MLS Week 28 - 2017

Gotham Gator

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Two games tonight, Atlanta hosting New England and Vancouver hosting Minnesota.

Mostly a sleepy weekend. Atlanta has the Saturday afternoon Unimas game, hosting Orlando. The Cows host Philly on Sunday at 1pm on ESPN.
 
Two games tonight, Atlanta hosting New England and Vancouver hosting Minnesota.

Mostly a sleepy weekend. Atlanta has the Saturday afternoon Unimas game, hosting Orlando. The Cows host Philly on Sunday at 1pm on ESPN.
Would like to see Atlanta drop some points. Not only because of the amount of games in hand they have, but would much rather them finish 4/5 in the conference and Chicago 3.

If we can hold on to the 2nd spot, I'd rather have to face a 3rd seed Chicago than a 3rd seed ATL in the semis.
 
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Atlanta vs NE could get ugly. Already 4-0, and NE down to 9 men, and there is still a whole half to play. If Tata is smart, subs should be coming early
 
Atlanta vs NE could get ugly. Already 4-0, and NE down to 9 men, and there is still a whole half to play. If Tata is smart, subs should be coming early
6.

EDIT: 7.
WTF?!?! Did NE even care about playing the game. 2min for the first goal and a straight red at 16min? Guess this is now the Black Gold & Red Wedding.....
 
Very surprised guys like Martinez, Almiron and Villalba went the full 90 for Atlanta. Game was decided by half time and they play again on Saturday
 
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Very surprised guys like Martinez, Almiron and Villalba went the full 90 for Atlanta. Game was decided by half time and they play again on Saturday
They play every 3 days for a while.... gonna be a crazy ride to watch with the goals they're putting up and the fatigue they'll hopefully suffer.
 
Very surprised guys like Martinez, Almiron and Villalba went the full 90 for Atlanta. Game was decided by half time and they play again on Saturday
Agreed. I get Garza and Gonzalez-Pirez being subbed off, as I'm sure they don't get many minutes off. But why take off a guy like Larentowicz? Yeah, he may get more tired easily, but he's an easily replaceable guy (Note I do say this without really having a whole ton of knowledge on their available depth).

And then you have a guy like Josef Martinez who has had some injury troubles, and then a guy like Villalba who hasn't gone full 90 in a while.
 
Agreed. I get Garza and Gonzalez-Pirez being subbed off, as I'm sure they don't get many minutes off. But why take off a guy like Larentowicz? Yeah, he may get more tired easily, but he's an easily replaceable guy (Note I do say this without really having a whole ton of knowledge on their available depth).

And then you have a guy like Josef Martinez who has had some injury troubles, and then a guy like Villalba who hasn't gone full 90 in a while.
Gonzalez-Pirez is also suspended for Saturday's match though, through yellow card suspension, so would have made more sense to give someone else the rest
 
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Gonzalez-Pirez is also suspended for Saturday's match though, through yellow card suspension, so would have made more sense to give someone else the rest
I did not know that. So yeah...unless Gonzalez-Pirez had some kind of knock, why sub him out?
 
Also Atlanta fans are insufferable.

Atlanta has jumped us in fivethirtyeight's MLS Cup prediction
IMG_8279.PNG
 
Because 538 thinks Atlanta's defense is better than ours. Now 538 will say that's because they look at advanced metrics, but we are 3rd in the league in expected goals against per game, and Atlanta is 15th, so who the fuck knows.
 
Because 538 thinks Atlanta's defense is better than ours. Now 538 will say that's because they look at advanced metrics, but we are 3rd in the league in expected goals against per game, and Atlanta is 15th, so who the fuck knows.
I have a feeling its because 538 is somehow still incorporating last year's results in with our defense. Atlanta on the other hand, has no results from last year to pull that defensive rating down.

Either way, I don't really care much, but it really is an odd thing to have their defense rated better than ours.
 
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What's weird to me about the 538 ranking of ATL and NYC is that on basic metrics, ATL kills us on average goals scored per game -- an huge 0.32 -- while their advantage in goals allowed is within the range of noise at 0.05. Also, note that despite the higher SPI and MLS Cup Pct, they project ATL to finish behind NYC in points, due to the existing lead presumably.

Another factor that might still drive ATL's higher SPI ranking at 538 is they spent big $$ on transfer fees.
 
Also Atlanta fans are insufferable.

They don't come close to Sounders fans IMO. My opinion based on comments at mlssoccer.com. Self-absorbed whiners. The longest comment on the ATL/NER game is by a Sounders fan complaining that the Sounders never get VAR calls. It's like that all the time.
 
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I was looking at the MLS disciplinary report today to see who was missing around the league for the upcoming games and realized that Orlando has 4 players missing for tomorrow's match at ATL. Kaka and Carrasco are suspended due to yellow card accumulation and Aja and Hines due to red cards.

The report does not list Gonzalez-Pirez as suspended, though it does have him at the accumulation warning and he did receive a yellow against NER, so don't I think he will be playing.
 
I was looking at the MLS disciplinary report today to see who was missing around the league for the upcoming games and realized that Orlando has 4 players missing for tomorrow's match at ATL. Kaka and Carrasco are suspended due to yellow card accumulation and Aja and Hines due to red cards.

The report does not list Gonzalez-Pirez as suspended, though it does have him at the accumulation warning and he did receive a yellow against NER, so don't I think he will be playing.
Orlando is going to get steamrolled being understrength, so maybe they'll play physical and bang the ATL players enough to sideline them for a few matches??? Nothing gratuitous, but hard tackles everywhere that take a toll on the body for 90min.