THE POWER RANK

MLS Blog 10/12/11

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The MLS rank
Symmetry is beautiful
But not for Canucks

As we approach the end of the regular season, the MLS Power Rank has taken on a very clear form. Los Angeles (#1) and Seattle (#2) form the elite, while RSL (#3) through Kansas City (#6) round out the upper third. The Sounders and Salt Lake are separated by 0.18 goals, while the above average pack of RSL, Philly (#4), New York (#5), and KC are within a mere 0.05 goals of each other. Of these top sides, all but New York are virtually guaranteed of not only making the playoffs, but a first round bye as well. The Red Bulls have a tough road, as they travel to Kansas City and then finish the season hosting the Union, both of which are in the top third.

A gap of 0.1 goals exists between the above average squads and the 7 teams residing squarely in the middle of the Power Rank. These sides, from last year’s runner-up FC Dallas (#7) through Columbus (#13) are all within 0.07 goals of average (always zero). It is these teams that are currently fighting for their playoff lives, with Dallas, defending champs Colorado (#8), Houston (#10), and Columbus currently in, with Chicago (#9) and DC United (#11) on the bubble. Of this group, only Chivas (#12) has been officially eliminated. With a game in hand and 1 point advantage, Dallas is the clear favorite to emerge from the middle, as two of their last three games are against the lowly Earthquakes (#15) and Whitecaps (#16). DC are also in good shape as they have four matches left, with two against fellow middle teams and two against the lower third. Houston, however, may be in trouble. Their season may depend on whether or not LA decides to field their stars in the last game of the regular season in a bid to break the single season points record.

Once again, a 0.1 differential is found between the bastions of mediocrity and those teams that need some work: the bottom third. In this region, there are two teams slightly better than the rest (a relative situation to be sure): Portland (#14) and San Jose (#15). Of the bottom third, only the Timbers still have a shot at the playoffs, but it will be a challenge. Despite having a game in hand, they finish against teams ranked above them. A difference of 0.2 goals divides the top of the bottom from the true cellar of MLS: Vancouver (#16), New England (#17), and Toronto (#18).

The current MLS rank structure is highly symmetric, with gaps of 0.2 and 0.18 goals separating the exceptionally good and bad teams from the rest. Similarly, differences of 0.1 make the top and bottom thirds distinct from the middle. Of the other sports tracked by The Power Rank, only MLB comes at all close to recovering a structure like this, and then only between the distance between the top 5 clubs and all the rest. This clarity just developed this past week because the top three teams all lost by multi-goal margins. LA dropped 0.06 goals after they lost 2-0 to the Red Bulls in New York, while Seattle decreased by 0.09 goals following a 2-0 defeat at home to the Union. Both victors vaulted above KC in The Power Rank to form the above-average-yet-not-elite. To complete this group, Salt Lake suffered the shock defeat of the weekend, falling 3-0 in Vancouver, who were then the lowest ranked team. Their resulting drop of 0.07 goals confirmed that, this year, they are not a truly elite MLS club.

MLS Blog October 4th, 2011

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We’re now in the final stretch of the MLS season, so with all respect to Jim Mora, it’s time to start talking about the playoffs. This week we’ll focus on an aspect unique to soccer that can make or break a team’s postseason hopes: draws. While fans of other sports will grudgingly admit that sometimes a game deserves no winner, this occurrence is common in soccer as typically 25%-30% of games end all knotted up. As of Sunday, this year in MLS the percentage is nearly 36%, and teams’ chances are riding on them: currently Kansas City (#4), Philly (#6), Colorado (#9), Houston (#10), DC (#11), and San Jose (#15) have more ties than either wins or losses, while amazingly New York (#5) and Chicago (#8) have more draws than decisions!

So what’s behind this spate of mediocrity? Unsurprisingly, all these teams have ratings around the middle of the rank, and with the exception of the lowly ‘Quakes, they are also all sitting in the middle of the table (Sporting KC may look hot in the east, but they’d be tied for fifth place in the Western Conference). While it makes sense that average teams will tend to draw more, this season it has happened at a much higher rate. For example, this last Saturday, three out of six matches were drawn… but it turns out it’s also not surprising that they all involved fewer goals than the average MLS game.

We can expect that as less goals are scored, the likelihood of a draw is greater. While the mathematical formula governing draw probability of two evenly matched teams can be visualized using Pascal’s triangle, what it boils down to is this: 0 goals: 100%, 2 goals: 50%, 4 goals: 37.5%, and so on, so that the fewer number of goals that are scored, the more often the match ends tied. Below we can see the draw percentage and goal rate going back to the 2002 campaign in MLS:

Comparison of Goal and Draw Rates for the Past 10 Seasons

So over the past 10 years, the goal rate this season is tied for the third lowest. 2002 is the opposite, when defenses didn’t show up, yielding by far the highest goal and lowest draw rates. With this data, it turns out that for each additional goal per game, the frequency of a tie decreases by 18.5%. This year, we would expect the draw probability to be 29.0% with the difference attributed to factors we’re not including, most especially luck. However, this season is as much of a deviation as 2002 (expected draw probability of 21.6%) or last season (expected draw probability of 32.4%), albeit in the direction of more draws which doesn’t make MLS happy.

Of course, this phenomenon is not unique to soccer. While we haven’t run the numbers, it seems like there are more tied matches in soccer than there are overtime games in other sports where scoring is more common. More importantly, in soccer it matters more. Overtime in other sports is set up to produce a winner, whereas in soccer, winning earns 3 points whereas drawing gets 1. The differential encourages teams to play to win rather than draw, but it also selects for teams with good offense and bad defense instead of vice versa. That’s because a team which has half wins and half losses over the 34 game season will earn 17 more points than a team which draws all it’s games. However, when the playoffs start and every match has a winner, then both teams would have the same chance of winning. The Power Rank measures goal differential, not points, and knows to watch out for teams that “sneak” into the playoffs with a lot of draws.

MLS Blog September 29th, 2011

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A debate that seems to constantly arise in ranking teams is whether their rank should be based on goal differential or wins… or in the case of soccer, total points. A quick look at human rankings shows that people instinctively value wins beyond all else. This would make sense if the best team won every game. But in soccer, not only does this happen, but sometimes the best team on the day doesn’t even win! This last weekend, MLS offered us a view on what goal differential means and how the worst team sometimes wins.

Last Saturday, we saw Houston defeat FC Dallas 1-0 in Dallas, while DC United pulled off the shocker of the weekend by beating Real Salt Lake 4-1 at home. In each game, a goal was scored in the last five minutes of regulation. Alvaro Saborio scored RSL’s lone goal in the 86th minute in DC. Salt Lake has a habit of scoring late, but this time, it didn’t matter as DC United rode Dwayne Derosario’s hat trick to a convincing win over the #3 team in The Power Rank.

Meanwhile, back in Texas, FC Dallas was looking for a return to form. Within the past month, they have had trouble finding the net in both MLS and Champion’s League, resulting in them dropping from #4 to #8. They looked to turn it around against the Dynamo, but had three shots hit the woodwork and another called back for a foul against the keeper. While Dallas couldn’t get through, they at least looked to be getting one point from the match until Geoff Cameron headed home in the 87th minute.

While the late goals were nearly identical, they had totally different meanings in each game. As DC United were up 4-0, nothing was lost, while Dallas ended up with zero points. This illustrates the importance of goals beyond the winning goal: they insulate a team from bad luck. Particularly in soccer, bad luck can strike at any moment with a counter-attack, set piece, or poor challenge. Because goals are so infrequent, they are that much more valuable; in soccer no team will start feeling comfortable until they are up by at least two goals. So what this tells us is that teams which can win by bigger margins have a much lower chance of a freak event costing them points. This even applies to when a David faces Goliath, as the The Power Rank clearly shows Real Salt Lake is a better team in general than DC United, although they were not better on the day. But even in that case, as FC Dallas learned, failure to score goals when presented the chance can lead to unlikely and unexpected losses of points. And if you don’t believe me that it’s important to score extra points to protect a win, just ask the Braves and Red Sox.

MLS CONCACAF First Round

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The Champions League
MLS is five for five
More success awaits

CONCACAF Champions League is back, baby! This past week saw the first round of the group stages take place in the 16 team tournament. Each group contains 4 teams, and the top two will advance. Seeding is such that no team from the same country is in the same group, although Canadian and American MLS squads can be (as is the case in Group C with Dallas and Toronto). The tournament has been steadily gaining in importance in North America, and its winner earns a berth in the FIFA Club World Cup. In last year’s tournament, Real Salt Lake made it all the way to the final, taking an important step for MLS internationally. Can the American/Canadian league go further this year?

In any tournament format, it’s always impossible to say, but MLS is off to a flying start after going 5-0-0 in the first round. The format of home and away pairings means each team still has five more matches, so qualification for any club is far from assured. Fortunately, MLS sides are at peak condition being in the middle of their season, while clubs from other countries are still gaining match fitness as their leagues start up. However, the situation will be reversed for the knock-out stages next spring. This makes it important for MLS to get as many teams as possible through the first round.

Of all the wins earned by the MLS teams, there is one clear standout: FC Dallas’ win over Pumas in Mexico City. This marked the first victory ever for an MLS team on Mexican soil in 25 tries. Not only are Pumas one of the top Mexican clubs, but they play in the altitude and smog of Mexico City which gives the US national team so much trouble. While Pumas elected to rest many of their starters in favor of a younger side, after the first 15 minutes Dallas played at a level as high as their competition. Overall, FC Dallas has had an impressive run this season despite the loss of the last year’s MVP, David Ferreira, early in the campaign. Now, having gotten the most difficult match out of the way in the CONCACAF Champions League, they are in good shape to be playing deep into that tournament. The Power Rank can give us some insight about their chances, as well as the other MLS teams.

While The Power Rank doesn’t track foreign soccer leagues (yet!), even if it did, the Mexican and Central American leagues are only just starting so it would need to rely on last season’s data. In addition, it is difficult to compare across different leagues; enough data for a meaningful comparison wouldn’t exist until after the group stages. However, The Power Rank shows that MLS is contributing some of its top sides to the Champions League, with three of the top four (#1 LA, #2 Seattle, and #4 Dallas), and four of the top six (#6 Colorado). The final slot is the Canadian team Toronto FC, which currently resides in the rank’s basement. Of these teams, Seattle and Dallas have a great chance to go deep into the tournament. Both should be able to best the non-Mexican teams in their group, and can expect reinforcements later this year or early next spring for the knock-out stages in the forms of David Ferreira and Steve Zakuani. Additionally, both are young sides, which will hopefully help them recover full fitness earlier in spring should they make it out of the group stages. While LA is clearly the best team in MLS right now and should emerge from their group, question marks surrounding the return of David Beckham and Landon Donovan make it harder to tell how far this older team can go. As for Toronto, well, miracles can happen, even in Canada.

MLS Blog 8/13/11

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The New York Red Bulls
Played well over in London town
Not so good over here

I hereby declare the New York Red Bulls to be the most enigmatic team in MLS.  Since starting the season 5-2-7 and playing an attractive mix of possession and attacking soccer, the Red Bulls have nearly imploded, winning just once in their last ten games.  In fact, having played exactly 2/3 of their games, New York now have exactly as many draws (12) as decisions.  Of those decisions, half are wins and half are draws, so for the moment, they have the unlikely symmetry of an exactly average team.

The statement of the Red Bulls’ mediocrity flies in the face of all expectation.  New York pays more for designated players than every other team, and one of them, Thierry Henry, leads the league in goals.  Their center backs are two of the finest in MLS:  US international Tim Ream and Mexico international Rafa Marquez.  They recently traveled to London and won a European pre-season tournament by beating French side Paris St.-Germain and drawing against one of the top teams in the world: Arsenal.  While it was pre-season for these teams, New York played well.  Particularly against Arsenal, they were well organized in defense and opportunistic on offense.

So what’s up with New York back here in the good ol’ US of A?  As I pointed out, the Red Bulls have strong forwards, speedy wingers, and strong center backs.  However, goalkeeper and midfield have been problem spots.  They recently traded midfielder Dwayne De Rosario to DC to make room to sign keeper Frank Rost.  Since, they have only managed one win out of six games.  It had been hoped at the beginning of the season that De Rosario would be able to complete the team by pulling the strings on the attack from the midfield.  While at this point there is not enough data to make any definitive assessment, New York does not seem to be performing any differently with or without him. After leaving the Red Bulls, though, he’s averaging a goal a game with United.

With their recent problems, New York has dropped to 10th in The Power Rank. However, they’re in 3rd place in the East, which would see them into the playoffs. Certainly don’t count them out, but the De Rosario situation illustrates a lingering problem: the lack of a central midfielder who can possess and distribute the ball. De Rosario has always been more of an attacking midfielder, which wasn’t what they needed with their strong array of forwards and wingers. Until they can pick up a true #10, don’t expect them to be able to keep pace with the top sides in MLS.