MLS Week 18 Predictions

Once again there are only eight matches this weekend with Los Angeles and Toronto FC sitting idle.  Here are my predictions:



Predicted Score
Vancouver	1	Real Salt Lake	1
Seattle	1	Colorado	1
Columbus	2	San Jose	1
Chicago	2	Portland	0
Houston	2	Kansas City	2
FC Dallas	2	D.C. United	1
Chivas USA	1	New York	1
New England	1	Philadelphia	1

I think the best matchup will be Chivas vs New York.  In their previous matchup, Chivas shocked the Red Bulls at home thanks to a Justin Braun hat trick.  Braun has scored only one other goal the rest of the season so don't expect a repeat performance.  New York is the highest scoring team in the league overall (1.7 goals/match) and on the road (1.6 goals/match) but Chivas has been stingy at home allowing 0.9 goals/match.  On offense, Chivas has struggled to score at home with 1.1 goals per match which is actually lower than their road scoring average of 1.4 goals/match.  RBNY's road defense has been their Achilles heel, allowing 1.5 goals/match.

The outcome of this match could have big playoff implications.  New York and Philadelphia are neck-and-neck for the Eastern Conference title.  Anything less than a point for the Red Bulls will hurt their chances of winning the conference.  I'm currently projecting Chivas for the final playoff spot.  Anything less than a point puts their playoff hopes in limbo.

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 Week 17 Predictions

I was one for four on my midweek predictions, getting the NY-Toronto outcome right, but certainly not the magnitude!  Let's see how we do for the weekend.  There are only eight games with Columbus and New England sitting idle:



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

MLS Week 16 SRS Rankings and Season Projection

Another drawn out weekend in the MLS (get it?) with 6 of 9 matches ending all tied up and two of those were 0-0.  The most entertaining match was Real Salt Lake's 3-3 draw at home against New England.  This was a matchup of the best defense (RSL) against the worst offense (NE) and it was played at Rio Tinto where RSL is nearly unbeatable.  Problem was that RSL dug themselves into a hole when Nat Borchers drew a red card in the 3rd minute.  The Revolution converted on the subsequent penalty kick and added another to go up 2-0 on 10-man RSL.

RSL fought back to tie it in the 2nd half but New England took the lead back in the 63rd minute and seemed poised to pull off a huge upset.  But a 2nd yellow on Ryan Cochrane evened up both sides at 10 men.  This opened up some space for RSL's offense which tied up the game on this goal.  Overall this match featured 6 goals, 2 penalty kicks, 6 yellow cards and 2 red cards.  Referee Yader Reyes generated a lot of controversy for his handling of the match.

Here are the SRS ratings through Week 16:



Team	MOV	SOS	SRS
Real Salt Lake	0.563	-0.053	0.509
Los Angeles	0.500	-0.021	0.479
FC Dallas	0.500	-0.047	0.453
Seattle	0.350	0.019	0.369
New York	0.333	0.018	0.352
Philadelphia	0.294	0.022	0.316
San Jose	0.188	0.051	0.239
Columbus	0.059	0.026	0.085
Houston	-0.056	0.032	-0.024
Chivas USA	-0.059	-0.026	-0.084
Kansas City	-0.063	-0.052	-0.115
Chicago	-0.167	0.038	-0.129
Colorado	-0.111	-0.028	-0.139
D.C. United	-0.375	0.041	-0.334
Vancouver	-0.389	-0.037	-0.426
New England	-0.444	0.011	-0.433
Portland	-0.563	0.022	-0.541
Toronto FC	-0.632	-0.013	-0.645

RSL continues to top the rankings.  They have played the easiest schedule in the league thus far.  The Western Conference now has the top 4 spots and 5 of the top 7.  Toronto remains at the bottom despite their victory over Vancouver.  The Whitecaps were not strong enough to really improve Toronto's rating.

After the jump I will have my updated season projection:

MLS Week 14 Wrapup and SRS Rankings

Another low-scoring weekend for the MLS with only 22 goals in 9 matches or 2.44/match.  That's including the 6-goal outburst in the Portland/New York match.  Thankfully there were no 0-0 draws. 

I had a so-so week for my predictions as you can see below:



Predicted Score				Actual Score				Points
Kansas City	0	San Jose	0	Kansas City	1	San Jose	0	-10
Toronto FC	1	Seattle	2	Toronto FC	0	Seattle	1	15
New England	1	Chicago	1	New England	1	Chicago	1	30
Houston	2	Columbus	0	Houston	0	Columbus	2	-10
Real Salt Lake	2	D.C. United	1	Real Salt Lake	1	D.C. United	1	-10
Colorado	1	Los Angeles	1	Colorado	1	Los Angeles	3	-10
Vancouver	1	Philadelphia	2	Vancouver	1	Philadelphia	0	-10
Chivas USA	1	FC Dallas	1	Chivas USA	1	FC Dallas	2	-10
Portland	1	New York	1	Portland	3	New York	3	20
							Total	5

Correctly picked 3 of 9 outcomes and 1 score.  For the year my accuracy is 37.1% for outcomes and 9.0% for scores.

There are three midweek games.  here are my predictions for those:

Predicted Score
Philadelphia	2	Kansas City	1
Chicago	1	Real Salt Lake	1
Seattle	1	New York	2

My SRS predictions are after the jump: