2019 MLS East/West Interconference Play Thread

[mgarbowski]

March and Season to Date - 14 Games
East Record 6-6-2
At Home 5-1-1
On Road 1-5-1
Goal Differential -1
East Points 20
West Points 20

It was a remarkably even and symmetrical month. Each conference had seven home games. Both went 5-1-1- at home. Tiny goal differential advantage to the West.

 

[mgarbowski]

April - 25 Games
East Record 7-12-6
At Home 6-6-2
On Road 1-6-4
Goal Differential -12
East Points 27
West Points 42

Season to Date
East Record 13-18-8
At Home 11-7-3
On Road 2-11-5
Goal Differential -13
East Points 47
West Points 62

Until the last 2 weeks I've been pushing back on the idea that the West is dominating the East, but overall this month, the West won as many games in East venues as the East did, and most of that came in the last 2 weeks where the East had a 8-4 advantage in Home games, but the West won 2 more games.

 

[mgarbowski]

May - 29 Games
East Record 11-13-5
At Home 7-2-3 (12)
On Road 4-11-2 (17)
Goal Differential -1
East Points 38
West Points 44

Season to Date
East Record 24-31-13
At Home 18-9-6 (33)
On Road 6-22-7 (35)
Goal Differential -13
East Points 85
West Points 106

Midway through the month the East caught up and even had a slightly better record than the West. Then the West went 11-3-4 in the second half of May through last night and the West now has 7 more wins than the East with the benefit of a much smaller advantage in Home games to date. There is a pretty big variance in how many interconference games teams have played. NYC has only 3. Red Bulls and Cincinnati have 6. Philly has 7.

 

[mgarbowski]

June - 14 Games
East Record 6-5-3
At Home 4-2-3 (9)
On Road 2-3-0 (5)
Goal Differential -5
East Points 21
West Points 18

Season to Date
East Record 30-36-16
At Home 22-11-9 (42)
On Road 8-25-7 (40)
Goal Differential -18
East Points 106
West Points 124

A winning record for the East in June, but that's deceptive because the H/A advantage should have yielded more wins.
One bright spot for the East is that Cincinnati played 9 of its 12 interconference games through June. Take the Cincinnati games out of the totals above and the East record is 29-29-15. I'm not saying the Cincinnati games should not count but with most of them out of the way, it might be reasonable to expect that the East record improves going forward. Going into July CFC had only 3 IC games left, and they won the first of those last week already. So they only have 2 IC games left, Home to Vancouver and Away to Dallas.
NYCFC has 7 IC games left, and the five they played (record 2-1-2) were against the top 4 teams in the West table, plus a Portland team whose record is misleading due to a ridiculous imbalance between Home and Away games to date. It is not inconceivable for NYC to feast on the bottom half of the West for the rest of the year.

 

[adam]

June - 14 Games
East Record 6-5-3
At Home 4-2-3 (9)
On Road 2-3-0 (5)
Goal Differential -5
East Points 21
West Points 18

Season to Date
East Record 30-36-16
At Home 22-11-9 (42)
On Road 8-25-7 (40)
Goal Differential -18
East Points 106
West Points 124

A winning record for the East in May, but that's deceptive because the H/A advantage should have yielded more wins.
One bright spot for the East is that Cincinnati played 9 of its 12 interconference games through June. Take the Cincinnati games out of the totals above and the East record is 29-29-15. I'm not saying the Cincinnati games should not count but with most of them out of the way, it might be reasonable to expect that the East record improves going forward. Going into July CFC had only 3 IC games left, and they won the first of those last week already. So they only have 2 IC games left, Home to Vancouver and Away to Dallas.
NYCFC has 7 IC games left, and the five they played (record 2-1-2) were against the top 4 teams in the West table, plus a Portland team whose record is misleading due to a ridiculous imbalance between Home and Away games to date. It is not inconceivable for NYC to feast on the bottom half of the West for the rest of the year.

We’re as cursed in SLC as we are vs POR @ home.

 

[mgarbowski]

We’re as cursed in SLC as we are vs POR @ home.

I knew where you meant but it took me 5 minutes to figure out SLC. I'm like how do you get SLC from RSL or Rio Tinto.

 

[adam]

I knew where you meant but it took me 5 minutes to figure out SLC. I'm like how do you get SLC from RSL or Rio Tinto.

Like this:

 

[mgarbowski]

Like this:

View attachment 9977

Now do Carnegie Hall.

 

[Ulrich]

I knew where you meant but it took me 5 minutes to figure out SLC. I'm like how do you get SLC from RSL or Rio Tinto.

Think of it as the rebranding like how the Mormons now go by The Later Day Saints.

 

[adam]

Now do Carnegie Hall.

 

[mgarbowski]

July - 20 Games
East Record 7-12-1
At Home 5-4-0 (9)
On Road 2-8-1 (11)
Goal Differential -4
East Points 22
West Points 37

Season to Date
East Record 37-48-17
At Home 27-15-9 (51)
On Road 10-33-8 (51)
Goal Differential -22
East Points 128
West Points 161

It's becoming something of a rout (and as a preview, the first weekend in August continued the trend). The pattern is pretty consistent, as well. The East wins most of its home games, but not by much, while the West wins a much higher percentage of its home games. It's that simple.

 

[SoupInNYC]

Weird scheduling quirk I just noticed when looking at the standings instead of working.

We've all been super aware about the games in hand we have on teams in the East and for the last couple of weeks, we've generally been floating between 1st and 2nd on PPG, but 4th-6th on actual points in the East. To date, we've played 21 games and the next closest in the East is at 24 and the rest are at 25.

In the West, there are only two teams that have played 24 or 25 games (Dallas and Vancouver). Everyone else is at 23 with Portland at 22.

In the East, average number of games played is 24.1667, in the West it is 23.1667, a full game behind the East.

If you remove NYC from the East's average, it rises to 24.4545.

ETA: This isn't really East vs West interconference play-related, but wasn't sure where else to put this.

 

[Shwafta]

Weird scheduling quirk I just noticed when looking at the standings instead of working.

We've all been super aware about the games in hand we have on teams in the East and for the last couple of weeks, we've generally been floating between 1st and 2nd on PPG, but 4th-6th on actual points in the East. To date, we've played 21 games and the next closest in the East is at 24 and the rest are at 25.

In the West, there are only two teams that have played 24 or 25 games (Dallas and Vancouver). Everyone else is at 23 with Portland at 22.

In the East, average number of games played is 24.1667, in the West it is 23.1667, a full game behind the East.

If you remove NYC from the East's average, it rises to 24.4545.

ETA: This isn't really East vs West interconference play-related, but wasn't sure where else to put this.

I noticed this today during the game too!

 

[mgarbowski]

Weird scheduling quirk I just noticed when looking at the standings instead of working.

We've all been super aware about the games in hand we have on teams in the East and for the last couple of weeks, we've generally been floating between 1st and 2nd on PPG, but 4th-6th on actual points in the East. To date, we've played 21 games and the next closest in the East is at 24 and the rest are at 25.

In the West, there are only two teams that have played 24 or 25 games (Dallas and Vancouver). Everyone else is at 23 with Portland at 22.

In the East, average number of games played is 24.1667, in the West it is 23.1667, a full game behind the East.

If you remove NYC from the East's average, it rises to 24.4545.

ETA: This isn't really East vs West interconference play-related, but wasn't sure where else to put this.

It's not anything I've ever drawn attention to, but this is also shown in my PPG Standings table every week. The most recent update shows the East with 290 GP and the West with 278, which is 12 games which is: 1 extra game per team.

 

[mgarbowski]

August - 24 Games
East Record 10-10-4
At Home 7-3-1(11)
On Road 3-7-3 (13)
Goal Differential -4
East Points 34
West Points 34

Season to Date
East Record 47-58-21
At Home 34-18-10 (62)
On Road 13-40-11 (64)
Goal Differential -26
East Points 162
West Points 195

Decent month for the East, managing to match the West in wins despite 2 fewer Home games, but it is clear the West is going to win the H2H matchups this year. There should be 18 games remaining and the West's 11 win lead is effectively insurmountable.

NYCFC is 6-2-2 against the West after beating Vancouver last night.