MLS Week 20 Recap

Good News and bad news for me over the weekend.  The good news is that I had a perfect weekend with my MLS predictions.  The bad news is that I was perfect the wrong way going 0 for 8.  This is actually pretty hard to do, but that is small consolation.  Here is a recap of the results:



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

It was an unusually bad weekend for home teams with three teams getting shut out and only two teams, Dallas and Houston winning.  Perhaps that Texas heat gave them an advantage.  Let's see how these results impacted the SRS ratings:



Team	MOV	SOS	SRS	Change
Real Salt Lake	0.684	-0.014	0.670	-0.148
Los Angeles	0.696	-0.042	0.653	0.131
FC Dallas	0.391	-0.017	0.374	0.045
Philadelphia	0.350	-0.014	0.336	-0.079
New York	0.304	-0.011	0.293	0.009
Seattle	0.304	-0.021	0.284	-0.094
Columbus	0.182	0.024	0.205	0.121
Chivas USA	0.136	0.010	0.146	-0.044
Colorado	0.083	0.027	0.111	0.070
Houston	0.000	0.019	0.019	0.121
Kansas City	0.048	-0.127	-0.080	-0.033
D.C. United	-0.200	0.056	-0.144	0.130
San Jose	-0.227	0.043	-0.185	-0.122
Chicago	-0.250	0.031	-0.219	-0.002
New England	-0.455	0.033	-0.421	0.019
Portland	-0.500	0.026	-0.474	-0.024
Vancouver	-0.591	-0.018	-0.609	-0.146
Toronto FC	-0.917	-0.003	-0.920	0.020

Real Salt Lake holds on to the top spot despite their upset loss to Columbus.  LA's big win over Vancouver puts them right behind the Claret-and-Cobalt.  They actually have the highest average margin of victory (MOV), but RSL's better strength of schedule (SOS) keeps them ahead of the Galaxy overall.

MLS week 17 Recap

I did extremely well with my predictions this weekend:

Predicted Score				Actual Score				Points
Kansas City	1	Chivas USA	1	Kansas City	1	Chivas USA	1	30
New York	2	D.C. United	1	New York	0	D.C. United	1	-10
Houston	2	Toronto FC	1	Houston	2	Toronto FC	0	10
Real Salt Lake	2	FC Dallas	1	Real Salt Lake	2	FC Dallas	0	10
Colorado	1	Vancouver	0	Colorado	2	Vancouver	1	15
Los Angeles	2	Chicago	1	Los Angeles	2	Chicago	1	30
San Jose	1	Philadelphia	1	San Jose	0	Philadelphia	0	20
Portland	1	Seattle	1	Portland	2	Seattle	3	-10

That's 6 out of 8 matches where my model predicted the correct outcome.  Also predicted the correct final score in 2 matches.  For the month of July, my accuracy rate has been 60% on outcomes and 15% on scores.  Season-to-date those rates are 43% and 11% respectively.

Updated SRS ratings after the jump:

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.