Climbing the Ladder

MLS Foul Awards 2009

2009-11-02T04:47:00.000-06:00

Ladies and gentlemen, it's that time of the year again. The regular season is over, so now we can look at the official numbers for fouls committed and fouls suffered and put them in the context of "per 90 minutes" rather than just raw totals. Which players will lead in the eight categories below?

1. Most Fouls Committed
2. Least Fouls Committed
3. Most Fouls Suffered
4. Least Fouls Suffered
5. Most FC Compared to FS
6. Most FS Compared to FC
7. Most FC + FS
8. Least FC + FS

Rules:

Players must have played 20% of the season, in minutes. This year, that was 540 out of 2700.
Field players only, no goalkeepers.

Total Fouls (1996-2009):

	FC	FS	Diff	Games	FC	FS
1996	4432	4386	46	160	27.70	27.41
1997	4583	4579	4	160	28.64	28.62
1998	5402	5132	270	192	28.14	26.73
1999	5551	5285	266	192	28.91	27.53
2000	6489	6236	253	192	33.80	32.48
2001	5211	4966	245	158	32.98	31.43
2002	4559	4364	195	140	32.56	31.17
2003	4836	4584	252	150	32.24	30.56
2004	4573	4348	225	150	30.49	28.99
2005	5670	5432	238	192	29.53	28.29
2006	5573	5297	276	192	29.03	27.59
2007	5524	5232	292	195	28.33	26.83
2008	5211	4880	331	210	24.81	23.24
2009	5146	4729	417	225	22.87	21.02

As you can see, this year and last the number of fouls called is way down. Refs have been instructed to not interrupt the flow of the game as much, for better or worse. That explains the Seattle-Houston game last week, huh?

Why the difference in FC and FS? First of all, stats for goalkeepers haven't been listed since 2004. That would only make up a couple dozen fouls, though. I can only assume it's due to handballs.

Also, remember for this table that the average length of a game in 2000-3 was a bit longer due to OT. Now, on to the awards.

1. Most Fouls Committed

And the winner is...

Rookie forward Quincy Amarikwa of the San Jose Earthquakes. Would you have guessed that he commits the most fouls per 90 minutes? The last two recipients of this award were not in the league the next year; I think he'll break that streak.

2009 Top Ten

		Team	Per 90	Min	FC
1	Quincy Amarikwa	SJ	3.588	602	24
2	Alan Gordon	LA	2.911	1175	38
3	Steven Lenhart	CLB	2.789	1065	33
4	Conor Casey	COL	2.674	2087	62
5	Eduardo Lillingston	CHV	2.637	1263	37
6	Edson Buddle	LA	2.582	1255	36
7	Pablo Campos	SJ/RSL	2.582	1011	29
8	Ben Olsen	DC	2.363	1371	36
9	Marcelo Saragosa	DAL/CHV	2.335	1272	33
10	Cam Weaver	SJ/HOU	2.332	772	20

Gordon's name should be no surprise - this is his third time in the top ten (2006, 2008). Same thing for Olsen and Saragosa, grizzled veterans of the fouls committed category. They're here for the 5th and 4th times respectively.

All Time Winners

1996	Jose Vasquez	LA
1997	Paul Keegan	NE
1998	Paul Keegan	NE
1999	Paulo Dos Santos	NE
2000	Matt Okoh	COL
2001	Matt Okoh	NE
2002	Raul Palacios	COL
2003	Carlos Ruiz	LA
2004	Jesse Marsch	CHI
2005	Brian Ching	SJ
2006	Marcelo Saragosa	LA/DAL
2007	Roberto Brown	COL
2008	Rod Dyachenko	DC
2009	Quincy Amarikwa	SJ

2. Least Fouls Committed

And the winner is...

The two-time winner of the MLS Fair Play Award, New England's Steve Ralston. This is his 4th top ten appearance in this category. Ralston should probably thank Rapids coach Gary Smith in his acceptance speech. Smith released the three-time defending champion, Terry Cooke. Cooke was on pace for a top ten appearance, but didn't have enough minutes to qualify. Who knows if he could've won again?

2009 Top Ten

		Team	Per 90	Min	FC
1	Steve Ralston	NE	0.233	1543	4
2	Jacob Peterson	COL	0.239	1131	3
3	Justin Mapp	CHI	0.267	1013	3
4	Eric Denton	SJ	0.336	803	3
5	Richard Mulrooney	HOU	0.357	1260	5
6	Steve Zakuani	SEA	0.406	1993	9
7	Brian McBride	CHI	0.413	1963	9
8	Josh Tudela	LA	0.424	637	3
9	Kelly Gray	SJ	0.427	632	3
10	Sebastien Le Toux	SEA	0.432	1457	7

Peterson's here for a second straight year in the top ten, while Denton/Gray/McBride also all made their second top tens.

All Time Winners

1996	Billy Thompson	CLB
1997	David Patino	COL
1998	Gerell Elliot	DAL
1999	Kevin Knight	NY
2000	Carlos Valderrama	TB
2001	Robert Fraser	COL
2002	Richard Farrer	DAL
2003	Jesus Ochoa	LA
2004	Kelly Gray	CHI
2005	Michael Parkhurst	NE
2006	Terry Cooke	COL
2007	Terry Cooke	COL
2008	Terry Cooke	COL
2009	Steve Ralston	NE

3. Most Fouls Suffered

And the winner is...

Seattle Sounders designated player Freddie Ljungberg. This award has now gone to a DP in each season since the rule was passed.

2009 Top Ten

		Team	Per 90	Min	FS
1	Freddie Ljungberg	SEA	3.284	1836	67
2	Fredy Montero	SEA	2.517	2217	62
3	Cuauhtemoc Blanco	CHI	2.417	1452	39
4	Macoumba Kandji	NY	2.414	1752	47
5	Javier Morales	RSL	2.384	2076	55
6	Ben Olsen	DC	2.298	1371	35
7	Santiago Hirsig	KC	2.218	2110	52
8	Pablo Vitti	TOR	2.182	1650	40
9	Robbie Rogers	CLB	2.159	1709	41
10	Brian Ching	HOU	2.150	1549	37

Blanco's finished in the top three in each of his MLS seasons. Rogers is back for a second consecutive season, while Ching and Olsen make their 4th top tens. Olsen completes a double by being in the top ten for both fouls committed and suffered. That's not exactly rare, however. Adam Cristman, Danny Dichio, and Andrea Lombardo all did it in 2007.

Reigning MVP Guillermo Barros Schelotto made the past two top tens in 2007-8. Where is he now? 32nd, right after A.J. DeLaGarza. Alejandro Moreno, who's normally a lock for this top ten, was only 13th. His teammate Steven Lenhart, who started over him in the playoff opener, was right up there at 19th.

All Time Winners

1996	Giuseppe Galderisi	NE/TB
1997	Damian	DAL
1998	Diego Serna	MIA
1999	Jason Moore	DC
2000	DaMarcus Beasley	CHI
2001	Onandi Lowe	KC
2002	DaMarcus Beasley	CHI
2003	Jose Cancela	NE
2004	Davy Arnaud	KC
2005	Alejandro Moreno	SJ
2006	Jose Cancela	NE
2007	Cuauhtemoc Blanco	CHI
2008	Marcelo Gallardo	DC
2009	Freddie Ljungberg	SEA

4. Least Fouls Suffered

And the winner is...

Chivas USA defender Shavar Thomas has not only won the award, he's also set an all time record. He was only fouled once in 1,459 minutes of playing time; that should be pretty hard to break. Thomas and runner up Sam Cronin both eclipsed Ezra Hendrickson's record which lasted all of one year.

2009 Top Ten

		Team	Per 90	Min	FS
1	Shavar Thomas	CHV	0.062	1459	1
2	Sam Cronin	TOR	0.076	2363	2
3	Chris Tierney	NE	0.172	1044	2
4	Jim Brennan	TOR	0.218	2478	6
5	Simon Elliott	SJ	0.219	1234	3
6	Darrius Barnes	NE	0.233	2700	7
7	Bobby Burling	CHV/SJ	0.252	713	2
8	Scott Palguta	COL	0.257	1749	5
9	Josh Tudela	LA	0.283	637	2
10	Aaron Pitchkolan	DAL/SJ	0.285	631	2

Thomas also made the top ten in 2003. Brennan and Pitchkolan are here for a second time also.

All Time Winners

1996	Richard Weiszmann	NE
1997	Joey Martinez	DAL
1998	Kris Kelderman	MIA
1999	Leo Cullen	MIA
2000	Brian Johnson	KC
2001	Edson Buddle	CLB
2002	Zak Ibsen	SJ
2003	Daouda Kante	NE
2004	Hong Myung-Bo	LA
2005	Kenny Cutler	RSL
2006	Kelly Gray	HOU
2007	Bobby Boswell	DC
2008	Ezra Hendrickson	CLB
2009	Shavar Thomas	CHV

5. Most FC Compared to FS

And the winner is...

San Jose's Quincy Amarikwa wins his second award. He committed 2.093 more fouls per 90 minutes than he suffered. For the fourth straight year, the winner of Most FC also wins Most FC compared to FS. You'd think that happens every year, but it actually never happened in the league's first ten seasons.

2009 Top Ten

		Team	Per 90	Min	FC	FS	FC	FS
1	Quincy Amarikwa	SJ	2.093	602	24	10	3.59	1.50
2	Rodney Wallace	DC	1.629	2265	52	11	2.07	0.44
3	Jovan Kirovski	LA	1.498	1202	30	10	2.25	0.75
4	Eduardo Lillingston	CHV	1.496	1263	37	16	2.64	1.14
5	Edson Buddle	LA	1.434	1255	36	16	2.58	1.15
6	Aaron Pitchkolan	DAL/SJ	1.426	631	12	2	1.71	0.29
7	Yamith Cuesta	CHV	1.374	786	15	3	1.72	0.34
8	Julius James	HOU/DC	1.334	1214	25	7	1.85	0.52
9	Atiba Harris	CHV/DAL	1.178	2139	55	27	2.31	1.14
10	Andy Iro	CLB	1.141	631	12	4	1.71	0.57

I know Kirovski gets bashed a lot already, but shouldn't a creative player like him (right?) do better in this category? Second top tens for Harris/Pitchkolan (both 2007).

All Time Winners

1996	Curt Onalfo	LA
1997	Cle Kooiman	TB
1998	Cle Kooiman	MIA
1999	Geoff Aunger	DC
2000	Ricardo Iribarren	DAL
2001	Brian Namoff	DC
2002	Raul Palacios	COL
2003	Diego Walsh	CLB
2004	Simo Valakari	DAL
2005	Esteban Arias	CHV
2006	Marcelo Saragosa	LA/DAL
2007	Roberto Brown	COL
2008	Rod Dyachenko	DC
2009	Quincy Amarikwa	SJ

6. Most FS Compared to FC

And the winner is...

Three years, three wins in this category for the Chicago Fire's Cuauhtemoc Blanco, who just edges out Ljungberg. The winning number of 1.798 more FS per 90 minutes than FC is by far the lowest #1 total in league history, 26% lower than Blanco's total last year (the previous low #1).

2009 Top Ten

		Team	Per 90	Min	FC	FS	FC	FS
1	Cuauhtemoc Blanco	CHI	-1.798	1452	10	39	0.62	2.42
2	Freddie Ljungberg	SEA	-1.765	1836	31	67	1.52	3.28
3	Amaechi Igwe	NE	-1.290	628	5	14	0.72	2.01
4	Santino Quaranta	DC	-1.272	1769	15	40	0.76	2.04
5	Justin Mapp	CHI	-1.244	1013	3	17	0.27	1.51
6	David Ferreira	DAL	-1.170	2692	23	58	0.77	1.94
7	Brian McBride	CHI	-1.100	1963	9	33	0.41	1.51
8	Javier Morales	RSL	-1.084	2076	30	55	1.30	2.38
9	Mike Banner	CHI	-1.051	942	6	17	0.57	1.62
10	Jair Benitez	DAL	-0.935	1155	10	22	0.78	1.71

Look at all the Fire players. Does this mean they're a creative team, or just soft? They did win the team fair play award this year by a wide margin. Mapp (5th) and McBride (7th) make this top ten on what seems like a yearly basis. Also, Igwe...really? He did barely qualify with 628 minutes, so I wonder how a full season would look.

All Time Winners

1996	Giuseppe Galderisi	NE/TB
1997	Damian	DAL
1998	Gilmar	TB
1999	Jason Moore	DC
2000	DaMarcus Beasley	CHI
2001	Onandi Lowe	KC
2002	Brian McBride	CLB
2003	Jose Cancela	NE
2004	Jose Cancela	NE
2005	Jose Cancela	NE
2006	Jose Cancela	NE
2007	Cuauhtemoc Blanco	CHI
2008	Cuauhtemoc Blanco	CHI
2009	Cuauhtemoc Blanco	CHI

7. Most FC + FS

And the winner is...

San Jose's Quincy Amarikwa is a triple winner. Sure it's a small sample size (602 minutes), barely over the 20% minimum, but rules are rules. The only other player to win three foul awards in a single year was Onandi Lowe of KC in 2001. Lowe played over 1,000 minutes that year and set a record for the highest fouls suffered rate, which is a pretty good accomplishment. The interesting thing will be watching Amarikwa next year and seeing if this holds up.

2009 Top Ten

		Team	Per 90	Min	FC	FS	FC	FS
1	Quincy Amarikwa	SJ	5.083	602	24	10	3.59	1.50
2	Alan Gordon	LA	5.055	1175	38	28	2.91	2.14
3	Freddie Ljungberg	SEA	4.804	1836	31	67	1.52	3.28
4	Steven Lenhart	CLB	4.732	1065	33	23	2.79	1.94
5	Ben Olsen	DC	4.661	1371	36	35	2.36	2.30
6	Macoumba Kandji	NY	4.623	1752	43	47	2.21	2.41
7	Conor Casey	COL	4.442	2087	62	41	2.67	1.77
8	Fredy Montero	SEA	4.425	2217	47	62	1.91	2.52
9	Pablo Campos	SJ/RSL	4.362	1011	29	20	2.58	1.78
10	Cam Weaver	SJ/HOU	4.080	772	20	15	2.33	1.75

Atiba Harris, where have you gone? Alas, the two-time former winner only could finish 27th this year. If the pattern holds, he should again be first in 2010. The only previous top ten finisher is Olsen; it's his 7th top ten here! A warrior for sure.

All Time Winners

1996	Alberto Naveda	NE
1997	Paul Keegan	NE
1998	Evans Wise	NE/TB
1999	Paulo Dos Santos	NE
2000	Diego Serna	MIA
2001	Onandi Lowe	KC
2002	Alejandro Moreno	LA
2003	DaMarcus Beasley	CHI
2004	Andy Williams	CHI
2005	Brian Ching	SJ
2006	Atiba Harris	RSL
2007	Andrea Lombardo	TOR
2008	Atiba Harris	CHV
2009	Quincy Amarikwa	SJ

8. Least FC + FS

And the winner is...

The second rookie to claim an award, Sam Cronin of Toronto FC. He was second to Shavar Thomas in fouls suffered, but here he's second to none. Like Thomas, he also sets an all time record by being involved in only 0.533 fouls per game either way.

2009 Top Ten

		Team	Per 90	Min	FC	FS	FC	FS
1	Sam Cronin	TOR	0.533	2363	12	2	0.46	0.08
2	Josh Tudela	LA	0.706	637	3	2	0.42	0.28
3	Jacob Peterson	COL	0.716	1131	3	6	0.24	0.48
4	Eric Denton	SJ	0.785	803	3	4	0.34	0.45
5	Simon Elliott	SJ	0.802	1234	8	3	0.58	0.22
6	Scott Palguta	COL	0.823	1749	11	5	0.57	0.26
7	Darrius Barnes	NE	0.833	2700	18	7	0.60	0.23
8	Chris Tierney	NE	0.862	1044	8	2	0.69	0.17
9	Sean Franklin	LA	0.880	1125	7	4	0.56	0.32
10	Bobby Burling	CHV/SJ	0.884	713	5	2	0.63	0.25

Cronin is taking over this award for fellow Wake Forest alumni Michael Parkhurst. Denton makes a second top ten appearance in this category.

All Time Winners

1996	Frank Yallop	TB
1997	David Patino	COL
1998	Leo Cullen	MIA
1999	Leo Cullen	MIA
2000	Eric Denton	DC
2001	Leo Cullen	MIA/NE
2002	Richard Farrer	DAL
2003	Chris Brown	KC/NE
2004	Kelly Gray	CHI
2005	Clyde Simms	DC
2006	Terry Cooke	COL
2007	Michael Parkhurst	NE
2008	Michael Parkhurst	NE
2009	Sam Cronin	TOR

MLS Sporcle Quizzes

2009-10-30T06:45:00.004-05:00

I've made a couple of new ones. A great way to kill some free time!

MLS Players Off The Pitch - How familiar are you with the off the field activities of past and present MLSers? Includes both well-known and obscure examples.

First MLS Game - Name the players and more from the April 6, 1996 clash between San Jose and DC United.

Previous quizzes I've made:

MLS Best XIs - Name the members of from each year (1996-2008).

FIFA Members That Aren't Countries - Not MLS related, but any fan of CONCACAF should do well here.

MLS Goal Details 2009

2009-10-28T08:12:00.000-05:00

Taken from the game guide pdfs on MLSnet. They appear each week, and also in the playoffs. For the non-playoff teams who played each other last week (NY-TOR, KC-DC), I've added in the stats myself.

I'll say it again: MLS should really promote these stats as they are very detailed and interesting and just get buried in the game guides.

Totals

Goals	571	100.00%

Right Foot	300	52.54%
Left Foot	155	27.15%
Headers	114	19.96%
Other	2	0.35%

Open Play	289	50.61%
Cross	111	19.44%
Corner	43	7.53%
Rebound	24	4.20%
Penalties	49	8.58%
Direct From FK	18	3.15%
FK (indirect)	19	3.33%
Own goals	18	3.15%

Inside Goal Area	152	26.62%
Inside Penalty Area	339	59.37%
Outside Penalty Area	80	14.01%

Compared to Previous Years

	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009

Right Foot	48.21%	56.62%	57.65%	57.72%	53.98%	52.54%
Left Foot	32.65%	23.77%	26.64%	23.75%	26.90%	27.15%
Headers	18.37%	18.15%	15.51%	17.57%	18.44%	19.96%
Other	0.77%	1.45%	0.20%	0.97%	0.68%	0.35%

Open Play	52.04%	51.72%	49.50%	47.30%	51.78%	50.61%
Cross	21.43%	19.60%	18.09%	18.34%	18.61%	19.44%
Corner	6.63%	6.53%	7.36%	8.11%	6.77%	7.53%
Rebound	N/A	N/A	7.36%	7.14%	6.09%	4.20%
Penalties	9.95%	9.07%	6.96%	9.07%	6.09%	8.58%
Direct From FK	2.55%	3.45%	2.98%	3.09%	2.88%	3.15%
FK (indirect)	5.36%	6.72%	5.57%	5.21%	5.08%	3.33%
Own goals	2.04%	2.90%	2.19%	1.74%	2.71%	3.15%

Inside Goal Area	26.79%	25.05%	26.84%	22.59%	21.15%	26.62%
Inside Penalty Area	61.99%	60.80%	56.86%	62.16%	60.74%	59.37%
Outside Penalty Area	11.22%	14.16%	16.30%	15.25%	18.10%	14.01%

Team Breakdowns: Offense

	CHI	CHV	CLB	COL	DAL	DC	HOU	KC	LA	NE	NY	RSL	SEA	SJ	TOR
Goals	39	34	41	42	50	43	39	33	36	33	27	43	38	36	37

Right Foot	16	21	18	25	31	28	18	13	16	17	18	22	22	11	24
Left Foot	15	9	10	10	9	8	11	15	11	6	6	14	12	15	4
Headers	7	3	13	7	10	7	10	5	9	10	3	7	4	10	9
Other	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Open Play	22	19	15	23	27	21	16	13	19	14	15	25	25	14	21
Cross	7	7	12	6	9	4	10	8	6	11	3	7	5	10	6
Corner	2	0	6	1	5	2	6	3	4	0	0	4	7	0	3
Rebound	0	2	1	4	0	2	0	2	1	1	3	1	1	2	4
Penalties	4	3	4	5	3	8	2	2	3	5	3	2	0	5	0
Direct From FK	1	0	2	2	2	2	2	2	0	1	1	1	0	1	1
FK (indirect)	1	1	1	0	3	3	3	1	1	1	1	0	0	2	1
Own goals	2	2	0	1	1	1	0	2	2	0	1	3	0	2	1

Inside Goal Area	4	10	11	10	14	8	16	16	9	8	8	7	14	9	8
Inside Penalty Area	29	20	28	25	24	29	16	9	21	22	15	33	21	23	24
Outside Penalty Area	6	4	2	7	12	6	7	8	6	3	4	3	3	4	5

Team Breakdowns: Defense

	CHI	CHV	CLB	COL	DAL	DC	HOU	KC	LA	NE	NY	RSL	SEA	SJ	TOR
Goals	34	31	31	38	47	44	29	42	31	37	47	35	29	50	46

Right Foot	20	18	14	17	22	20	19	27	18	17	24	20	14	24	26
Left Foot	8	6	11	9	15	12	5	7	8	14	14	10	10	14	12
Headers	6	7	6	12	10	11	5	8	5	6	9	5	5	12	7
Other	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1

Open Play	15	17	17	16	22	19	15	22	13	16	27	20	18	25	26
Cross	5	6	7	5	7	10	4	9	7	6	10	9	4	12	10
Corner	2	1	1	5	7	2	6	2	3	5	1	2	0	4	2
Rebound	2	1	2	3	2	2	0	3	2	0	3	2	2	1	0
Penalties	5	3	1	5	4	5	2	3	5	2	5	1	1	3	4
Direct From FK	2	1	2	1	2	1	0	1	1	3	1	0	0	1	2
FK (indirect)	2	1	0	3	0	3	2	2	0	1	0	1	1	2	1
Own goals	1	1	1	0	3	2	0	0	0	4	0	0	3	2	1

Inside Goal Area	7	10	6	10	15	12	6	13	13	12	10	10	7	13	9
Inside Penalty Area	20	17	20	25	26	28	19	22	14	17	29	18	19	33	31
Outside Penalty Area	7	4	5	3	6	4	4	7	4	8	8	7	3	4	6

If you're looking at this really carefully, you may notice an error. For offense, there are 289 open play goals and 24 rebounds, as well as 152 inside goal area and 339 inside penalty area. For defense, the numbers are 288-25 and 153-338. I checked, and it's not from any of the non-playoff teams that I manually added. Maybe at a later date I'll go through each week's game guides to find the error...not now.

Some interesting things to point out:

Corner kick goals. For the past four seasons, the MLS Cup winner has been in the top three percentage wise. Here's this year's breakdown:

		Corners	Goals	PCT
1	SEA	167	7	4.19%
2	CLB	144	6	4.17%
2	HOU	144	6	4.17%
4	DAL	146	5	3.42%
5	LA	138	4	2.90%
6	RSL	160	4	2.50%
7	TOR	129	3	2.33%
8	KC	157	3	1.91%
9	DC	127	2	1.57%
10	CHI	183	2	1.09%
11	COL	134	1	0.75%
12	CHV	129	0	0.00%
12	NE	118	0	0.00%
12	NY	135	0	0.00%
12	SJ	157	0	0.00%

	Total	2168	43	1.98%

The total PCT of 1.98% is lower this year:

	Corners	Goals	PCT
2009	2168	43	1.98%
2008	1980	40	2.02%
2007	1826	42	2.30%
2006	1751	37	2.11%
2005	1776	36	2.03%
2004	1554	26	1.67%

Of course, keep in mind that due to the way MLS counts things, there are actually more goals scored off corners. I believe that if a corner is sent in and headed on goal, parried by the keeper back to an attacker who then puts in home, that would count as a rebound goal rather than a corner goal. And Blanco's corner vs CHV last week would go down as an own goal, because that's a separate category.

Stuff that jumped out at me:

KC and SJ were the only teams with more left-footed goals than right-footed.
LA only allowed 13 goals from "open play," the fewest in the league.
DAL led the league by far in goals scored outside the area. CLB was last.
CLB had the most goals with the head, and also lead the league in goals from crosses. They were right among the leaders in corner goals as well.
SEA didn't allowed a goal off a corner all year. I would include "defensive corner" percentages, but I have no way of easily getting corners against stats without going through all the match reports.
HOU and KC had the highest rates of goals scored "inside goal area," which means the six-yard box.
CHI and NE both were at the top of goals against from outside the area. Will we see any long distance bombs in their series?
NE gave away 4 own goals this year, the most in any year so far (2004-09).

See anything else interesting?

Further Reading

OTFATT 2009: Final Update

2009-10-27T05:53:00.002-05:00

Previous Updates

#1	4/12	68 players remaining
#2	5/25	34 players remaining
#3	6/25	23 players remaining
#4	7/19	11 players remaining
#5	8/17	5 players remaining

OTFATT is short for "On the field, all the time." In these updates throughout the season, I've kept track of which MLS players have played every minute of every game (regular season only).

The season is over, and we have four survivors: three you could've guessed in March (Busch, Hartman, Onstad) and one that shocked everyone (Barnes). The only player to drop off in the past two months was Joe Cannon, who was rested by San Jose in a couple of their meaningless final games.

Darrius Barnes benefited from the injury to Gabrielle Badilla in preseason and never looked back. Kind of like Michael Parkhurst's story, who replaced the worn out Carlos Llamosa in 2005. The two NE center backs from ACC colleges are the last two rookies to accomplish the feat. Nick Garcia in 2000 is the only other rookie on the list below.

Some stats:

Playing every minute is still a rare feat, it's only happened 39 times over the past 14 seasons (by 29 different players).

Goalkeepers have taken the all time edge over field players: 20-19. That's actually the first time they've held the edge in league history, and I'd be shocked to see it swing back the other way.

KC players have accomplished OTFATT 10 times, leading the league. Runners up are NE with 7.

5 teams have not had a player play every minute: CHV, DAL, MIA, SEA, and TOR.

Kevin Hartman has played every minute for three straight season; that's unprecedented. He holds the league record for consecutive minutes played.

Jon Busch is back on the list for a second straight year. He's the sixth player to repeat after Peter Vermes (1999-00), Scott Garlick (2000-01), Pat Onstad (2005-06), Matt Reis (2006-07), and Kevin Hartman (2007-09).

A total of 8 players have multiple appearances: the six mentioned in the last bullet point, and also Joe Cannon and Nick Rimando.

Pat Onstad didn't repeat, but he's still standing for a third time. That's a record now shared by him and Hartman. All this while becoming the league's second oldest player ever.

1996-2009: Played Every Minute

(players in bold played every minute of every game in all competitions, goalkeepers in italics)

1996	Preki (KC), Steve Trittschuh (COL)
1997	Mike Burns (NE)
1998	(none)
1999	Peter Vermes (COL)
2000	Joseph Addo (TB), Nick Garcia (KC), Scott Garlick (TB), Peter Vermes (KC)
2001	Scott Garlick (TB/COL), Tim Howard (NY), Steve Jolley (NY), Zach Thornton (CHI), Kerry Zavagnin (KC)
2002	Nick Rimando (DC)
2003	Tony Meola (KC)
2004	Joe Cannon (COL), Jim Curtin (CHI), Richard Mulrooney (SJ), Steve Ralston (NE)
2005	Todd Dunivant (LA), Simon Elliott (CLB), Pat Onstad (SJ), Bo Oshoniyi (KC), Michael Parkhurst (NE)
2006	Pat Onstad (HOU), Matt Reis (NE)
2007	Kevin Hartman (KC), Chris Klein (RSL/LA), Matt Reis (NE)
2008	Jon Busch (CHI), Joe Cannon (SJ), Jimmy Conrad (KC), Kevin Hartman (KC), Jay Heaps (NE), Nick Rimando (RSL)
2009	Darrius Barnes (NE), Jon Busch (CHI), Kevin Hartman (KC), Pat Onstad (HOU)

Order of teams being totally wiped out for 2009, with last surviving player:

1. NY - Dane Richards (4/18)
2. CLB - Brian Carroll (5/27)
3. SEA - Jhon Kennedy Hurtado (6/14)
4. RSL - Will Johnson (6/27)
5. LA - Omar Gonzalez (6/28)
6. TOR - Adrian Serioux (7/18)
7. COL - Jordan Harvey (7/18)
8. DAL - David Ferreira (8/1)
9. CHV - Carey Talley & Zach Thornton (8/8)
10. DC - Bryan Namoff (8/15)
11. SJ - Joe Cannon (9/27)

*Toronto's Nick Garcia was eliminated on 8/15. However, he was traded mid-season and had played every minute he was available for two teams - SJ & TOR. Toronto themselves had no players left after Adrian Serioux.

All Time Best MLS Teams Post Updated!

2009-10-26T05:31:00.000-05:00

I won't put it on the main page because it's such a long post, so check it out here:

All Time Best & Worst MLS Teams (single season & multiple)

How do this year's teams stack up?

Columbus lost three of their last four, which means that they ended up tied for the worst Supporters Shield winners ever with the 2004 Crew. Technically though, I have the 2009 version ranked ahead due to goal difference.

With the parity this year, the Crew only ended up with the 32nd best regular season in league history.

RSL had their best year ever (on GD over last year), as did Toronto. Still, neither of them have had a winning record yet. No other team ended up with a best or worst year in franchise history. New York needed a point to avoid their worst year ever on the final day, and they did it.

Speaking of NY, the Red Bulls only ended up as the 5th worst single season ever.

MLS Week 32 Notes

2009-10-25T05:18:00.000-05:00

This is my favorite time of the year to blog. Not because it's playoff time, but rather because the regular season is over and I can get into the business of comparing this year's teams historically. I'll have plenty of material in the coming weeks, so check back often.

However, there's still two more games to play today. Let's discuss some things that happened this weekend first.

1) New England must get a result (win or draw) today in Columbus to return to the MLS playoffs. But that's not all - the Revolution streak of seven straight years in the playoffs is at stake. That's not just tops in Major League Soccer, but tied for 6th among the top five sports leagues in the US. Click on the link for a full list (which has yet to be updated with the latest MLB season, but that doesn't affect the Revs' position). Only the Red Wings, Spurs, Devils, Mavericks, and Pistons have longer streaks. It would also be Steve Nicol's first season without making it (not counting his interim coaching stint in 1999).

2) Team MVP winners are starting to be announced. They're usually given out at the team's last home game, though not every team does that. Already, I've seen articles naming Jeff Cunningham, Shalrie Joseph, Josh Wolff, and Nat Borchers (interesting) as winners. Check out the full list of previous winners (1996-2008) here, which I'll be sure to update once all 2009 winners are known.

3) All of the interconference games are done, and for the first time in five seasons, the west has finished on top. The final record was 45-37-30, with the Los Angeles Galaxy dominating to the tune of 8-1-5 vs eastern opponents. That does mean that LA was under .500 against its own conference, interestingly.

In the 14 MLS seasons, the east has been the top conference/division 7 times (96-97, 03, 05-08) and the west has been on top 6 times (98-99, 01-02, 04, 09). The extinct central division was first in 2000, with the west finishing second. So I guess you could say that both east and west have been better than the other an equal 7 times.

4) Barring something crazy, Jeff Cunningham is the 2009 MLS Golden Boot winner with 17 goals. At the age of 32.86 (on July 1st), he's the oldest winner (see Golden Boot Ages). Previously, Alex Pineda Chacon was the oldest at 31.53 years of age. Let's hope Cunningham doesn't fall off the way he did.

5) Questionable coaching decisions last night?

In all the all-important final match, Gary Smith started Preston Burpo over Matt Pickens in goal for the Rapids. I know their fans weren't happy about that, and it looks like their fears were justified with the way the match turned out. You have to question him leaving his line on the second goal and also the angle on the third (Yura's). Speaking of which, Movsisyan is always great on breakaways and one-on-ones. Possibly the best in the league in those situations.

It was surprising to see Schellas Hyndman wait until the 81st minute to insert Marvin Chavez into the match for Dallas. He waited 20 minutes after the equalizer to make an offensive substitution in a situation where their season depended on another goal.

Tom Soehn didn't start Jaime Moreno, among other "really interesting roster moves". I only watched the last 15 minutes, but he looked like the biggest threat on the field for United. Of course, they were so close to a game winner and a playoff berth in stoppage time, and then Soehn would've been something of a genius. DC's failure to make the playoffs may not look like a huge collapse based on the weekly standings, but it was. They had five straight league games at home before last night and only went 2-3-0.

2009 MLS Awards Voting Details

2009-10-21T05:50:00.000-05:00

Voting for the 2009 MLS Year End Awards is underway. I've learned some interesting things about this season's voting process:

1) For the Best XI, Cuauhtemoc Blanco and Landon Donovan are listed as midfielders this year, while Guillermo Barros Schelotto is listed as a forward. You may remember the unfortunate situation from two years ago, where Blanco was a finalist for the MVP award yet missing from the Best XI. That was because MLS only allows two forwards on the Best XI, and that year he and the other two MVP finalists (Juan Pablo Angel and Luciano Emilio) were all in the forwards category.

So for this season, with no Donovan in the way, I'd expect Jeff Cunningham and Schelotto to be the two forwards. If Donovan had been listed as a forward, then we could've seen a repeat of Blanco 2007 if those three players end up as the MVP finalists.

2) Rookie of the Year. Eligible for the voting are Alex Grendi (127 minutes played), Stefan Dimitrov (124), Danny Cruz (107), Michael Holody (80), Peri Marosevic (47), and Andrew Dykstra (0, seriously). Missing are Nick Zimmerman (757), Graham Zusi (434) and O'Brian White (343).

How is player who hasn't played a game in the running when others who have actually contributed aren't? From what I understand, MLS teams are responsible for providing nominees, so they're likely to blame. But hey, Dykstra did get 90 minutes in the Open Cup.

3) Jhon Kennedy Hurtado will not be among the Newcomer of the Year finalists. Neither will his Sounders teammate Osvaldo Alonso. Seattle's nominees for the position are Keller, Ljungberg, and Moreno (I believe the limit is three for each team), so the other two aren't in the running.

Meanwhile, Hurtado is listed as 5th by the MLSnet Awards Tracker for that award.

4) Referee Jorge Gonzalez, who made the awful diving call on Chris Rolfe this past weekend, is one of six people in the running for Referee of the Year. If he turns out to be a finalist, I'll be really disappointed.

FIFA Business: Seeding Formula, Pots, & 2014 Spots

2009-10-16T05:00:00.000-05:00

1) The 2010 seeding formula. Using the previous formula (from 2006), it appears that Portugal's resurgence may see them get seeded after all at the expense of France. They were always in good shape as long as they managed to qualify, and that looks very likely now. The same eight teams have been in the running ever since July 2006, so one good team is going to get let out no matter what.

Now despite what the formula shows us currently, we can never be certain as to what FIFA will actually do. The average person on the street would probably say that the previous World Cup runner up (France) should be seeded ahead of a team that barely qualified (Argentina). Remember, they've changed it slightly the past few World Cups.

BTW, I didn't see this Soccernet article until now. US Soccer president Sunil Gulati doesn't know what the formula was in 2006. He said it included "...50 percent for performance over the last three World Cups" which is incorrect. Acutally, they only used the past two World Cups for the 2006 formula. Also wrong is author Frank Dell'Apa, so I guess that gives you an idea of how many people really follow this stuff closely. I'd really expect Gulati to know better.

Anyway, there's speculation that this time only the current FIFA ranking could be used, maybe by itself or in conjunction with the previous World Cup performance half of the formula. I would approve such a decision. Why? Well, one thing that I always forget about until somebody mentions it is the fact that because the FIFA rankings half of the formula includes snapshots from three separate years (12/2007, 12/2008, 11/2009), matches from some years count more than others.

The current FIFA rankings procedure takes into account the past four years worth of results (before 2006 it was eight years). Those results are weighted 100-50-30-20. If the seeding formula stays the same and uses three years worth of FIFA rankings, what they're doing is this:

	Dec-07	Dec-08	Nov-09	Total	PCT
2009			100	100	16.7%
2008		100	50	150	25.0%
2007	100	50	30	180	30.0%
2006	50	30	20	100	16.7%
2005	30	20		50	8.3%
2004	20			20	3.3%

So matches from 2007 are counted the most, closely followed by 2008. Compare this to only using Nov-09:

		Only
	Current	Nov-09
2009	17%	50%
2008	25%	25%
2007	30%	15%
2006	17%	10%
2005	8%
2004	3%

It makes more sense to do it this way when determined who should be seeded for next year. The whole idea of using the rankings in the formula is to measure who's the best right now, isn't it? And then since the other half involves previous World Cups, that half is for who was the best in the past, which gives you a formula that involves both past and present.

2) Not only will FIFA have to decide what formula to use, they'll also have to decide the four pots for the World Cup draw. Unless they decide to seed all pots (which IMO is a good idea, but that's another post), the top pot should consist of seeded teams and the second pot of UEFA teams. That leaves the following 16 teams left:

4.5 - AFC
5.0 - CAF
2.5 - CONMEBOL
3.5 - CONCACAF
0.5 - OFC

Last time, AFC/CONCACAF/OFC was one pot and CAF/CONMEBOL was another. Before, it ws CAF/CONCACAF. What will they do this time?

If Uruguay wins the playoff with Costa Rica, it makes things simple. CONCACAF and CONMEBOL would each be at three teams, and either could be paired with the five teams of AFC/OFC or CAF. If Costa Rica & New Zealand win, then you would expect the only option to be AFC/CONCACAF (4 + 4) and CAF/CONMEBOL/OFC (5 + 2 + 1).

But if Costa Rica & Bahrain win, things get messy:

5.0 - AFC
5.0 - CAF
2.0 - CONMEBOL
4.0 - CONCACAF
0.0 - OFC

Now this is where Edgar has suggested we could see the return of the dreaded "special pot" which was used for Serbia & Montenegro in 2006 when things didn't add up evenly. That's something to look out for.

Or, they could just draw the groups instead of the teams which would be the fairer way to do it. That probably makes too much sense for FIFA, though.

3) I was discussing the possible 2014 World Cup qualifying playoffs on Bigsoccer the other day. No, it's not too early. Will the number of spots for each confederation change? Here's what I was thinking:

The interesting thing for 2014 will be how Brazil hosting affects things. For 2010, they decided to give CAF 5 spots plus the host spot for a total of 6. That never used to be the case; before, they would've given CAF 4+host for a total of 5 (taking the host spot out of the normal number).

So if they continue with the 2010 policy, Brazil as host should mean their spot wouldn't come out of the 4.5 for CONMEBOL. However, 5.5 total spots for that region (out of 10 teams) seems like a lot. Remember, for 2006 they originally reduced it to 4 (giving OFC a full spot) before changing it back. I would be kind of surprised to see CONMEBOL with 5.5.

Given the way AFC didn't lose their spots after 2002, I wonder if FIFA might do something like give CONMEBOL only 4+host and then give the extra 0.5 to CAF.

Thoughts?

CONCACAF Hex Statistics

2009-10-15T03:53:00.000-05:00

The hexagonal or "hex" has been in its current form for four cycles: 1998/2002/2006/2010. The fourth edition has just been completed. The USA and Mexico are now tied with identical all time records of 22-8-10, though Mexico is ahead with a better goal differential.

What else is new statistically? Carlos Pavon of Honduras won the golden boot for the second time (2002, 2010), and also became the hex's all time leading scorer. His 7 goals also tied for the most in one hex with Mexico's Carlos Hermosillo in 1998. This was also the highest scoring edition, as well as the one with the largest home field advantage. Home teams combined for a 20-5-5 record.

The top team in hex history is still 2002 Costa Rica with 23 points. They're immediately followed in the rankings by all 8 Mexico and USA teams. See below for the full list.

Some hex statistics:

Goals per Game & Draw Percentage

	Goals	Draws
1998	2.53	43.3%
2002	2.43	20.0%
2006	2.77	13.3%
2010	2.93	16.7%

OVR	2.67	23.3%

Home Field Advantage

	HFA	Home	Away
1998	1.30	1.93	0.63
2002	0.40	1.60	1.20
2006	1.40	2.13	0.73
2010	1.50	2.17	0.67

OVR	1.15	1.96	0.81

Measured as home PPG minus away PPG. For comparison, the all time home field advantage in MLS is around 0.67 PPG.

Golden Boot Winners

1998	Carlos Hermosillo	7	MEX
2002	Rolando Fonseca	5	CR
	Carlos Pavon	5	HON
	Cuauhtemoc Blanco	5	MEX
	Earnie Stewart	5	USA
2006	Francisco Fonseca	6	MEX
	Stern John	6	TRI
2010	Carlos Pavon	7	HON

Pavon becomes the first two-time winner, and who would've guessed it a year ago?

Team Ranking

			GP	W	L	D	Pts	PPG	GF	GA	GD
1	2002	Costa Rica	10	7	1	2	23	2.30	17	7	10
2	2006	Mexico	10	7	2	1	22	2.20	22	9	13
3	2006	United States	10	7	2	1	22	2.20	16	6	10
4	2010	United States	10	6	2	2	20	2.00	19	13	6
5	2010	Mexico	10	6	3	1	19	1.90	18	12	6
6	1998	Mexico	10	4	0	6	18	1.80	23	7	16
7	1998	United States	10	4	1	5	17	1.70	17	9	8
8	2002	Mexico	10	5	3	2	17	1.70	16	9	7
9	2002	United States	10	5	3	2	17	1.70	11	8	3
10	2010	Honduras	10	5	4	1	16	1.60	17	11	6
11	2006	Costa Rica	10	5	4	1	16	1.60	15	14	1
12	2010	Costa Rica	10	5	4	1	16	1.60	15	15	0
13	2002	Honduras	10	4	4	2	14	1.40	17	17	0
14	1998	Jamaica	10	3	2	5	14	1.40	7	12	-5
15	2006	Trinidad	10	4	5	1	13	1.30	10	15	-5
16	1998	Costa Rica	10	3	4	3	12	1.20	13	12	1
17	2006	Guatemala	10	3	5	2	11	1.10	16	18	-2
18	1998	El Salvador	10	2	4	4	10	1.00	11	16	-5
19	2010	El Salvador	10	2	6	2	8	0.80	9	15	-6
20	2002	Jamaica	10	2	6	2	8	0.80	7	14	-7
21	2010	Trinidad	10	1	6	3	6	0.60	10	22	-12
22	1998	Canada	10	1	6	3	6	0.60	5	20	-15
23	2002	Trinidad	10	1	7	2	5	0.50	5	18	-13
24	2006	Panama	10	0	8	2	2	0.20	4	21	-17

Overall Performance (1998-2010)

		GP	W	L	D	Pts	PPG	GF	GA	GD
1	Mexico	40	22	8	10	76	1.90	79	37	42
2	United States	40	22	8	10	76	1.90	63	36	27
3	Costa Rica	40	20	13	7	67	1.68	60	48	12
4	Honduras	20	9	8	3	30	1.50	34	28	6
5	Trinidad	30	6	18	6	24	0.80	25	55	-30
6	Jamaica	20	5	8	7	22	1.10	14	26	-12
7	El Salvador	20	4	10	6	18	0.90	20	31	-11
8	Guatemala	10	3	5	2	11	1.10	16	18	-2
9	Canada	10	1	6	3	6	0.60	5	20	-15
10	Panama	10	0	8	2	2	0.20	4	21	-17

Leading Goalscorers

		Total	1998	2002	2006	2010
HON	Carlos Pavon	12		5		7
CR	Paulo Wanchope	10	3	4	3
TRI	Stern John	9		3	6
MEX	Cuauhtemoc Blanco	8		5		3
MEX	Carlos Hermosillo	7	7
MEX	Jared Borgetti	7		3	4
CR	Alvaro Saborio	6			2	4
MEX	Francisco Fonseca	6			6
USA	Earnie Stewart	6	1	5
USA	Landon Donovan	6			3	3

Pavon passed Wanchope on September 5th, 2009, with his second goal in the 4-1 win over Trinidad & Tobago.

No player has scored in all four hexes. Three have scored in 3/4: Ronald Gomez, Pavel Pardo, and Wanchope.

208 to 1: World Cup 2010 Eliminations Timeline

2009-10-14T21:01:00.000-05:00

UPDATE: Down to 41. Next update in November, with only 9 more eliminations until the field is set.

Yes, we'll all know pretty soon who ends up qualifying for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. At that time and many years into the future, it will be easy to look at the qualifying standings to see how things turned out. However, one thing that can't easily be determined from a simple glance at the standings is exactly when each team fell out of contention. It's fairly obvious if you look at the schedule for a minute or two, but that takes some effort. So what I set out to do is to make a list of exactly when each team was officially eliminated, and here it is.

You'll see the overall order of each team to the left of their name, counting down from 208 (the number of FIFA members, hence this post's title). The number to the right of the team is their order of elimination within their region.

Order of Elimination

March 30, 2007

206 (tie). Brunei Darussalam (AFC-44th, tie)
206 (tie). Laos (AFC-44th, tie)
206 (tie). Philippines (AFC-44th, tie)

The only three FIFA members not to enter qualifying.

May 25, 2007

204. Papau New Guinea (OFC-11th)

Were listed as participating in qualifying but apparently "failed to meet the official accreditation" (Wikipedia) before qualifying started.

August 7, 2007

205. Guam (AFC-43rd)

Withdrew immediately after the AFC preliminary draw.

August 29, 2007

203. American Samoa (OFC-10th)

First team out during South Pacific Games.

August 31, 2007

201 (tie). Central African Republic (CAF-52nd, tie)
201 (tie). São Tomé and Príncipe (CAF-52nd, tie)

These two CAF members withdrew before the preliminary round.

September 1, 2007

199 (tie). Cook Islands (OFC-8th, tie)
199 (tie). Tahiti (OFC-8th, tie)

September 3, 2007

198. Samoa (OFC-7th)
197. Tonga (OFC-6th)

September 7, 2007

196. Solomon Islands (OFC-5th)

Only four teams remained after the first round of OFC qualifying (aka the South Pacific Games). The first tiebreaker during qualifying is goal differential, and I have Samoa being eliminated before Tonga because of it. Allow me to explain: With one match in the round robin remaining and the second spot to advance still undecided, Vanuatu has 6 points, Samoa 6, and Tonga 3. Samoa has completed all their games with a +1 goal differential; Vanuatu (+17) and Tonga (-1) face each other in the final match. A Tonga win would mean a three way tie, but it is impossible for Samoa's goal differential to be tops in that scenario.

September 13, 2007

195. Bhutan (AFC-42nd)

Also withdrew from qualifying.

October 15, 2007

194. Macau (AFC-41st)

October 26, 2007

193. Afghanistan (AFC-40th)

October 28, 2007

191 (tie). Mongolia (AFC-38th, tie)
191 (tie). Timor-Leste (AFC-38th, tie)
190. Myanmar (AFC-37th)
189. Nepal (AFC-36th)
187 (tie). Bangladesh (AFC-34th, tie)
187 (tie). Palestine (AFC-34th, tie)
186. Chinese Taipei (AFC-33rd)
184 (tie). Maldives (AFC-31st, tie)
184 (tie). Pakistan (AFC-31st, tie)
183. Malaysia (AFC-30th)
182. Cambodia (AFC-29th)
181. Vietnam (AFC-28th)
180. Sri Lanka (AFC-27th)
179. Kyrgyzstan (AFC-26th)

October 30, 2007

178. India (AFC-25th)

First round of Asian qualifying. I'm basing the order on the starting times of the matches as well as the time zones of the host countries. Extra time is taken into account too. There are not really any ties here, but I have no way of knowing which games ended first. I would also be unaware if any games were delayed or anything like that, so keep that in mind.

November 16, 2007

177. Somalia (CAF-51st)

November 17, 2007

176. Comoros (CAF-50th)
175. Guinea-Bissau (CAF-49th)

These three lost in the preliminary round of African qualifying.

November 18th, 2007

174. Tajikistan (AFC-24th)
173. Yemen (AFC-23rd)
172. Indonesia (AFC-22nd)
171. Hong Kong (AFC-21st)

Four teams gone in the small second round of Asian qualifying.

March 25, 2008

170. Eritrea (CAF-48th)

Withdrew after the group stage was drawn.

March 26, 2008

168 (tie). Turks and Caicos Islands (CONCACAF-34th, tie)
168 (tie). U.S. Virgin Islands (CONCACAF-34th, tie)
167. Dominica (CONCACAF-33rd)
166. Aruba (CONCACAF-32nd)
165. Montserrat (CONCACAF-31st)
164. Saint Kitts and Nevis (CONCACAF-30th)
162 (tie). Anguilla (CONCACAF-28th, tie)
162 (tie). Nicaragua (CONCACAF-28th, tie)
161. Dominican Republic (CONCACAF-27th)

March 30, 2008

160. British Virgin Islands (CONCACAF-26th)
159. Cayman Islands (CONCACAF-25th)

First round of North American qualifying done.

June 7, 2008

158. Turkmenistan (AFC-20th)
157. Lebanon (AFC-19th)

June 14, 2008

156. Jordan (AFC-18th)
155. Thailand (AFC-17th)
154. Singapore (AFC-16th)
153. China (AFC-15th)
152. Oman (AFC-14th)
151. Kuwait (AFC-13th)
150. Puerto Rico (CONCACAF-24th)

June 18, 2008

149. Bahamas (CONCACAF-23rd)

June 20, 2008

148. St. Vincent and the Grenandines (CONCACAF-22nd)

June 21, 2008

146 (tie). Fiji (OFC-3rd, tie)
146 (tie). Vanuatu (OFC-3rd, tie)
145. Seychelles (CAF-47th)
142 (tie). Belize (CONCACAF-19th, tie)
142 (tie). Grenada (CONCACAF-19th, tie)
142 (tie). St. Lucia (CONCACAF-19th, tie)

June 22, 2008

140 (tie). Iraq (AFC-11th, tie)
140 (tie). Syria (AFC-11th, tie)
139. Mauritania (CAF-46th)
138. Djibouti (CAF-45th)
137. Niger (CAF-44th)
135 (tie). Mauritius (CAF-42nd, tie)
135 (tie). Tanzania (CAF-42nd, tie)
134. Barbados (CONCACAF-18th)
133. Guyana (CONCACAF-17th)
132. Antigua and Barbuda (CONCACAF-16th)
131. Bermuda (CONCACAF-15th)
130. Netherlands Antillles (CONCACAF-14th)
129. Panama (CONCACAF-13th)

AFC and CONCACAF are now getting into the heart of their qualification methods. Iraq is the first of the reigning confederation champions to be eliminated. I wonder how many such teams have failed to qualify throughout the history of WCQ? Can't be too many.

June 28, 2008

128. Lesotho (CAF-41st)

September 6, 2008

127. New Caledonia (OFC-2nd)
126. Namibia (CAF-40th)
124 (tie). Equatorial Guinea (CAF-38th, tie)
124 (tie). Liberia (CAF-38th, tie)
123. Burundi (CAF-37th)

September 7, 2008

122. Botswana (CAF-36th)

New Zealand became the champion of Oceania and also advanced to the Confederations Cup. They'll now wait a year to play their next qualifiers. Also, South Africa was eliminated from the qualifying competition on this date. Of course, they're still guaranteed a spot in the World Cup.

September 12, 2008

121. Ethiopia (CAF-35th)

Kicked out of the competition by FIFA, in one of the rare instances where they actually followed through on their threats.

October 11, 2008

120. Congo DR (CAF-34th)
119. Zimbabwe (CAF-33rd)
115 (tie). Angola (CAF-29th, tie)
115 (tie). Cape Verde (CAF-29th, tie)
115 (tie). Libya (CAF-29th, tie)
115 (tie). Madagascar (CAF-29th, tie)
114. Sierra Leone (CAF-28th)
113. Swaziland (CAF-27th)
112. Senegal (CAF-26th)
110 (tie). Chad (CAF-24th, tie)
110 (tie). Congo (CAF-24th, tie)
109. Canada (CONCACAF-12th)

Angola and Cape Verde were hard to figure out because of the second placed teams advancing. I believe they were officially eliminated at the same time, when groups 5 & 7 were settled. Angola becomes the first team from the 2006 World Cup to be eliminated.

Meanwhile, Canada surprisingly is the first CONCACAF team out in the semifinal round. Who would've thought that a year after their great 2007 Gold Cup?

October 12, 2008

108. Uganda (CAF-23rd)
107. Gambia (CAF-22nd)

We're now done with the second round of African qualifying. First of all, I'm really glad that both Angola and South Africa failed to advance. It makes things a whole lot simpler (due to these qualifiers also counting for the 2010 Nations Cup). Of the final 20 teams, in the previous round 10 were #1 seeds. The only two to miss out were Angola and Senegal. 5 were #2 seeds (Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Mozambique, and Zambia), 4 were #3 seeds (Gabon, Malawi, Rwanda, and Sudan), and 1 was a #4 seed (Kenya).

I have to say I'm disappointed to see The Gambia out. They were my surprise pick for a first time qualifier, due to their youth successes recently. Then, seeing some of their players move to MLS only made me more interested in their fate. They played really well, finishing second ahead of Senegal, so they have nothing to be ashamed of. If they're disappointed, they certainly aren't showing it; the president of the country has declared today a public holiday due to the away draw against Senegal.

October 15, 2008

106. Cuba (CONCACAF-11th)
104 (tie). Haiti (CONCACAF-9th, tie)
104 (tie). Suriname (CONCACAF-9th, tie)

October 19, 2008

103. Jamaica (CONCACAF-8th)
102. Guatemala (CONCACAF-7th)

Semifinal round of North American qualifying ends. The hex is set.

April 1, 2009

101. United Arab Emirates (AFC-10th)
100. Malta (UEFA-53rd)
99. San Marino (UEFA-52nd)

After a near-six month break (by far the longest in the process) we finally can eliminate a couple more teams. The first European casualties are here, and now the number of teams remaining is reduced to double digits.

June 6, 2009

98. Georgia (UEFA - 51st)
97. Andorra (UEFA - 50th)
96. Albania (UEFA - 49th)

June 10, 2009

95. Qatar (AFC - 9th)
94. Iceland (UEFA - 48th)
93. Kazakhstan (UEFA - 47th)
92. Liechtenstein (UEFA - 46th)
91. Peru (CONMEBOL - 10th)

June 17, 2009

90. Uzbekistan (AFC - 8th)
89. Iran (AFC - 7th)

Four teams have qualified from Asia, along with the Europe's first, the Netherlands. Iran becomes the second 2006 World Cup team to be eliminated. That's certainly a more shocking elimination than Angola.

August 12, 2009

88. Azerbaijan (UEFA - 45th)

September 5, 2009

87. Rwanda (CAF - 21st)
86. Armenia (UEFA - 44th)
85. Moldova (UEFA - 43rd)
83 (tie). Guinea (CAF - 19th, tie)
83 (tie). Malawi (CAF - 19th, tie)
82. Estonia (UEFA - 42nd)
79 (tie). Cyprus (UEFA - 39th, tie)
79 (tie). Faroe Islands (UEFA - 39th, tie)
79 (tie). Montenegro (UEFA - 39th, tie)

September 6, 2009

76 (tie). Mali (CAF - 16th, tie)
76 (tie). Benin (CAF - 16th, tie)
76 (tie). Sudan (CAF - 16th, tie)

African teams in the final round are beginning to drop, as Ghana and Brazil both punched their ticket to the finals. We've gotten to the point now where you can pretty much say, it's either this time or that team for that spot. I'd say of the remaining teams, a good 20 or so have virtually no shot at qualifying.

September 9, 2009

75. Belgium (UEFA - 38th)
74. Belarus (UEFA - 37th)
73. Luxembourg (UEFA - 36th)
71 (tie). Macedonia (UEFA - 34th, tie)
71 (tie). Scotland (UEFA - 34th, tie)
69 (tie). Finland (UEFA - 32nd, tie)
69 (tie). Wales (UEFA - 32nd, tie)
68. Saudi Arabia (AFC - 6th)
67. Bolivia (CONMEBOL - 9th)
66. Trinidad & Tobago (CONCACAF - 6th)

The Saudis became the third 2006 qualifier to be eliminated this cycle, in heartbreaking fashion by Bahrain. It was funny, because I watched them score around the 90th minute to take the lead. Then, one of their players decided to not to take the ball to the corner a minute later, instead trying to score again. I was thinking it was nice to actually see a player try to go at goal for once in that situation, and of course it costs them. AFC qualifying is now completed. Later on in the day, Trinidad became the 4th 2006 team to fail this time around. Of the other eliminations, Scotland is the only notable one. The others have had no chance for a while now.

October 10, 2009

65. Zambia (CAF - 15th)
64. Burkina Faso (CAF - 14th)
62 (tie). Morocco (CAF - 12th, tie)
62 (tie). Togo (CAF - 12th, tie)
61. Turkey (UEFA - 31st)
60. Bulgaria (UEFA - 30th)
57 (tie). Lithuania (UEFA - 27th, tie)
57 (tie). Poland (UEFA - 27th, tie)
57 (tie). Romania (UEFA - 27th, tie)
56. Austria (UEFA - 26th)
54 (tie). Colombia (CONMEBOL - 8th)
54 (tie). El Salvador (CONCACAF - 5th)

October 11, 2009

52 (tie). Kenya (CAF - 10th, tie)
52 (tie). Mozambique (CAF - 10th, tie)

It was a weekend of many eliminations, but only Colombia looked to have any real hope of making it (and even that was a longshot). At this point, 19 teams have qualified. The dates of qualification can be found on Wikipedia (link).

Many of the 32 teams left alive fighting for a berth have only a microscopic chance. We should see another 10 eliminations on Wednesday, and only one (one of Argentina/Ecuador/Uruguay) should give us any drama. Some teams are only alive based on crazy scenarios; what are the odds of Andorra, Luxembourg, Malta, or San Marino getting a result?

October 14, 2009

51. Croatia (UEFA - 25th)
49 (tie). Israel (UEFA - 23rd, tie)
49 (tie). Latvia (UEFA - 23rd, tie)
47 (tie). Czech Republic (UEFA - 21st, tie)
47 (tie). Northern Ireland (UEFA - 21st, tie)
44 (tie). Hungary (UEFA - 18th, tie)
44 (tie). Norway (UEFA - 18th, tie)
44 (tie). Sweden (UEFA - 18th, tie)
42 (tie). Ecuador (CONMEBOL - 6th, tie)
42 (tie). Venezuela (CONMEBOL - 6th, tie)

None of the crazy scenarios came to pass, so these eliminations were expected. Ecuador will be disappointed at losing to an already qualified Chile. Looks like all the big names will once again make it after Argentina scraped through.

All that's left now is African qualifying and the playoffs. For the remaining 9 spots, it's going to be one of two teams: Algeria/Egypt, Cameroon/Gabon, Nigeria/Tunisia, Bahrain/New Zealand, Costa Rica/Uruguay, and the four UEFA playoffs.

There are currently 41 teams remaining, broken down by confederation below. 23 teams have qualified, leaving 18 teams for 9 spots.

5-AFC
9-CAF
4-CONCACAF
5-CONMEBOL
1-OFC
17-UEFA

WCQ Time

2009-10-09T05:49:00.002-05:00

Once again, it's that time of the calendar. I expect the US to take care of business, so I'll be looking at how the other matches will affect us.

If you haven't heard, the big news is that Sepp Blatter announced a week ago that teams will be seeded in UEFA's World Cup qualifying playoffs. The eight playoff teams will be split into two pots based on their FIFA ranking.

I'm disappointed by this announcement. First of all, regardless of your opinion on the decision, it's wrong to wait until the competition is almost over to give us the details of the playoff draw. This should've been announced before a single European qualifier had been played. But it's not unexpected, because the same thing happened four years ago. Not just the seeding, but also the fact that they didn't decide on it until right before qualifying ended (link). We ended up with Spain vs Slovakia, remember?

Second, I don't see why the big teams need to be protected. If France and Germany both end up in the playoffs, why not have the possibility that both can be drawn against each other? Well, I know why it's this way, but it doesn't make it fair. Teams were already seeded once when the groups were drawn. If France can't win its group as the top seed, then why do they deserve any more protection? I really thought things might be different with Michel Platini in charge of UEFA, especially after the way he restructured the Champions League.

How will the seeding change things? As always, Edgar at Football Rankings is on top of the likely FIFA rankings. Based on probable results, we're looking at the following pots:

Pot 1: Croatia, France, Portugal, Russia
Pot 2: Bosnia, Czech, Greece, Ireland

France would've still been favored to qualify without this seeding, but now it just makes things easier for them (and Germany/Russia, Portugal) which also has an impact on American soccer. Protecting the big teams likely makes the 2010 World Cup harder for the United States. However slightly, this does hurt our chances for advancing from the group stage (due to a greater likelihood of a tough draw), as well as our chances for being seeded in future World Cups. As for FIFA's decision making, as Gabriele Marcotti wrote yesterday, regardless of how you examine it they don't come off looking good.

This week's qualifiers

As an American, we want the following results:

1) Russia vs Germany. This is the big one. We want Russia to defeat Germany and go on to take the automatic berth. Germany is one of the top teams who rarely miss out on qualification and they probably still won't, but at least there's a chance they could be shocked in the playoffs.

2) Argentina. Again, it's not likely, but we should still want them to finish 6th. It's not like Costa Rica could take them in the playoffs, so 5th is as good as qualified. Anyway, they should defeat Peru at home, before traveling to Uruguay for the final match. Assuming that happens, Uruguay must get at least a point in Ecuador tomorrow so that they can still pass Argentina in the final match with a win. Actually, that result is key. Ecuador can still pass Argentina on the final day no matter what happens on Saturday, so we definitely don't want them to win.

It'll also probably be necessary for one or both of Colombia/Ecuador to win away on the final day. Here's what we should be hoping for in CONMEBOL:

Bolivia	vs	Brazil	-	meaningless
Argentina	vs	Peru	-	Peru win
Colombia	vs	Chile	-	Colombia win
Ecuador	vs	Uruguay	-	draw (or URU win)
Venezuela	vs	Paraguay	-	Venezuela win
			-
Paraguay	vs	Colombia	-	Colombia win
Uruguay	vs	Argentina	-	Uruguay win
Peru	vs	Bolivia	-	meaningless
Brazil	vs	Venezuela	-	Venezuela win
Chile	vs	Ecuador	-	Ecuador win

I don't expect Colombia or Venezuela to get those results, so we're relying on Ecuador and Uruguay. Don't forget to check out the CONMEBOL results simulator, which is great fun.

3) Portugal. They're a team with more potential than Sweden, and I'd like to see them crash out. Saturday's matches are key, since both are likely to easily win on Wednesday (Portugal vs Malta, Sweden vs Albania). Portugal should beat Hungary, so Sweden will need a result in Denmark. A draw there probably won't be good enough. If Sweden-Denmark ends in a draw and Portugal wins, Portugal will be ahead going into the final matchday. At the very least (a one goal win), they would be ahead on goals scored and they have a much easier final opponent. Sweden really needs to win in Denmark. They're capable of that; remember the Euro 2008 qualifier where they were going to win there until the match was abandoned?

Home Field Dis-Advantage

2009-10-05T03:45:00.001-05:00

A lot has been made this year over the home struggles of the Chicago Fire and the Los Angeles Galaxy. The Fire are doing much better away (1.64 PPG) than at home (1.29 PPG). The Galaxy were in that same boat, but they've won their last two home games and are now sporting equal marks (1.57 PPG) home and away. The Wizards are also close to being equal (home = 4-5-4, away = 4-6-4).

What the Fire and Galaxy are doing is rare historically in Major League Soccer. I've covered home field advantage before; the number is around 0.67 PPG for all of MLS history. So for the Fire to have a -0.35, that's on pace for the second lowest mark in league history. In fact, only nine of the 149 team seasons from 1996-2008 have seen a team's away record be equal to or better than their home record. Those teams are:

		Home	Away	Diff
1999	New York	0.625	0.625	0.000
1998	Tampa Bay	1.188	1.250	-0.063
2003	San Jose	1.667	1.733	-0.067
1997	San Jose	1.063	1.188	-0.125
1999	Tampa Bay	1.125	1.313	-0.188
1998	Los Angeles	2.063	2.313	-0.250
1999	DC United	1.750	2.000	-0.250
2003	New York	1.267	1.533	-0.267
2002	New York	1.000	1.500	-0.500

A mix of teams good and bad. There are two MLS Cup winners in the group, though both excelled in both categories (like 2009 LA) rather than being poor at home (2009 CHI). As always, I'm counting shootouts as draws.

How have these nine teams done in the playoffs? Would you expect them to do better on the road there as well? First, four of them failed to qualify. Of the other five, the results are as follows:

LA 1998. Easily disposed of the Dallas Burn in round one, winning home and away. They lost to Chicago after a 0:1 home loss and a 1:1 away draw (shootout loss). So they did slightly better away.

TB 1999. Swept out of the playoffs after equal 0:2 results away and home against Columbus.

DC 1999. Won the MLS Cup after winning the Supporters' Shield. They played much better at home in those playoffs. Started off by sweeping Miami in two games after a home win and an away draw (shootout win). Defeated Columbus by winning both home games in between a 1:5 shellacking in Crew Stadium.

NY 2003. Lost the opener vs NE at home 0:2, then drew 1:1 away to lose by two on aggregate.

SJ 2003. Won the MLS Cup after famously coming back from four goals down on aggregate in the quarterfinals (at home). Won both home games and lost the only away game.

It's interesting that neither of the MLS Cup winners in this group got there by getting an away result in the playoffs. They both played much better at home. Of course, as I mentioned earlier both were excellent in both categories in the regular season (so basically, they were good wherever they played).

Anyway, expecting home and/or away form to carry over into the small sample size that is the MLS playoffs isn't very realistic. One of the top ten disparities on the other side (that is, playing much, much better at home) was last year's New York Red Bulls, and they ended up winning two straight away games to make the final.

I don't expect the home/away records of Chicago and LA to have an impact on this year's playoffs. I certainly don't think Fire fans should want their team to get a lower seed so they can play more away games. That's not going to help.

MLS: Post-Week 28 Notes

2009-09-29T06:01:00.001-05:00

1) Shalrie Joseph for MVP? It seems like all the forces are converging and settling on him after his player of the week performance. Today alone, there were three articles touting his candidacy from Ives Galarcep (Soccer By Ives), Ridge Mahoney (Soccer America), and Kyle McCarthy (Goal.com).

He has a lot of things going for him. The Revs were supposed to take a step backwards this year, and yet they look like a good bet for the playoffs. Then there's the injuries to Albright, Twellman, and now Ralston. He's unquestionably been the team's leader in the absence of their other stars, playing well no matter where he lines up on the field.

Finally, there's the sense that Joseph should've won this award already in a previous year (perhaps 2005). Much like the Grammys have done in recent years, the voters may feel that it's simply time to honor him for his entire career.

2) You may have noticed Joe Cannon was nowhere to be found for San Jose on Sunday. Turns out he was simply rested by Frank Yallop; there's no injury or anything. That's newsworthy because he had played every single minute of the regular season going into the weekend (see the most recent OTFATT update). Now, we're down to only four such remaining players: Barnes, Busch, Hartman, and Onstad.

3) Shouldn't it be about time for Forbes to release their MLS team valuations for 2009? They put out their list last year on September 9th, the first time ever for the league. It's the only ranking of its kind, and I'm looking forward to it again. Are the Galaxy really going to be listed at $100 million again? I just hope that there isn't any real reason for the delay, and that they're actually going to do them on an annual basis.

4) Sporcle, the quiz site which has quickly become one of my favorite places to waste time on the internet, is now letting users design their own quizzes. I've taken the opportunity to create a couple of soccer related ones, so check it out:

Plus, there's already some good ones in their sports category.

Jeff Cunningham's Quest for the MLS Golden Boot

2009-09-28T07:31:00.000-05:00

Jeff Cunningham scored two more goals for Dallas to tie Colorado's Conor Casey for the league lead with 15. Actually, he now leads in the race for the golden boot due to the first tiebreaker, assists. He has 7 to Casey's 1, so he'll win any tie between the two men. Not only that, he has an extra game remaining and FCD has been assaulting the nets recently. He has to be the favorite to take home the award.

It's amazing how he's come on so strong in the second half of the season. I know he wasn't starting full time, and he was even playing on the wing for a little while. But still, I don't think anyone expected this type of production. That brings us to the next point: Would Cunningham be the worst Golden Boot winner ever? It's hard not to immediately jump to that conclusion. Now, several players have won the award for middling teams (like Jeff Cunningham, 2006). However, I don't recall seeing any of them finish with such a flurry of goals for a team so clearly out of contention.

At the halfway point of the season, Dallas was 3-7-5 (14 points) and their season was already over. Cunningham had scored only once. He'd fire in a brace in the 16th game, the 2-1 home victory over New York, and since then he's been on fire. Obviously he plays better without Kenny Cooper (the team was only 3-8-8 when both started over this year and last).

So how exactly does Cunningham's stellar second half compare to previous boot winners?

			1st	2nd	total	1st	2nd
1996	TB	Lassiter, Roy	11	16	27	41%	59%
1997	DC	Moreno, Jaime	10	6	16	63%	38%
1998	CLB	John, Stern	9	17	26	35%	65%
1999	DAL	Kreis, Jason	11	7	18	61%	39%
2000	TB	Diallo, Mamadou	13	13	26	50%	50%
2001	MIA	Pineda Chacon, Alex	8	11	19	42%	58%
2002	LA	Ruiz, Carlos	10	14	24	42%	58%
2003	LA	Ruiz, Carlos	8	7	15	53%	47%
2004	SJ	Ching, Brian	7	5	12	58%	42%
2005	NE	Twellman, Taylor	6	11	17	35%	65%
2006	RSL	Cunningham, Jeff	7	9	16	44%	56%
2007	DC	Emilio, Luciano	10	10	20	50%	50%
2008	LA	Donovan, Landon	11	9	20	55%	45%

2009	COL	Casey, Conor	8	7	15	53%	47%
2009	DAL	Cunningham, Jeff	1	14	15	7%	93%

Jeff's current season certainly stands out. I'm a bit surprised at how even most of the previous seasons have been, actually. I also looked at all the 15 goal scorers in league history, and there really isn't a comparable situation to this one. A lot of that is because not every team is going to remain in playoff contention (thank god) as the league expands, whereas previous players didn't have the opportunities to score tons of less meaningful goals.

So we can say that:

1) It's not normal for a golden boot winner to have one amazing half where they score the vast majority of their goals.

2) No player has scored this many goals for a team out of playoff contention.

Let's talk more about the comparison between Casey and Cunningham. It doesn't take any research to know that Casey's goals have been more important than Cunningham's. Of course, I did it anyway. So let's see how many times each player has tied the game or given their team the lead when scoring:

	Casey	Cunningham
tie	5	0
lead	7	8
neither	3	7

Not only have Casey's goals been more important in the context of the entire season, but also in the games themselves. And the number of games scored in is similar: Casey 10, Cunningham 9 (so it's not like there was a disparity in that category). I'd also argue that Casey's goals have been a bit higher quality as well, although that can be subjective.

Now, I don't mind if either player wins (even if Casey deserves it more). I don't hate Cunningham, I'm actually enjoying his scoring run. I just find it interesting, especially as he's seemingly become proficient at scoring lots of goals for mediocre teams.

MLS Week 28: Mid-week notes

2009-09-24T06:25:00.000-05:00

1) The Columbus Crew's home unbeaten streak in all competitions is over with the CONCACAF Champions League loss to Cruz Azul. You may have heard that they broke the record for the regular season with 19 straight games back in July. However, they also managed to just do enough to break the overall streak as well. They were at 24 games before last night, one better than the 2000-01 Chicago Fire. That included 21 regular season games, plus the two playoff games last year and the Puerto Rico game last month.

2) Let's revisit this post: Top MLS Goalscorers by Season Age. How's 2009 going to change these lists? Well, Guillermo Barros Schelotto has already set a record for an age 36 season, easily eclipsing Preki's season for the awful 1999 Kansas City Wizards.

Brian McBride has scored 6 goals, but due to the injury he's probably not going to beat Youri Djorkaeff's 10 for age 37.

Meanwhile, Jeff Cunningham is 3 goals away from tying Adolfo Valencia's age 32 record haul of 16 in 2000.

Unfortunately, there haven't been any teenage goalscoring sensations this year to light up the younger age records.

3) Recommended reading (neither are MLS, but...):

If you're not reading Jonathan Wilson's articles for the Guardian's football web site, you really should be. He has the best articles on tactics that I've come across. His current one deals with the possible return of the sweeper, and there's several links to some of his other ones in that story.

Another great read is Pro Player Pipeline, which deals with college soccer and features detailed reviews of matches seen by the author.

4) The Los Angeles Galaxy may be doing well in the league table, but they're coming dangerously close to fielding the league's oldest ever starting lineup. The record is currently held (as far as I can tell) by the Chicago Fire's lineup on 8/28/1998 with an average age of 31.48 years old. This past Saturday, the Galaxy's lineup was on average 29.59 years old. That may not seem too close, but they're only two players away from setting a new mark.

Against Toronto, If you had replaced Gonzalez with Sanneh and then switched out either Franklin for Klein or Kirovski for Buddle, they would've set a new mark.

The best chance may come if Omar Gonzalez has to sit out a match. He's still shy of his 21st birthday, so replacing him would make things a lot closer. Unfortunately, Tony Sanneh may be just too old to even consider in the lineup anymore, especially alongside Gregg Berhalter. A more likely path to the record would see Franklin move to CB instead of Gonzalez, who's place in the lineup would be taken by Klein (at RB). Klein's younger than Sanneh, so then you would need another big age increase. How about Jovan Kirovski? Him (33.51) replacing Buddle (28.33) wouldn't be enough, but what if Donovan moved back and Birchall came off instead (25.37)? Those two moves (Klein/Kirovski for Birchall/Gonzalez) to this past Saturday's lineup would be enough to set a new record.

MLS Week 27 Notes

2009-09-21T05:21:00.000-05:00

1) Various records to watch for:

Eric Avila has made 16 subs without a start. Needs four more in the final five games to break the record, or three to tie.

The worst Supporters Shield winners in MLS history were the 2004 Columbus Crew at 1.633 PPG. Somebody will need to finish with 50 points to surpass them. This year's Crew would need 7 points in the final five games to do that.

New York needs one away point in their final three matches to avoid having the worst road record ever. Currently it's held by 2005 RSL at 0.125 PPG (2 points in 16 matches).

The Red Bulls also need 2 more points to avoid having their worst team ever. Also, San Jose needs 7 points (one per game) to avoid their worst record ever, too.

2) The end of the regular season is near. That's always my favorite time to blog, since we get to finally see just how this year's players and teams stack up historically. However, this year there's also an interesting milestone coming up before season is over. MLS had played 2,283 regular season games entering the season. This year, they'll play a total of 225, which means that the 9th to last regular season game will be the league's 2,500th. That match will be Houston vs Los Angeles on October 18th, a Sunday afternoon.

3) Who are the most tenured MLS players by team? Two recent trades have caused two teams to have new tenure titleholders. The first would be San Jose, who dealt Ryan Cochrane back to Houston. Jason Hernandez is now the team's most tenured player. Even though both were taken in the 2007 expansion draft, Cochrane was taken earlier so therefore had been with the team ever so slightly longer. The second recent change is in Dallas, who traded Drew Moor to Colorado. Goalkeeper Dario Sala is now the team's most tenured player, and also the most recently acquired of all the non-expansion team most tenured players.

Who holds the title for each team? Here's a list with the date each was acquired:

Chicago

C.J. Brown, 2/1/98.

Chivas USA

Sacha Kljestan, 1/20/06.

Colorado

Pablo Mastroeni, 1/11/02.

Columbus

Frankie Hejduk, 3/7/03.

DC United

Ben Olsen, 1/28/98.

FC Dallas

Dario Sala, 9/15/05.

Houston Dynamo

Wade Barrett
Ricardo Clark
Brian Ching
Brad Davis
Brian Mullan
Pat Onstad
Eddie Robinson
Craig Waibel

All on 12/15/05, when the team moved to Houston.

Kansas City

Davy Arnaud, 1/10/02.

Los Angeles

Alan Gordon, 8/31/04.

New England

Jay Heaps, 6/20/01.

New York

Seth Stammler, 1/16/04.

Real Salt Lake

Andy Williams, 11/19/04.

San Jose

Jason Hernandez, 11/21/07.

Seattle

Sebastien Le Toux, 5/7/08.

Toronto

Jim Brennan, 9/8/06.

If you're interesting in seeing who the most tenured players were in June 2005, click here. That's one of the first posts I made on this blog. Olsen's the only player still standing from then.

2009 MLS Expansion Draft Preview #2

2009-09-17T05:02:00.000-05:00

Time to revisit my projections of who will be protected and who will be left available. What's changed in the past month? For last month's review, click here.

A few days ago I posted about when players graduate from Generation Adidas status, which is highly relevant to this topic. Check out that post for further info. As of right now, I'm projecting nine players to graduate after the season: Alston, Beltran, Frei, Gonzalez, Hall, Nyarko, Wallace, Zakuani, and Zayner.

CHICAGO

Protected	Available	Exempt
Mike Banner	C.J. Brown	Baggio Husidic
Cuauhtemoc Blanco	Calen Carr
Jon Busch	Stefan Dimitrov
Wilman Conde	Andrew Dykstra
Patrick Nyarko	Peter Lowry
Marco Pappa	Justin Mapp
Logan Pause	Brian McBride
Dasan Robinson	David Myrie
Gonzalo Segares	Brandon Prideaux
John Thorrington	Chris Rolfe
Tim Ward	Austin Washington
	Daniel Woolard

Changes: Blanco in, Rolfe out.

It now appears that Blanco will be returning to the team. With Rolfe leaving, it makes sense for Blanco to be protected and Rolfe not to be. McBride is still uncertain about his plans for next year. The only possible change I can see at this point would be Mapp, but his high salary is a factor. He could be on there instead of say, Thorrington.

CHIVAS USA

Protected	Available	Exempt
Jonathan Bornstein	Chukwudi Chijindu
Justin Braun	Jon Conway
Maykel Galindo	Yamith Cuesta
Sacha Kljestan	Jim Curtin
Michael Lahoud	Maicon Santos
Eduardo Lillingston	Jorge Flores
Jesse Marsch	Kevin Harmse
Paulo Nagamura	Ante Jazic
Shavar Thomas	Dan Kennedy
Zach Thornton	Gerson Mayen
Mariano Trujillo	Jesus Padilla
	Lance Parker
	Ante Razov
	Marcelo Saragosa
	Bojan Stepanovic
	Claudio Suarez
	Carey Talley
	Sasha Victorine
	Cesar Zamora

Changes: Lillingston in, Burling out.

Still the most difficult team to project. Burling was traded to SJ, so I guess Preki was no longer high on him. This after being protected last season. Makes me wonder about Braun's status, who was also protected last year.

Also, I read that Trujillo holds a green card, so he doesn't count as an international player. That means last month I only had two internationals on my projection, so that has to change. Hence the inclusion of Lillingston. Santos seems like he could take that place, but he's here on loan.

You'd think that U20 players Flores and Mayen would be likely candidates. However, the former wasn't protected last year, and they've both got little playing time. Let's see if the U20 World Cup raises their profiles.

COLORADO

Protected	Available	Exempt
Mehdi Ballouchy	Julien Baudet	Ciaran O'Brien
Conor Casey	Preston Burpo	Rob Valentino
Colin Clark	Steward Ceus
Omar Cummings	Greg Dalby
Cory Gibbs	Facundo Diz
Jordan Harvey	Ty Harden
Nick LaBrocca	Michael Holody
Pablo Mastroeni	Kosuke Kimura
Drew Moor	Pat Noonan
Matt Pickens	Scott Palguta
Jamie Smith	Jacob Peterson
	Ross Schunk

Changes: Moor in, Ihemelu out.

Smith is out for the year and could be overtaken by fellow international players Baudet or Kimura. The other guy on shaky ground is Gibbs. He's also hurt, and depending on how the team plays without him he might fall off the list (perhaps in favor of Peterson).

COLUMBUS

Protected	Available	Exempt
G. Barros Schelotto	Kevin Burns
Eric Brunner	Cory Elenio
Brian Carroll	Jason Garey
Emmanuel Ekpo	Eddie Gaven
Frankie Hejduk	Alex Grendi
William Hesmer	Andy Gruenebaum
Chad Marshall	Andy Iro
Alejandro Moreno	Steven Lenhart
Danny O'Rourke	Adam Moffat
Gino Padula	Stanley Nyazamba
Robbie Rogers	Duncan Oughton
	Emilio Renteria
	Jed Zayner

Changes: Moreno in, Zayner out.

Will both Hejduk and Zayner be protected, or just one? I think putting Zayner on the list may have been a little too clever on my part. I still don't think Moreno is a lock, but he seems more likely to be there than Zayner. I think it might be smart to protect Zayner instead of Hejduk, but I don't know if they'll take that chance.

DALLAS

Protected	Available	Exempt
Jair Benitez	Ray Burse	Eric Avila
Jeff Cunningham	Marvin Chavez	Bruno Guarda
Kyle Davies	Daniel Hernandez	Josh Lambo
David Ferreira	Steve Purdy	Peri Marosevic
Atiba Harris	Andre Rocha	Brek Shea
Ugo Ihemelu	Dario Sala	Anthony Wallace
George John	Daniel Torres
Dax McCarty	Blake Wagner
Heath Pearce
Pablo Ricchetti
Dave van den Bergh

Changes: Ihemelu/Pearce in, Moor/Sala out.

Pearce is obviously going to be protected, the question is who does he bump off? I picked Sala. There are various reasons to remove other players, such as the fact that they almost traded McCarty before the season. I just feel like Sala would be the least likely to be taken. Too bad he has a green card, or he could take one of the international places (Benitez/Ferreira/Ricchetti).

DC UNITED

Protected	Available	Exempt
Fred	Ely Allen
Dejan Jakovic	Brandon Barklage
Julius James	Marc Burch
Jaime Moreno	John DiRaimondo
Bryan Namoff	Luciano Emilio
Chris Pontius	Christian Gomez
Santino Quaranta	David Habarugira
Clyde Simms	Andrew Jacobson
Danny Szetela	Greg Janicki
Rodney Wallace	Avery John
Josh Wicks	Thabiso Khumalo
	Milos Kocic
	Devon McTavish
	Ange N'Silu
	Ben Olsen
	Tiyiselani Shipalane
	Lawson Vaughn

Changes: Fred in, Emilio out.

Emilio received his green card, which means that they need another international besides James and Jakovic. I know Fred's not playing well, but it's hard to see one of Habarugira/John/Khumalo/N'Silu/Shipalane ahead of him at this point. Unless Emilio has a no-trade clause, it doesn't make sense to protect him at that salary. I could also see Burch instead of Moreno, but I don't know if they would leave him unprotected despite his age and salary.

HOUSTON

Protected	Available	Exempt
Corey Ashe	Wade Barrett	Danny Cruz
Bobby Boswell	Mike Chabala
Geoff Cameron	Ryan Cochrane
Brian Ching	Tyler Deric
Ricardo Clark	Tally Hall
Brad Davis	John Michael Hayden
Andrew Hainault	Richard Mulrooney
Stuart Holden	Pat Onstad
Luis Angel Landin	Eddie Robinson
Brian Mullan	Abe Thompson
Dominic Oduro	Erik Ustruck
	Craig Waibel
	Cam Weaver

Changes: Ashe in, Kamara out.

The trade opened up a spot. Robinson or Weaver would be the other main candidates to fill it.

KANSAS CITY

Protected	Available	Exempt
Davy Arnaud	Adam Cristman	Roger Espinoza
Matt Besler	Herculez Gomez	Chance Myers
Jimmy Conrad	Kevin Hartman
Michael Harrington	Aaron Hohlbein
Zoltan Hercegfalvi	Michael Kraus
Santiago Hirsig	Eric Kronberg
Jack Jewsbury	Jonathan Leaters
Kei Kamara	Matt Marquess
Claudio Lopez	Rauwshan McKenzie
Lance Watson	Kurt Morsink
Josh Wolff	Boris Pardo
	Kevin Souter
	Graham Zusi

Changes: Kamara/Zoltan in, Espinoza/Souter out.

I no longer expect Espinoza to graduate from GA status. That's extremely unlikely now, and good news for KC. Even though he's out of contract, Kamara might still be protected in the hopes of working out a deal. Meanwhile, Zoltan and Souter are competing for the final international spot.

LOS ANGELES

Protected	Available	Exempt
David Beckham	Gregg Berhalter	Tristan Bowen
Chris Birchall	Alan Gordon
Edson Buddle	Leonard Griffin
A.J. DeLaGarza	Bryan Jordan
Landon Donovan	Jovan Kirovski
Todd Dunivant	Chris Klein
Alecko Eskandarian	Dema Kovalenko
Sean Franklin	Eddie Lewis
Omar Gonzalez	Yohance Marshall
Mike Magee	Stefani Miglioranzi
Donovan Ricketts	Kyle Patterson
	Tony Sanneh
	Josh Saunders
	Julian Valentin

Changes: none.

Nothing to suggest anything different in the past month.

NEW ENGLAND

Protected	Available	Exempt
Kevin Alston	Chris Albright	Nico Colaluca
Darrius Barnes	Stephane Assengue	Amaechi Igwe
Jay Heaps	Gabriel Badilla
Shalrie Joseph	Mauricio Castro
Jeff Larentowicz	Kheli Dube
Kenny Mansally	Edgaras Jankauskas
Sainey Nyassi	Brad Knighton
Emmanuel Osei	Pat Phelan
Steve Ralston	Bobby Shuttleworth
Matt Reis	Wells Thompson
Taylor Twellman	Chris Tierney
	Michael Videira

Changes: None.

I know Larentowicz is out of contract, but that didn't stop them from protecting Parkhurst a year ago. Dube could find a spot on the list, but who would he replace?

NEW YORK

Protected	Available	Exempt
Juan Pablo Angel	Danleigh Borman
Albert Celades	Andrew Boyens
Danny Cepero	Bouna Coundoul
Kevin Goldthwaite	Walter Garcia
Jeremy Hall	Carlos Johnson
Macoumba Kandji	Leo Krupnik
Ernst Oebster	Carlos Mendes
Dane Richards	Matthew Mbuta
Luke Sassano	Mike Petke
Seth Stammler	Jorge Rojas
Sinisa Ubiparipovic	John Wolyniec
	Nick Zimmerman

Changes: Ubiparipovic in, Zimmerman out.

Hall should graduate, but if they didn't play him any more for the last few games, there's a chance he wouldn't. Not that they're going to lose anyone good, but they could have an extra senior roster spot next year.

REAL SALT LAKE

Protected	Available	Exempt
Kyle Beckerman	Jean Alexandre	Alex Nimo
Tony Beltran	Raphael Cox	Chris Seitz
Nat Borchers	Rachid El Khalifi
Pablo Campos	Nelson Gonzalez
Fabian Espindola	Ned Grabavoy
Robbie Findley	David Horst
Will Johnson	Clint Mathis
Javier Morales	Yura Movsisyan
Jamison Olave	Tino Nunez
Nick Rimando	Kyle Reynish
Chris Wingert	Robbie Russell
	Andy Williams

Changes: Espindola in, Gonzalez out.

It just seems more likely that Espindola would be protected. I don't see either player being taken so it doesn't matter much. The other ten seem set in stone.

SAN JOSE

Protected	Available	Exempt
Arturo Alvarez	Bobby Burling
Quincy Amarikwa	Ramiro Corrales
Joe Cannon	Simon Elliott
Bobby Convey	Mike Graczyk
Cornell Glen	Darren Huckerby
Jason Hernandez	Chris Leitch
Ryan Johnson	Aaron Pitchkolan
Andre Luiz	Antonio Ribeiro
Brandon McDonald	Jamil Roberts
Shea Salinas	Andrew Weber
Ramon Sanchez	Chris Wondolowski
	Michael Zaher

Changes: none.

Not much to see here. There's a chance Burling or Wondo could play their way on the list.

SEATTLE

Protected	Available	Exempt
Osvaldo Alonso	Terry Boss
Brad Evans	Evan Brown
Leo Gonzalez	Chris Eylander
Jhon Kennedy Hurtado	Michael Fucito
Patrick Ianni	Taylor Graham
Nate Jaqua	Stephen King
Kasey Keller	Roger Levesque
Freddie Ljungberg	Sebastien Le Toux
Fredy Montero	Tyrone Marshall
James Riley	Lamar Neagle
Steve Zakuani	Sanna Nyassi
	Zach Scott
	Nathan Sturgis
	Peter Vagenas
	Tyson Wahl

Changes: Ianni/Keller in, Le Toux/Nyassi out.

I guess I don't see them risking Keller despite his age and salary; they don't want another Jason Kreis situation. I'm now thinking that there's a good chance he would have a no-trade clause which would prevent him from being exposed in the first place.

I also decided that Ianni is a much more important player to the team than Nyassi (who now seems unlikely to be protected), even if he's not that great. Le Toux may be the odd man out, though some Seattle fans have suggested that Jaqua will be unprotected instead. You see, Jaqua makes about 200k, or twice as much as Le Toux. We'll see.

TORONTO

Protected	Available	Exempt
Nana Attakora	Jim Brennan	Fuad Ibrahim
Chad Barrett	Brian Edwards
Sam Cronin	Lesly Fellinga
Julian de Guzman	Gabe Gala
Dwayne De Rosario	Nick Garcia
Stefan Frei	Ali Gerba
Emmanuel Gomez	Amado Guevara
Amadou Sanyang	Carl Robinson
Adrian Serioux	Pablo Vitti
O'Brian White
Marvell Wynne

Changes: Attakora/de Guzman/Gomez/Sanyang in, Brennan/Garcia/Gerba/Robinson out.

I just can't see Robinson protected with the signing of DeGuzman. The youth are simply more valuable and desirable than the older players.

Graduating from Generation Adidas

2009-09-13T18:53:00.003-05:00

When I posted my expansion draft preview recently, the subject that stirred up the most debate was this one. Anyone who's followed MLS for a number of years knows that it's a bit of a mystery. When exactly do Generation Adidas players graduate, and what are the criteria?

Basically, players are supposed to graduate when they no longer need the roster protection that it provides. If a player has become a full time starter, then they can easily move up to the senior roster. Players can also leave the program without being moved up by being waived (like David Arvizu, for one); in old press releases such instances were still called graduating. The general length of the contract and the maximum time in the program seems to be four years, though several players have gotten five (Seth Trembly, Devin Barclay, and I believe Craig Capano, so their injuries may have been a factor). That's why I feel Jed Zayner is a lock to graduate after this, his fourth year.

I've always assumed that it was based on minutes played, and that's a pretty good guideline. The interesting thing about this year is that so many GA rookies are getting significant playing time, raising the possibility that many of them could graduate after one year. That's what I want to focus on for right now. What exactly has it taken in the past for a player to graduate after a single season from GA (or Project-40 as it was formerly known)?

I've listed below every member of the program since 2000, and their stats for their first season in the league. I didn't use earlier players for several reasons. First, previous years saw players allocated to teams rather than drafted. Only 3/12 players in 2000 were allocated. Second, some players were graduated in early years with very little playing time. Like Chris Albright, who signed in mid-season and played only 347 minutes. Or Dema Kovalenko, graduated after 291 minutes. Or Tim Howard, graduated after 90 minutes (one game) in 1998. I think that those types of graduations really aren't applicable today. Since 2000, there hasn't been anything like that.

Notes:

This is the list from the 2009 MLS Fact & Record Book. Some players (such as Ramon Nunez) may have had similar protected status but aren't included below.

The three columns below (minutes, games played, games started) include only regular season games.

First Year GA Player Stats

		Grad?	MIN	PCT	GP	PCT	GS	PCT
2000	Garcia, N	yes	2916	100%	32	100%	32	100%
2005	Parkhurst	yes	2880	100%	32	100%	32	100%
2006	Kljestan	yes	2676	93%	32	100%	31	97%
2000	Pierce	yes	2600	88%	29	91%	29	91%
2003	Clark, R	yes	2590	92%	28	93%	28	93%
2004	Marshall, C	yes	2446	91%	28	93%	27	90%
2000	Bocanegra	yes	2402	81%	27	84%	27	84%
2007	Edu	yes	2180	81%	25	83%	25	83%
2006	Wynne	yes	2170	75%	28	88%	23	72%
2005	Guzan	yes	2079	72%	24	75%	23	72%
2004	Dempsey	yes	2024	75%	24	80%	23	77%
2000	Rimando	no	2002	68%	22	69%	22	69%
2002	Gray	yes	1780	69%	25	89%	20	71%
2003	Magee	yes	1709	61%	29	97%	19	63%
2000	Convey	no	1614	55%	22	69%	18	56%
2006	Peterson	no	1548	54%	28	88%	17	53%
2000	Califf	yes	1518	51%	18	56%	16	50%
2004	Cochrane	no	1459	54%	18	60%	18	60%
2002	Martino	yes	1455	56%	22	79%	15	54%
2004	Adu	no	1440	53%	30	100%	14	47%
2003	Pause	yes	1354	49%	23	77%	15	50%
2001	Barclay	no	1324	54%	23	85%	12	44%
2006	Sturgis	no	1247	43%	15	47%	15	47%
2002	Davis, B	yes	1246	49%	24	86%	12	43%
2005	Freeman	no	1217	42%	20	63%	14	44%
2008	Espinoza, R	no	1169	43%	22	73%	12	40%
2001	Carrieri	no	1081	45%	19	73%	11	42%
2007	Soumare	no	1072	40%	19	63%	11	37%
2005	Ward, T	no	1034	36%	13	41%	11	34%
2001	Quaranta	no	949	40%	16	62%	10	38%
2008	Beltran	no	936	35%	15	50%	10	33%
2005	Moor	no	936	33%	20	63%	9	28%
2006	Kamara	no	930	32%	19	59%	9	28%
2004	Grabavoy	no	928	34%	15	50%	11	37%
2008	Guarda	no	822	30%	12	40%	9	30%
2005	Watson, J	no	818	28%	19	59%	6	19%
2003	Lewis, R	no	798	28%	13	43%	7	23%
2003	Eskandarian	no	728	26%	23	77%	5	17%
2003	Jaqua	no	712	26%	20	67%	5	17%
2003	Gaven	no	691	25%	12	40%	7	23%
2008	Myers, C	no	681	25%	10	33%	7	23%
2003	Alvarez, A	no	655	23%	15	50%	5	17%
2007	Rogers	no	598	22%	10	33%	6	20%
2005	Barrett, C	no	597	21%	20	63%	4	13%
2001	Buddle	no	556	23%	17	65%	5	19%
2008	Avila	no	508	19%	14	47%	3	10%
2004	Szetela	no	374	14%	8	27%	4	13%
2006	Altidore	no	330	11%	7	22%	3	9%
2002	Akwari	no	325	13%	7	25%	3	11%
2005	Pore	no	285	10%	8	25%	4	13%
2001	Downing	no	279	11%	5	19%	3	11%
2001	Klinger, M	no	272	11%	9	35%	2	8%
2001	Bardales	no	270	11%	12	46%	1	4%
2007	Seitz	no	270	10%	3	10%	3	10%
2001	Johnson, E	no	263	11%	11	42%	1	4%
2004	Goodson	no	247	9%	5	17%	2	7%
2000	Asad	no	246	8%	8	25%	2	6%
2003	LeBlanc	no	225	8%	7	23%	2	7%
2006	Movsisyan	no	221	8%	10	31%	1	3%
2006	Sims	no	219	8%	9	28%	2	6%
2005	John, W	no	200	7%	6	19%	2	6%
2000	Cooks, M	no	165	6%	5	16%	2	6%
2008	Nyarko	no	159	6%	9	30%	2	7%
2003	Gonzalez, G	no	129	5%	6	20%	1	3%
2000	Beckerman	no	110	4%	2	6%	1	3%
2001	Burciaga	no	93	4%	3	11%	2	7%
2002	Capano	no	92	4%	4	14%	1	4%
2002	Stone	no	91	3%	4	14%	1	4%
2005	Besagno	no	69	2%	2	6%	1	3%
2007	Wallace	no	69	3%	1	3%	1	3%
2007	Colaluca	no	62	2%	4	13%	0	0%
2002	Mapp	no	28	1%	3	11%	0	0%
2004	Gardner	no	25	1%	2	7%	0	0%
2000	Trembly	no	21	1%	4	13%	0	0%
2008	O'Brien, C	no	19	1%	1	3%	0	0%
2000	Salas, S	no	18	1%	1	3%	0	0%
2008	Shea	no	17	1%	0	0%	2	7%
2006	McCarty, D	no	12	0%	2	6%	0	0%
2006	Ianni	no	2	0%	2	6%	0	0%
2007	Sesay	no	1	0%	1	3%	0	0%
2007	Arguez	no	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
2006	Arvizu	no	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
2004	Bradley	no	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
2003	Carroll	no	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
2001	Countess	no	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
2004	Cronin	no	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
2007	Ibrahim, F	no	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
2007	Igwe	no	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
2005	Jimenez	no	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
2005	Kirk, Q	no	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
2008	Lambo	no	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
2000	Longo	no	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
2008	Nimo	no	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
2001	Saavedra	no	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
2003	Stokes	no	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
2003	Thompson, J	no	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
2008	Valentino	no	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
2006	Wagner	no	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
2006	Zayner	no	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%

Thoughts:

I almost didn't include 2000 in this list because of Rimando. He clearly won the starting role for the Fusion, and it's shocking how for some unknown reason he didn't graduate. And to a lesser extent, Convey.

Anyway, besides Rimando nine years ago, every single player with at least 1,700 minutes played has graduated.

Other strange decisions? Cochrane and Peterson stand out as players who probably should've graduated. Both started more than half their team's games, but kept their GA status (both through their third season actually). I suppose you could've also made a case for Adu, but it's no surprise that he got a second year. He didn't exactly get those minutes on merit.

Among graduates with lesser minutes played, Davis and Marshall were both rookie of the year nominees in 2002, with the latter winning. Califf, I would imagine graduated because he also was a nominee. Although, Adu and Quaranta were both nominated but kept their status.

Pause is a curious one. I really wouldn't expect a player to graduate with those kind of numbers. And as someone mentioned on Bigsoccer while I was researching this, he had a lot of playing time early in the season and very little near the end and the playoffs. 10 starts in the first 12 games, and only 5 in the last 18.

2009's GA Class

So what about this year's GA rookie class? Here's their stats after this weekend's action:

		MIN	GP	GS
2009	Gonzalez, O	2222	25	25
2009	Frei	2115	24	24
2009	Wallace	1995	25	22
2009	Alston	1709	19	19
2009	Zakuani	1607	24	19
2009	Hall	1592	19	17
2009	Husidic	257	7	3
2009	Cruz	107	6	0
2009	Marosevic	47	4	0

The top three are incredible locks to graduate, while the next two should barring anything crazy. Hall, on the other hand, may not be a lock. Two more starts would get him over that 1,700 minute mark. However, NY only has five games left, and he didn't play yesterday. If he didn't play another minute, I'd say that he might not make it. However, Carlos Johnson did get another red card, so that's unlikely. I'd still project Hall as graduating also.

Second Year Graduates

What does it take for players to graduate after their second season? Listing only players who played 500 minutes in one of the two years:

		Grad?	Year 1	Year 2
2004	Bradley	yes	0	2628
2003	Gaven	yes	691	2578
2007	Soumare	yes	1072	2514
2004	Goodson	yes	247	2488
2003	Carroll	yes	0	2438
2007	Rogers	yes	598	2334
2000	Rimando	yes	2002	2300
2005	Moor	yes	936	2280
2005	Freeman	yes	1217	2131
2003	Jaqua	yes	712	1836
2001	Carrieri	yes	1081	1830
2003	Eskandarian	yes	728	1627
2006	McCarty, D	yes	12	1604
2004	Adu	yes	1440	1487
2006	Altidore	yes	330	1399
2002	Mapp	yes	28	1384
2001	Buddle	yes	556	1304
2006	Sturgis	yes	1247	1146
2003	Lewis, R	no	798	1144
2006	Peterson	no	1548	1118
2004	Szetela	no	374	1117
2002	Stone	no	91	1057
2006	Movsisyan	no	221	993
2005	Kirk	no	0	993
2000	Convey	yes	1614	992
2000	Asad	no	246	978
2006	Ianni	no	2	961
2001	Quaranta	yes	949	949
2005	Barrett, C	no	597	780
2004	Cochrane	no	1459	776
2001	Downing	no	279	667
2004	Grabavoy	no	928	656
2005	Ward, T	no	1034	605
2007	Igwe	no	0	568
2005	Pore	no	285	563
2006	Kamara	no	930	475
2003	Alvarez, A	no	655	374
2001	Barclay	no	1324	321
2005	Watson, J	no	818	104

Once again, Peterson confounds me (especially when Sturgis did it). He did get less playing time and less starts in the second year than the first. The second season seems to matter more than the first.

2008's GA Class

		Year 1	Year 2
2008	Nyarko	159	1617
2008	Beltran	936	1514
2008	Shea	17	720
2008	Espinoza, R	1169	604
2008	Avila	508	304
2008	Guarda	822	217
2008	Myers, C	681	94
2008	O'Brien, C	19	0
2008	Lambo	0	0
2008	Nimo	0	0
2008	Valentino	0	0

No second year GA player who has received the amount of playing time that Nyarko and Beltran have gotten has failed to graduate. So you can see why I think they're locks. Espinoza, I had previously projected as graduated, and I think that was a mistake. Although, part of that was based on him getting more playing time as the season continued, and he hasn't got much. I think now he's almost a lock to not graduate, so that's good news for Wizards fans.

I hope this clears things up a bit! Once the rosters are set (9/15 deadline), I'll revisit my expansion draft projections.

List of MLS Players Who Never Played a Competitive Game (Incomplete)

2009-09-08T05:26:00.002-05:00

This list is incomplete. All of these players were signed to an official team roster, but didn't play in a competitive game (regular season, playoffs, Open Cup, Champions League, etc).

For now, I've gone through the end of season rosters for 2004-2007. Some players may have been on the roster for part of the season and then waived, so they'd be missing if that's the case. I'm aware of a few names off the top of my head, but I'd rather wait until I can get all the mid-season names for a year at once. Also, no pool goalkeepers or emergency loan players are included. Some players may have played multiple years and/or for multiple teams, but I've just listed the first one here.

The numbers for earlier years should be much lower due to smaller roster sizes. So I'd guess this list already should compromise a great deal of the players who fit this category.

2004	NE	F	Belleh, Perek
2004	COL	M	Erush, Michael
2004	DC	M	Lawson, Tim
2004	NE	M	Thompson, Bobby

2005	CHV	D	Arbelaez, Victor
2005	NY	M	Bailey, Ramon
2005	CHV	GK	Barragan, Javier
2005	CHV	M	Castro, Hector
2005	NY	M	Corcoran, Chris
2005	KC	D	Dobson, Daniel
2005	COL	D	Elbaum, Joshua
2005	RSL	D	Flores, Sergio
2005	SJ	GK	Fulton, Robby
2005	CLB	M	Gallardo, Luis
2005	NY	M	Garipe, Daniel
2005	DAL	GK	Gomez, Chris
2005	KC	GK	Hutton, Martin
2005	CHV	GK	Kalnasy, Shaun
2005	SJ	M	Lanes, Aaron
2005	KC	M	Lascody, Douglas
2005	DAL	D	Marshall, Winston
2005	KC	F	McGinnis, Pat
2005	DC	D	Merritt, Tim
2005	KC	M	Minagawa-Webster, John
2005	LA	D	Nslen, Michael
2005	DAL	D	Pulido, John
2005	SJ	F	Ramirez, Orlando
2005	SJ	D	Rodriguez, Brett
2005	NE	M	Romaneiro, Marcos
2005	CHI	M	Rosenbrand, Andy
2005	NE	GK	Tomasso, T.J.
2005	DAL	M	Torres, Mario
2005	SJ	D	Twellman, James
2005	NY	GK	Ueltschey, Mike
2005	DC	GK	Weber, Andrew
2005	CHI	D	White, DeMetrius
2005	NE	M	Wilson, Easton

2006	RSL	F	Acosta, Adam
2006	NY	F	Arvizu, David
2006	NY	GK	Behonick, Michael
2006	RSL	D	Besagno, Jake
2006	CHV	M	Borja, Carlos
2006	RSL	M	Gil, Brian
2006	NE	M	Gonzalez, Miguel
2006	NE	D	Haggerty, Pat
2006	LA	F	Hansen, Josh
2006	RSL	GK	Harrison, Chase
2006	COL	F	King, Aaron
2006	DC	GK	McIntosh, Ryan
2006	DC	M	Metcalf, Andy
2006	CHV	D	Robles, Eder
2006	CHI	M	Ruud, Adam
2006	CHV	F	Sanchez, Estuardo
2006	DAL	M	Smith, Alex
2006	CHI	D	Ughiovhe, Idris
2006	NE	M	Williamson, Adam

2007	DC	M	Arguez, Bryan
2007	DAL	M	Botero, Sebastian
2007	CHV	D	Brooks, Desmond
2007	DC	GK	Crowe, Shawn
2007	RSL	M	Curfman, Steven
2007	DAL	D	Daniels, Anthony
2007	KC	M	Elcock, Edson
2007	LA	GK	Friesz, Lance
2007	DAL	M	Gbandi, Sandy
2007	KC	M	Godbolt, A.J.
2007	KC	F	Guadarrama, Willy
2007	TOR	M	Guzman, David
2007	HOU	M	Hoerner, Kenneth
2007	COL	GK	Hughes, Justin
2007	CLB	D	Hunter, Ben
2007	HOU	GK	James, Jordan
2007	DAL	M	Jones, Scott
2007	NY	M	Karcz, Chris
2007	KC	GK	Konopka, Chris
2007	TOR	D	Lumley, Stephen
2007	CHV	GK	Myers, Justin
2007	TOR	M	Nunez, Cristian
2007	CLB	D	Pacheco, Andrei
2007	NY	F	Patterson, Randi
2007	COL	D	Wilmes, Clifton

WCQs - Where We Stand

2009-09-07T05:10:00.003-05:00

Good weekend for the USA, as none of Argentina/France/Portugal could win.

1) In Africa, this weekend's results mean that Cameroon and Tunisia should now be considered clear favorites to qualify. If Gabon can't beat Cameroon at home, then how they can hope to get a result on the road? Togo let in a last second equalizer against Morocco which probably ended their hopes. Meanwhile, the draw with Nigeria means that all Tunisia needs to do is beat Kenya at home and Mozambique away. Should be easy, except the latter already held Nigeria to a scoreless draw at home.

In Group C, Zambia's out of the running and Algeria still hold the advantage over Egypt. The goal differential could be key here. Algeria is already up by three goals on Egypt, and they have a much easier matchup in the next round (vs Rwanda compared to @ Zambia). It's looking like not only will Egypt have to beat Algeria on the final match day, but they'll also have to win by two or three goals to qualify.

Ivory Coast are 99.9% in, and they'll be joining Ghana next month.

2) In Asia, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia ended 0:0. This isn't a horrible result for Bahrain. They can definitely get a draw in Riyadh, as the Saudis have dropped points at home on several occasions in qualifying already. New Zealand are still huge underdogs, but they have to be cheering for Bahrain.

3) CONMEBOL qualifying saw Argentina lose at home to Brazil, who clinched a spot. Unfortunately, the other results needed to make them really sweat didn't happen; Ecuador and Uruguay both lost. The good news is that even if they get a point in Paraguay and beat Peru, they still should be at risk on the final matchday @ Uruguay.

What results are important for hurting Argentina's chances? Let's take a look (using the CONMEBOL results simulator on mediotiempo.com):

The teams that are qualified or almost there are Brazil, Chile, and Paraguay. Peru is eliminated, while Bolivia is dead every way except mathematically. We want those five teams to drop points to the other four ranked 5-8: Colombia, Ecuador, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

Round 16 (this Wednesday)

Bolivia	vs	Ecuador
Uruguay	vs	Colombia
Paraguay	vs	Argentina
Venezuela	vs	Peru
Brazil	vs	Chile

Ok, obviously Argentina must drop points and Brazil vs Chile is meaningless. Actually, I suppose it would be better for Chile to get points since then maybe they won't need them in the last two rounds.

We want Ecuador (important) and Venezuela (meh) to take care of their weak opposition. Playing in Bolivia is notoriously difficult, but surely Ecuador must not have any excuses given their own HIGH altitude. Indeed, they've won in Bolivia two straight cycles so a third is a decent bet. Venezuela doing well doesn't hurt, because they play Paraguay and Brazil in the last two rounds. But to pass Argentina they'd need three wins, so that's not gonna happen.

What about Uruguay vs Colombia? I'm uncertain. It would be great for Uruguay to have something to play for on the final matchday. With their GD, they would almost certainly win a tie in the standings with Argentina. However, they just lost in Peru to the worst team in the confederation and have dropped back. If Argentina beats Peru as expected in round 17, then they'd have at least 25 points going into the final match. Uruguay only has 18 currently. If Argentina loses to Paraguay, then Uruguay would need 4 points to have 22, putting them in position to overtake their western neighbors with a win on the last day. However, if Argentina draws in Paraguay, then Uruguay needs to win the next two, including @ Ecuador. That's hard to do. I'm leaning towards a Colombia win being the best result now.

At this point, Colombia and Ecuador are probably the teams we want to do well at the expense of others. Keep the dream of no Argentina alive!

4) In Europe, let's start with Group 1. Sweden got a huge result by defeating Hungary away, while Portugal could only draw with Denmark in Copenhagen. As a result, Hungary's chances are all but dead. However, this wasn't horrible for Portugal. They simply have to beat Hungary away on Wednesday, which is their hardest remaining match, and hope that Sweden doesn't win when they play in Denmark next month. If those two things happen then Portugal should make the playoffs via GD over the Swedes.

Switzerland should now win Group 2 after beating Greece. Israel is dead thanks to a home loss to Latvia. At this point, the Swiss could even afford to draw in Riga, Latvia on Wednesday and still win the group. No excuses for failure now.

Group 3 remains the most interesting after two draws. Northern Ireland absolutely must defeat Slovakia on Wednesday to keep their hopes alive. Slovenia vs Poland probably will end in a draw hurting both teams, given the way this group has gone. Slovenia pretty much needs a win here as well.

Nothing much changed in groups 4-6 and 8. In Group 5, Bosnia now plays Turkey and should make the playoffs with a point.

In Group 7, the big result of perhaps the entire confederation was France only drawing 1:1 with Romania at home. Now, the really big match is in two days, though some of the luster has come off. At this point, even beating Serbia wouldn't be enough to get first place. And if they draw, then the Serbs could even draw one of their two remaining games and finish first. France is likely a playoff team now.

Group 9 continues to be the likely home of the worst second place team. Norway is dead after drawing Iceland (10 points won't be enough). Scotland simply must defeat the Netherlands now, or else they'll be praying for more draws in Group 3.

5) CONCACAF. North American qualifying has suddenly gotten exciting, hasn't it? I'm still not worried about the USA's chances. I know playing in Honduras is scary next month, but as long as they take care of business in Trinidad, they'll be fine. Once again, check out this cool CONCACAF hex results simulator. There are nine matches remaining. Let's assume that all games against the bottom two are wins. That gives us the following table:

	GP	PTS
Mexico	9	18
Costa Rica	9	18
Honduras	8	16
USA	8	16

There's only three matches left, one in each of the remaining rounds: MEX-HON, HON-USA, and USA-CR. When do Mexico and the USA ever not win at home? If they both take care of business, then it doesn't matter what the USA do in Honduras, they'll be qualified regardless:

	GP	PTS
Mexico	10	21
USA	9	19
Costa Rica	10	18
Honduras	9	16

Once again... not worried.

Biggest WCQ Matches on Wednesday

AFC	Saudi Arabia	vs	Bahrain
CAF	Cameroon	vs	Gabon
CONCACAF	Mexico	vs	Honduras
CONMEBOL	Bolivia	vs	Ecuador
CONMEBOL	Uruguay	vs	Colombia
CONMEBOL	Paraguay	vs	Argentina
UEFA	Bosnia	vs	Turkey
UEFA	Scotland	vs	Netherlands
UEFA	N.Ireland	vs	Slovakia
UEFA	Hungary	vs	Portugal
UEFA	Slovenia	vs	Poland
UEFA	Serbia	vs	France

STATS SportVu Data

2009-09-03T19:55:00.002-05:00

I didn't even notice this until now, but the same type of data that was available for the Confederations Cup on distance coverered during a match, heat maps, and more is now available for certain MLS matches. Very cool stuff, check it out:

Stats.com - SportVu MLS data

SOS Update

2009-09-03T07:03:00.001-05:00

Time to check in on the remaining strength of schedule for each MLS team. Listed below is the average PPG of the team's remaining opponents, and the second column is the home/away breakdown of their remaining games.

		PPG	H-A
1	COL	1.19	3-5
2	DC	1.22	5-2
3	CHV	1.27	5-3
4	NY	1.28	3-3
5	RSL	1.29	3-3
6	TOR	1.30	3-4
7	SJ	1.32	3-5
8	KC	1.34	4-5
9	DAL	1.34	4-4
10	NE	1.34	4-5
11	LA	1.36	4-2
12	SEA	1.37	2-4
13	HOU	1.43	3-2
14	CHI	1.51	3-3
15	CLB	1.53	4-3

KC, DAL, and NE are not tied, the difference is just very small.

Colorado and DC have the easiest schedules, while Chicago and Columbus have the hardest. DC should really kick themselves if they can't make the playoffs with this schedule. Like I said last time, the home/away split probably matters way more than how good the opponents are. That's why Seattle's fall wasn't unexpected to anyone paying attention, since at one point they had only 4 home games out of 12 matches remaining.

I wouldn't write them off completely, since six games is not a lot and anything can happen. Like with Colorado, who's schedule is the easiest. They have a two game home and away series with Toronto coming up. If they get only 1 point out of it, then things are suddenly dicey for them and looking good for TFC. That's parity for you.

UPDATE:

On Bigsoccer, poster T-Bo wanted to know what the SOS would look like using the home and away PPGs of each opponent rather than just the overall PPG. Here's the results:

		PPG	H-A
1	DC	0.99	5-2
2	CHV	1.08	5-3
3	TOR	1.11	3-4
4	DAL	1.19	4-4
5	LA	1.29	4-2
6	COL	1.30	3-5
7	SJ	1.36	3-5
8	RSL	1.38	3-3
9	CHI	1.41	3-3
10	KC	1.41	4-5
11	SEA	1.44	2-4
12	NY	1.47	3-3
13	CLB	1.47	4-3
14	HOU	1.55	3-2
15	NE	1.58	4-5

This definitely takes into account the home/away factor, as DC easily gets the top spot. The teams from 2-4 also had big decreases in the PPG. Maybe Toronto's playoff chances are better than previously thought? They do play Chicago and LA away, who both do worse at home than away. That has a lot to do with their improvement.

NE had the biggest increase, moving from 10th to 15th. NY was second. Here's a list of the differences in PPG between the two methods:

1	DC	-0.24
2	TOR	-0.19
3	CHV	-0.19
4	DAL	-0.16
5	CHI	-0.11
6	LA	-0.07
7	CLB	-0.06
8	SJ	0.04
9	KC	0.07
10	SEA	0.07
11	RSL	0.09
12	COL	0.11
13	HOU	0.12
14	NY	0.18
51	NE	0.24