MLS Cup Playoffs - Conference Semifinals - 2017

Gotham Gator

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Leg 1
Sunday, October 29, 8:30PM: Vancouver vs. Seattle (ESPN)
Monday, October 30, 7:00PM: New Jersey vs. Toronto (FS1)
Monday, October 30, 9:30PM: Houston vs. Portland (FS1)
Tuesday, October 31, 8:00PM: Columbus vs. New York City (ESPN)

Leg 2
Thursday, November 2, 10:30PM: Seattle vs. Vancouver (FS1)
Sunday, November 5, 3:00PM: Toronto vs. New Jersey (ESPN)
Sunday, November 5, TBD: New York City vs. Columbus (TBD)
Sunday, November 5, TBD: Portland vs. Houston (TBD)
 
Well leg 1 of Seattle - Vancouver is in the books.

0-0. I almost feel like Vancouver has an edge based on their play and how they can take the series with just a draw that includes an away goal.
 
Watching any Western Conference team other than PTFC is just dire.

The Sounders are utterly impossible to actually focus on for 90 minutes, as is VAN.

I don’t get how these teams play so shit every time I turn them on.
 
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only watched the first half...boring ass game...watched some of that WS instead.

btw....every "cascadia" game i have watched since maybe 2016 has not been great... maybe it was just bad luck but there is so much hype then the games have been meh
 
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Sorry if this image has already been posted, but this must have been created by the guy who sculpted the Ronaldo bust.

DNYurdMWAAAIlGu.jpg:large
 
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Tonight should be great. Red Bulls and Toronto is a terrific matchup. Houston at Portland is also intriguing. The Dynamo are terrible on the road - especially defensively - and they will be pushing for some road goals in this one. EDIT - while last sentence is true, Dynamo are at home tonight.
 
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Tonight should be great. Red Bulls and Toronto is a terrific matchup. Houston at Portland is also intriguing. The Dynamo are terrible on the road - especially defensively - and they will be pushing for some road goals in this one.
I want NJ to win tonight but at a cost of many yellow cards for both teams. Make Toronto really exert themselves in Leg2 and hope additional yellows knock players out for whichever team advances.

If Toronto wins tonight, I’d guess the series is essentially over and they can Coast/Counter attack all game long in Leg2 thus running up the score like they did to us last year.
 
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Tonight should be great. Red Bulls and Toronto is a terrific matchup. Houston at Portland is also intriguing. The Dynamo are terrible on the road - especially defensively - and they will be pushing for some road goals in this one.

Portland AT Houston tonight. Houston are great at home.
 
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Portland AT Houston tonight. Houston are great at home.

UGH UGH UGH - how did I miss that.

Still an interesting game. Yes, they are great at home - especially on offense. Can they get a big enough lead to give them a big edge going into the second leg. More importantly, can they do that while keeping Portland from scoring too many goals.
 
The Red Fools have a serious challenge ahead of them - Toronto appear to be the most dominant regular season champion in MLS history. Not only did they run up a record of 69 points, but they hold a 12-point advantage over the 2nd place team, which is a huge gap. Plus, they did all this playing in the Eastern Conference, meaning they had a very challenging schedule. Toronto played 9 games against the teams ranked 2-5 in the Supporters' Shield standings.

That said, New Jersey may be the best #6 seed in a long time. They ended up 9th overall in the Supporters' Shield standings, with 50 points. Their high press is a challenge to play against, and they appear to be playing closer to their mid-season form when they won 5 of 6 and 7 of 10 rather than their recent slump in which they went winless in 8 games, with 5 draws.

So, what does NJ need to do tonight to position itself for a chance at a series victory on the return to Toronto?

I think they need to win or draw while giving up at most 1 goal. That way, they can look to score twice in Toronto and steal the series on the away goal rule. I think managing to that result for them could be difficult. New Jersey is not a team that can or will sit back, and if Toronto is effective breaking their pressure, they have the firepower to finish multiple times. New Jersey can't afford to give Toronto too much space once the pressure is broken, and they can't afford cheap fouls in the final third that give Giovinco a chance to put one in.
 
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Toronto appear to be the most dominant regular season champion in MLS history. Not only did they run up a record of 69 points, but they hold a 12-point advantage over the 2nd place team, which is a huge gap. Plus, they did all this playing in the Eastern Conference, meaning they had a very challenging schedule. Toronto played 9 games against the teams ranked 2-5 in the Supporters' Shield standings.
American Soccer Analysis would disagree.
According to them, Toronto had the league's easiest schedule, and NYC had the second easiest. They weighted everyone's schedule game by game, with H/A adjustments (so it's much easier to play Houston at your home than in Houston). I have not dug into it to see if there are any non-obvious weaknesses, but their basic approach seems legit.
 
American Soccer Analysis would disagree.
According to them, Toronto had the league's easiest schedule, and NYC had the second easiest. They weighted everyone's schedule game by game, with H/A adjustments (so it's much easier to play Houston at your home than in Houston). I have not dug into it to see if there are any non-obvious weaknesses, but their basic approach seems legit.

Interestingly, that analysis concludes that Columbus should have finished ahead of us, given balanced schedules. I manipulated the data to produce these crude "expected" standings:

E Toronto 64.93
E Columbus 58.21
E Chicago 54.13
E NYC 53.77
E Atlanta 53.26
E NYRB 51.8
E New England 49.87
E Philadelphia 42.59
E Orlando 41.88
E Montreal 41.22
E DC 32.99

W Vancouver 51.81
W Seattle 51.7
W Portland 51.36
W Houston 48.28
W Sporting KC 46.31
W San Jose 45.17
W Real Salt Lake 44.99
W Dallas 44.07
W Minnesota 35.43
W Colorado 33.1
W Los Angeles 31.66

EDIT: Eat the above with lots of salt. See Adam's critique below.
 
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Interestingly, that analysis concludes that Columbus should have finished ahead of us, given balanced schedules. I manipulated the data to produce these crude "expected" standings:

E Toronto 64.93
E Columbus 58.21
E Chicago 54.13
E NYC 53.77
E Atlanta 53.26
E NYRB 51.8
E New England 49.87
E Philadelphia 42.59
E Orlando 41.88
E Montreal 41.22
E DC 32.99

W Vancouver 51.81
W Seattle 51.7
W Portland 51.36
W Houston 48.28
W Sporting KC 46.31
W San Jose 45.17
W Real Salt Lake 44.99
W Dallas 44.07
W Minnesota 35.43
W Colorado 33.1
W Los Angeles 31.66

But... those strength of schedules were created based on points this season. Take away or add points and then you have to recalibrate again.
 
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Another thing. When weighting schedules, the analysis does not use an opponent's points per game - it uses its points per game home or away depending on where the game is played. While it is true that teams are better home or away, and that some teams are better than others at one or the other, I think the average points per game home/away can lead to a lot of misleading results.

Think back to us last season getting poor home results, starting 1-3-5, and then we finished 7-0-1. Was there some magical change in the way we played at home? No. We started playing better overall, and that and some better luck made the difference.

To put it another way, the team they cite in the article, New England, averaged 2.29 points at home and 0.35 points on the road. Are we really to believe that on the road they are so bad that DC completely outclasses them, yet at home they are the best thing this side of Toronto. OR, is the more reasonable assumption that the real trend lies somewhere in between for both.

Remember that every team plays 17 at home and 17 away. And every team plays effectively the same schedule as every other team in its conference, save for the 3 (out of 34) games against a 3rd opponent. And in between conferences, there is also the more important difference of the 10 extra games played within each conference - and for that we should rightly recognize the fact that Eastern Conference teams played a tougher schedule than their brethren in the Western Conference. Apart from that, no team has to play itself, which is hardly something anyone should hold against it.
 
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Another thing. When weighting schedules, the analysis does not use an opponent's points per game - it uses its points per game home or away depending on where the game is played. While it is true that teams are better home or away, and that some teams are better than others at one or the other, I think the average points per game home/away can lead to a lot of misleading results.

Think back to us last season getting poor home results, starting 1-3-5, and then we finished 7-0-1. Was there some magical change in the way we played at home? No. We started playing better overall, and that and some better luck made the difference.

To put it another way, the team they cite in the article, New England, averaged 2.29 points at home and 0.35 points on the road. Are we really to believe that on the road they are so bad that DC completely outclasses them, yet at home they are the best thing this side of Toronto. OR, is the more reasonable assumption that the real trend lies somewhere in between for both.

Remember that every team plays 17 at home and 17 away. And every team plays effectively the same schedule as every other team in its conference, save for the 3 (out of 34) games against a 3rd opponent. And in between conferences, there is also the more important difference of the 10 extra games played within each conference - and for that we should rightly recognize the fact that Eastern Conference teams played a tougher schedule than their brethren in the Western Conference. Apart from that, no team has to play itself, which is hardly something anyone should hold against it.

The ASA formula is weak, but better than any I can think of. I disagree with your argument against the H/A effect it uses, but even if I marshal the factual basis for that opinion I don't see it changing anyone's mind, because it's too uncertain anyway. I disagree, but you could be right.
 
RBA looks pretty empty.

Edit: if I didn’t have my daughter tonight, I may have gone for $13 to sit close to the pitch. And they still can’t fill it. Sad.

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RBA is disgustingly empty for all the shit talking the fans did about the Chicago match
 
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