teams jockeying for top of the mediocrity heap? It may be tiresome and boring for some, but the success of the league is way too important than having some superclubs running roughshod. MLS gives your team better chances to win than any other sport in America. That's a pretty powerful sword to wield when you are still a "2nd tier" league.
Related Article: "The perils of parity do make for intense MLS races" http://www.socceramerica.com/article/53304/the-perils-of-parity-do-make-for-intense-mls-races.html
I think the Supporters Shield standings table is simply a derivative of the league standings table, and the fine print on the league standings table indicates it gets updated DURING games depending on who is ahead. So, yes, logical or not, the table can and often does change in the middle of games. Doesn't make much sense to me, but then they forgot to ask what I thought of the idea.
Oh right, I had forgotten about this. Well after updates from last night we have 8 teams between 1.50 and 1.57 ppg and projected to end up within 2 pts of each other -- or less than 1 win apart -- at the end of the season. And11 teams projected to end up with 51 to 56 points, so all within 2 wins of each other. In sum after 3/4 of the season has been played we have a full 60+% of the teams with shots of being SSL winners if they go on a tear, or conversely missing the playoffs in they go into a slump. Here is the full table: Code: TEAM PTS GP PPG PROJ PTS Montreal 38 23 1.65 56 Portland 39 24 1.63 55 Real Salt 42 26 1.62 55 Houston 36 23 1.57 53 Sporting 39 25 1.56 53 New York 39 25 1.56 53 Seattle S 34 22 1.55 53 LA Galaxy 37 24 1.54 52 Philadelp 38 25 1.52 52 Colorado 39 26 1.50 51 Vancouve 36 24 1.50 51 FC Dallas 36 25 1.44 49 NE Revol 33 24 1.38 47 Chicago 31 23 1.35 46 San Jose 33 25 1.32 45 Columbus 29 24 1.21 41 Toronto 20 24 0.83 28 Chivas U 18 24 0.75 26 D.C. Unit 13 24 0.54 18
Very good point - one very incompetent AR is the reason we are 8th in the table above rather than 3rd!
That just makes them Wigan. Doesn't mean he should have a job! USOC is amateur hour, just ask Seattle.
While I can't argue about those calls and the damage they did to us, do we really have any idea how many other teams may have been robbed or gifted with bad calls? My focus, at least, is on LAG and I have no idea what other squads might reasonably make similar claims - legitimately. That's why I don't do a lot of "what if" table projections. Too many variables.
I don't think you can also take TOO much from one year. We're just one year past San Jose running away with the SS. Let's see if it is a trend. It could just be a goofy year where teams are struggling to find their rhythm. The Gold Cup messed with a few teams this year who would be considered favorites, there's been injuries as always, and there's new teams trying to move up into the elite. Might be a transition year. I do know one thing though. No one has a clue who is going to win the SS or the Cup this year. Both are totally up for grabs.
Has anyone looked at the relative strength of schedules remaining for the top 12 or 13 teams that are in contention? Who has a lot of home games vs weak opponents versus who has a lot of tough road games , etc? In previous years mlssoccer.com W-L-T records were presented separately for home and away games in their standings table. It made it easier to at least see whether a team had played an unbalanced schedule so far. For some reason the site no longer presents the information in that form. At least I haven't found it. Edit: I see that Sports Club Stats does have a numerical SOS estimate, but still not Home vs Away W/L tables.
This drives me nuts. Why on earth don't they wait until the freaking game is over? I don't keep track of every game Portland plays as an example, so I get confused sometimes when their point total fluctuates. Seriously, does the intern need something else to do?
I quite I like it. They started doing it at Soccernet a couple of seasons ago. It’s kind of nice to be watching a game on one screen and have the live table updating. Of course it matters more in the EPL. I doubt there’s an intern manually updating the table – I know MLS’ digital team are a bit of a joke, but manually updating a table is a bit archaic even for them.
I actually think the digital team are decent there - the website has some decent stories and is well maintained. I was being funny. I hate it. I want to see what happens when the game is done, not while it is going on changing the table by second to results that may not be accurate. The lack of accuracy in it is what bugs me.
I agree. It makes it look like a game is done when in fact, it may be 0-0 in the 2nd minute. I really dislike that. Update when the final whistle blows, or have a separate tab "standings if results hold." I really don't like not being able to check the ACTUAL standings while the games are going on.
Bingo. Especially this year when literally 1 point makes the difference between several places in the standings. I forgot about a point for draws too being in play. It's just an ugh overall for me.
Editorially it’s fine. Technically they’re mediocre. Now MLB’s digital team. Wow. Technically it’s more accurate What they should do is is make it explicit as a live table and offer a static table. There’s no excuse not to offer both.
I don't think it has to be one extreme or the other. The best players in the world in their prime are going to play in Europe. And the best American players coming through MLS are going to have their eyes on Europe. So even if Seattle, LA, NY etc are allowed to spend more it's not going to create as huge a disparity as it would in leagues like the EPL and La Liga. Because the types of foreign players available to us will be big stars who are past their best playing days. It's still going to come down to development. Whoever develops the best players is going to have the most success in the league. This is why i think they need to change the rule that prevents teams from offering competitive contracts to players from their academies. There's no way that LAG should have lost out on Arriola just because the league prevented the club from offering him what they wanted to.