MLS Season Projection

Now that Kansas City has a few home games under their belt, we now have enough data to run projections for the entire season.  So without further ado, here are my projected standings for each conference:



East
Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Philadelphia	34	17	11	6	41	27	14	62
2	New York	34	13	18	3	54	39	15	57
3	Kansas City	34	11	15	8	39	34	5	48
4	Columbus	34	13	9	12	38	35	3	48
5	Chicago	34	5	22	7	38	41	-3	37
6	Houston	34	6	17	11	39	42	-3	35
7	D.C. United	34	5	14	15	48	60	-12	29
8	New England	34	3	13	18	23	43	-20	22
9	Toronto FC	34	2	13	19	29	56	-27	19
West
Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Real Salt Lake	34	18	13	3	42	19	23	67
2	Los Angeles	34	16	16	2	43	27	16	64
3	FC Dallas	34	14	14	6	45	34	11	56
4	Seattle	34	13	17	4	42	33	9	56
5	San Jose	34	10	16	8	48	41	7	46
6	Colorado	34	9	15	10	36	40	-4	42
7	Portland	34	10	7	17	39	61	-22	37
8	Chivas USA	34	5	17	12	41	45	-4	32
9	Vancouver	34	4	17	13	37	47	-10	29

Some questions you may ask me after seeing these projections:

Why do you think Real Salt Lake, currently sitting in 4th place, will beat out Los Angeles to win the West?

1. RSL currently has four matches in hand on Los Angeles (15 matches for RSL vs 19 for LA).
2. RSL has the best goal differential/match of any team in the league (0.6 goals/match).
3. Based on current results, LA has played the easiest schedule in the league so far.  For the remainder of the year, they will have the toughest schedule.
4. RSL crushed LA 4-1 in their first meeting this year.

Why do you think that Kansas City will finish 3rd in the East and earn a playoff berth?

1. Because of the delayed opening of their stadium, 14 of their remaining 19 matches will be at home.
2. KC is undefeated in their first 3 home matches with 2 wins and a draw and only one goal allowed.
3. Although winning only 2 matches in their season-opening 11-game road trip, they finished the trip with 3 draws and a spectacular 4-1 victory at FC Dallas.  In fact they are currently riding a 7-match unbeaten streak.
4. Basically they are the hottest team in the league at the moment and I think they will ride this momentum into a playoff berth.

What are your predictions for the playoffs and MLS Cup?

1. The MLS expanded their playoffs to include 10 teams this season.  The top three teams from each conference automatically qualify.  The four teams with the best overall records that finish outside of their conference's top three also qualify as wild cards.  Based on my projection above, that would be Seattle, Columbus, San Jose and Colorado.  I'm picking Seattle and Columbus to emerge from the wild card round.
2. In the 2nd round I pick RSL to beat Columbus, LA to beat Dallas, Philadelphia to beat Seattle and New York to beat KC.
3. Conference finals:  RSL over LA and Philly over NY.
4. MLS Cup:  RSL over Philadelphia.

The season is only halfway over and there is still a lot of soccer to play, but my early prediction is that Real Salt Lake will win the MLS Cup.

MLS Weekend Wrapup and SRS Rankings

I took a break last week to honeymoon with my beautiful wife so I have no predictions to recap for the weekend.  Here are some highlights from last weekend's MLS matches:

• Philadelphia scored 6(!) goals at Toronto.  The Union have been one of the top defensive teams in the league this season.  As you can see from the table below, they have the second best Defensive SRS in the league against the toughest offenses in the league.  However, their offense was one of the worst.  Prior to this match the Union had scored 8 goals in 10 matches overall and only 1 goal in 4 road matches.  We will have to see if this is a fluke or a sign that their offense has woken up.  If it has then matching that up with their stout defense would make this team a serious MLS Cup contender

Total Defensive SRS
Team	GA	SOS	SRS
Real Salt Lake	0.444	1.283	0.838
Philadelphia	0.818	1.313	0.495
Los Angeles	0.800	1.270	0.470
Seattle	0.929	1.296	0.367
New York	0.917	1.276	0.359

• Seattle snapped RSL's 29-game home unbeaten streak with a 2-1 victory at Rio Tinto.  RSL has really struggled since their loss in the CONCACAF Champions League final and the loss of Javier Morales hasn't helped.  I still think they are the best team in the league right now mainly due to their excellent defense.  But their loss to Seattle was the first time they had given up multiple goals in the league this season.  Their defense may be cracking under the strain of an anemic offense.  We will have to see if coach Jason Kreis can pull them out of this funk.
• The season is about one-third complete and we have seen our first coaching casualties.  Vancouver and Chicago both fired their coaches this week.  Each team has only one win this season with slim and fading hopes of making the playoffs.

Latest SRS rankings after the jump:

MLS Weekend Wrapup and SRS Rankings

Last weekend's scoring drought is past us.  This weekend featured 24 goals in 9 matches or 2.67 goals per game which is above the league average of 2.38 goals/game.  The drought ended in more ways than one as the Cascadia Derby between Seattle and Portland ended up in a rain-soaked 1-1 draw.  Other highlights of the weekend included a hat trick by Chivas' Justin Braun which led them to a shocking 3-2 upset of the Red Bulls in New York.  Landon Donavan continued his scoring streak by netting two goals in LA's 4-1 victory over Sporting KC. 

Here is a recap of my predictions for the weekend:

Predicted Score				Actual Score				Points
Toronto FC	1	Chicago	1	Toronto FC	2	Chicago	2	20
New England	1	Vancouver	1	New England	1	Vancouver	0	-10
D.C. United	1	Colorado	1	D.C. United	1	Colorado	1	30
FC Dallas	0	Philadelphia	0	FC Dallas	2	Philadelphia	0	-10
Real Salt Lake	2	Houston	1	Real Salt Lake	0	Houston	0	-10
San Jose	1	Columbus	1	San Jose	3	Columbus	0	-10
Los Angeles	2	Kansas City	1	Los Angeles	4	Kansas City	1	10
Seattle	2	Portland	0	Seattle	1	Portland	1	-10
New York	1	Chivas USA	0	New York	2	Chivas USA	3	-10
								0

My total score for the week was zero points.  I predicted 3 of 9 outcomes and 1 of 9 final scores correctly.  Since I started my predictions in late April I have scored -50 points in 38 matches or -1.32/match.  Of the 38 matches I've had 13 correct outcomes (34.2%) and 2 correct final scores (5.3%). 

My SRS rankings are listed after the jump

MLS SRS Rankings and Weekend Predictions

Here are the latest MLS rankings through the 5/11 matches.  Change is versus my last rankings posted on 5/3:

Team	MOV	SOS	SRS	Change
Real Salt Lake	1.167	0.009	1.176	0.075
New York	1.000	0.084	1.084	-0.236
Philadelphia	0.250	0.144	0.394	-0.484
Los Angeles	0.182	0.122	0.304	0.171
Houston	0.333	-0.034	0.299	-0.500
Colorado	0.222	0.074	0.296	0.100
Seattle	0.200	0.048	0.248	-0.331
Columbus	0.250	-0.035	0.215	0.054
Chivas USA	0.125	-0.093	0.032	0.088
FC Dallas	0.111	-0.244	-0.132	0.070
Portland	-0.250	0.081	-0.169	0.296
San Jose	-0.500	0.207	-0.293	-0.087
Chicago	-0.375	-0.043	-0.418	-0.015
New England	-0.444	-0.012	-0.456	0.095
D.C. United	-0.556	0.080	-0.476	0.318
Vancouver	-0.300	-0.199	-0.499	-0.060
Kansas City	-0.500	-0.017	-0.517	-0.021
Toronto FC	-0.600	-0.111	-0.711	0.305

RSL returns to the top after their victory over Chivas.  New York was predicted to beat LA so their draw penalized them enough to drop into second.  Houston's rating dropped half a point due to two losses including one to bottom-of-the-table Toronto.  D.C. United's improvement was driven by their performance against Seattle (win) and FC Dallas (draw), two matches they were projected to lose.

My predictions for the weekend after the jump