2020 Schedule Thread

Keep in mind Ronny has never had to figure the interesting dimensions of YS. Not sure if it will help or hurt our chances changing up the home venue after he's only played at "home" in Orlando and NJ. There's potential we may look even worse on a slightly smaller field.
 
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NYCFC to play remainder of home games at Yankee Stadium

 
NYCFC to play remainder of home games at Yankee Stadium

I kind of enjoyed watching the game on a soccer field.
 
im curious if they gonna take out the mound. the baseball season is done for the year and IIRC they take out it anyway in the offseason. in USL those teams playing in baseball stadiums fully took it out and extended the field to cover that area.
 
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Though I’m not posting much and certainly not planning to resume weekly roundups, I thought this a good time, with 15 games played and 8 games left, to help put NYCFC’s place in the standings and likely finishing range in context.
Screen Shot 2020-10-05 at 7.19.22 AM.png
As a reminder, the East playoffs work like this in 2020: 10 teams make the playoffs. Teams 1-6 get a bye from Round 1. Teams 7-10 play in Round 1 and the 2 winners join teams 5 and 6 as visitors in Round 2. NYCFC currently sits in 5th place. There’s a decent gap between the top 4 and the 5-6 teams. If those teams stay on pace, it will require 43 or more points to crack the top 4.
Screen Shot 2020-10-05 at 8.05.37 AM.png
Getting there would require a near perfect finish. Of course it will not take a major slump for one or more of those top 4 teams to fall off and make it more reachable. One obstacle, however, is that NYCFC has a remaining schedule that comparatively is pretty tough, and the 4th place team has an extremely easy remaining schedule. Toronto has benefitted from an easy schedule to date, and various advanced stats say Columbus has been lucky and/or pluckily overachieved (take your pick). But their 8 point leads over NYCFC will be pretty tough to overcome in 8 remaining games.
Screen Shot 2020-10-05 at 7.20.06 AM.png
Those opposing PPG figures are H/A adjusted. I’m a bit surprised at how much the Home/Away advantage has held in a season where games are mostly played without fans, some “home” games are being held in different cities (and even different countries) and each team had 3 games where the H/A distinction was entirely theoretical. This year Home teams are getting 1.58 PPG and Away 1.17. Last year, those figures were 1.79 and 0.98 respectively. It is a diminished effect, but still quite potent.

On the good news/bad news front, NYCFC's schedule includes games against Orlando, Columbus,and Toronto, all Away and all in the space of 2 weeks (with a Home game against Montreal mixed in). The opportunity to move up is there but that's a tough road.

So, making top 4 is not out of the question but seemingly a long shot. On the other hand, if NYCFC can outperform the simple projection by one win and get 38 points, it becomes almost as hard for the Red Bulls to catch NYCFC as it is for NYCFC to catch the top 4. So though nothing is certain by any means, I suspect it is solidly more than a 50% chance that NYCFC stays in the same playoff bucket, with a bye in Round 1 and an Away game in Round 2.

As a final NYCFC note, prorated for a 23 game season, NYCFC just extended its streak of having at least one Designated Player miss at least 10 games in every season of its existence. In a 23-game season, the proportional equivalent of 10 games is 6.7, and Maxi has now missed 7 games. With 3 games scheduled in the next 10 days, unless Maxi gets better very quickly he is likely to miss 10 even in the shortened season, which would be quite the dubious achievement extended for NYCFC.

As a final MLS note, I can't help but think we're headed to another Toronto-Seattle matchup in the MLS Cup, and if a global pandemic can't shake us out of that rut then it really isn't good for anything, is it?
 
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View attachment 10902

Though I’m not posting much and certainly not planning to resume weekly roundups, I thought this a good time, with 15 games played and 8 games left, to help put NYCFC’s place in the standings and likely finishing range in context.
View attachment 10905
As a reminder, the East playoffs work like this in 2020: 10 teams make the playoffs. Teams 1-6 get a bye from Round 1. Teams 7-10 play in Round 1 and the 2 winners join teams 5 and 6 as visitors in Round 2. NYCFC currently sits in 5th place. There’s a decent gap between the top 4 and the 5-6 teams. If those teams stay on pace, it will require 43 or more points to crack the top 4.
View attachment 10906
Getting there would require a near perfect finish. Of course it will not take a major slump for one or more of those top 4 teams to fall off and make it more reachable. One obstacle, however, is that NYCFC has a remaining schedule that comparatively is pretty tough, and the 4th place team has an extremely easy remaining schedule. Toronto has benefitted from an easy schedule to date, and various advanced stats say Columbus has been lucky and/or pluckily overachieved (take your pick). But their 8 point leads over NYCFC will be pretty tough to overcome in 8 remaining games.
View attachment 10903
Those opposing PPG figures are H/A adjusted. I’m a bit surprised at how much the Home/Away advantage has held in a season where games are mostly played without fans, some “home” games are being held in different cities (and even different countries) and each team had 3 games where the H/A distinction was entirely theoretical. This year Home teams are getting 1.58 PPG and Away 1.17. Last year, those figures were 1.79 and 0.98 respectively. It is a diminished effect, but still quite potent.

On the good news/bad news front, NYCFC's schedule includes games against Orlando, Columbus,and Toronto, all Away and all in the space of 2 weeks (with a Home game against Montreal mixed in). The opportunity to move up is there but that's a tough road.

So, making top 4 is not out of the question but seemingly a long shot. On the other hand, if NYCFC can outperform the simple projection by one win and get 38 points, it becomes almost as hard for the Red Bulls to catch NYCFC as it is for NYCFC to catch the top 4. So though nothing is certain by any means, I suspect it is solidly more than a 50% chance that NYCFC stays in the same playoff bucket, with a bye in Round 1 and an Away game in Round 2.

As a final NYCFC note, prorated for a 23 game season, NYCFC just extended its streak of having at least one Designated Player miss at least 10 games in every season of its existence. In a 23-game season, the proportional equivalent of 10 games is 6.7, and Maxi has now missed 7 games. With 3 games scheduled in the next 10 days, unless Maxi gets better very quickly he is likely to miss 10 even in the shortened season, which would be quite the dubious achievement extended for NYCFC.

As a final MLS note, I can't help but think we're headed to another Toronto-Seattle matchup in the MLS Cup, and if a global pandemic can't shake us out of that rut then it really isn't good for anything, is it?
Miss these things :)

One thing I'm not understanding is we're currently on 35 points but you have that with 3 - 2 -3 we'd still be on 35 points... wouldn't we be on 35 + 12 = 47? So how does the Total Pts. column you calculated work?
 
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Miss these things :)

One thing I'm not understanding is we're currently on 35 points but you have that with 3 - 2 -3 we'd still be on 35 points... wouldn't we be on 35 + 12 = 47? So how does the Total Pts. column you calculated work?
We're not on 35 points now, we're on 23.

The first table shows we have 23 points and project to 35.27 if we get exactly the same PPG in the remaining games. The second table shows what the projected points will be with various results over the last 8 games. So 3-2-3 = 9 points from wins and 3 points from ties = 12 points, which added to 23 - 35 total.
 
We're not on 35 points now, we're on 23.

The first table shows we have 23 points and project to 35.27 if we get exactly the same PPG in the remaining games. The second table shows what the projected points will be with various results over the last 8 games. So 3-2-3 = 9 points from wins and 3 points from ties = 12 points, which added to 23 - 35 total.
We're currently on 23 points.

Ah crap, my weird fantasy world had us at 35 pts. And also I might have seen the "projected" as real even though it had decimals. Dumb itai!
sorry! heh.
 
Remember all those points dropped due to incorrect ref decisions? (RBNJ goal that didn’t cross the line, GMS goal incorrectly called back due to handball, the DC game, the Pozuelo penalty)...those points would be mighty nice to try to get in top 4.

So basically NYCFC will be a mid table team and promptly lose in the playoffs. Pretty much where we thought we’d be.
 
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Remember all those points dropped due to incorrect ref decisions? (RBNJ goal that didn’t cross the line, GMS goal incorrectly called back due to handball, the DC game, the Pozuelo penalty)...those points would be mighty nice to try to get in top 4.

So basically NYCFC will be a mid table team and promptly lose in the playoffs. Pretty much where we thought we’d be.

Yeah, I’m keeping a count. We’re down 8 points because of PRO.
 
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Yeah, I’m keeping a count. We’re down 8 points because of PRO.
What other bad calls are you counting in this from other games? Based on that post, I'm seeing 4 points there.
  • RBNJ goal cost us 1 point (draw instead of loss)
  • GMS goal incorrectly called back cost us 2 points (win instead of draw)
  • The DC game is the same game as the GMS goal
  • The Pozuelo penalty cost us 1 point (draw instead of loss)
 
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What other bad calls are you counting in this from other games? Based on that post, I'm seeing 4 points there.
  • RBNJ goal cost us 1 point (draw instead of loss)
  • GMS goal incorrectly called back cost us 2 points (win instead of draw)
  • The DC game is the same game as the GMS goal
  • The Pozuelo penalty cost us 1 point (draw instead of loss)

Thought the GMS and DC handball game was different. So just 6 points lower due to PRO.

Also the 1-0 loss to Philadelphia in the MLS is Back was a regular season game. During the Philadelphia goal, I believe the Taty was fouled before the goal was scored. Maybe another point there.