In no particular order, here's a big dump of semi-interesting gumballs upon whick to chew. Enjoy: Scott Sealy has more MLS goals than Claudio Lopez. 31-13. 1.62 Houston’s MLS Best franchise points/game 1.000 Toronto’s MLS Worst franchise points/game 1.338 KC’s 8th of 15 MLS teams points/game 1.366 Likely minimum points per game required to make the 2010 playoffs (41 points) 399 MLS League games played by KC, LA, and NE 189 Wins by DCU 180 Losses by Colorado 77 Draws by KC 684 Goals by DC 635 Goals Conceded by NY 0.983 Goals/game by Toronto – MLS Worst -9 KC ’09 Goal Differential, 3rd worst in KC history 33 Goals scored by KC in ’09, League T-2nd Low to NY’s 27 233 Twelman.- 181 Ruiz - 114 A. Moreno - 104 Arnaud Career points for Class of ’02 MLS Top 50 All-time scorers 100G-100A Club – Jaime Moreno is the founding and sole member. As assists are not given for dubious or otherwise flat gift penalties, you have to honor the accomplishment. It’s very rare air in any league. Another comment here is that of the other top scorers who have a shot, Steve Ralston needs 24 goals, Donovan needs 25 assists and 4 more goals, Christian Gomez would have to play at his level for about another decade or so, Scheletto would need another 8-10 unlikely seasons, Kljestan would need another 12-14 seasons and some increase in goal production, Stewart Holden and M. Galindo would both have to maintain current production for at least 12-15 years to get close. It’s an incredible mark. Of everyone else only Preki really has an argument for being both as versatile and productive in both stats as Moreno. While Jaime Moreno had the advantage of playing both over a fuller balance of his career and his youth in MLS, Preki put up his numbers shockingly and exclusively after his 32nd birthday. Thirty freaking two! Take a moment to consider what Preki’s numbers might have been if MLS started in 1980. Preki was 21 goals short of the mark with a still MLS best ever mark of 112 assists. Moreno might be the best ever by strict numbers. Preki is unquestionably the best the league will ever see after age 32. No other will come close. For a point of reference, Preki scored 270 MLS league points. Landon Donovan has 267 and will be 32 in March of 2015. 70-70 Club: Preki, Ralston, Donovan, Kreis, and Cobi Jones 60-60 Razov, Cunningham, and Mark Chung 50-50 Cerritos, Mathis, Derosario 40-40 Serna, Klein, Henderson, McBride 30-30 Twellman, Lassiter, Wolff, Etch, Cienfuegos, C. Gomez, Wolde Harris, Guevara, Welton, Kovalenko, Joe-Max Moore, Wynalda, Arnaud, Victorine, Ross Paule 20-20 New members – Andy Williams, Alejandro Moreno, Brad Davis, Gavin, Mullen, Schelletto, Sharlie Joseph, 10-10 New Members – Alan Gordon, Fred, Claudio Lopez, Holden, Galindo, Barrett, Kljestan, Kirovski, Eskandarian, Wolyniec, Jaque, Rolff, JP Angel, No MLS player scored 10 goals and 10 assists in ’09. It’s only the second time in MLS history this has happened. The other was ’07. In ’08 J. Moreno needed at least one dubious penalty - and maybe two depending on opinion - to get to 10 goals to make the 10/10 mark. The point is it’s more difficult to score now. Goalkeepers are certainly better. Defenses are arguably so. 11.34% - MLS overall finishing percentage (Goals/Shots). Above ’04, but below ’05-‘08 8.85% - KC’s team ’09 finishing percentage 21.3% - KC’s mark of scoring shots that are on goal. Only one MLS teams was worse, NY. 26.2% - MLS Avg. for scoring shots that are on goal. Undefeated – KC’s mark when scoring first in ’09. 5.17 – Shots on goal per game for KC 4.76 - MLS average. Get better on the finishing, guys. The off-season list of STD is probably long, but good finishing cures just about everything nicely. New to the Top 50 MLS All-Time Scorers are, Brad Davis, Davy Arnaud, and Juan Pablo Angel. They replace Stern John, Eddie Johnson, and Mo Johnston. .885 GAA – Onstad’s MLS Best Career mark .918 GAA – Keller’s for Seattle 1.244 GAA – Hartman’s career mark, 3rd for GK over 10,000 minutes. 1.400 GAA – Hartman’s ’09 mark 1.490 GAA – Frei’s ’09 mark for Toronto 27,140 – Hartman’s minutes played, MLS Career #1 75 – Shutouts for Hartman, MLS Career #1 9 – GKs with 1000 min and a better GAA than Hartman in ’09. 6 – GK playing first MLS minutes in ’09 who had a better GAA than Hartman (no minimum minutes). 10th – KC league rank for goals allowed. 7 – Shutouts for Hartman in 2700 minutes, 12 was Thornton’s league high. 7 – Shutouts for Will Hesmer in 1710 minutes and with an outstanding defense. Chicago is 5-1-4 vs RSL LA is 10-3-5 vs Chivas USA Houston is 6-1-5 vs Chivas USA Houston is 7-2-5 vs Dallas Columbus is 4-0-5 vs Toronto Chivas is 5-1-0 vs Toronto 29 – League Wins for DC against NY, league high 19 – League Wins for KC vs Colorado and New England Wolff - 8th all time in scoring for active MLS players, 15th overall Klein – 12th, 22nd Arnaud – 19th, 43rd Class of ’03: Ching 153 points, Guevara 123, Noonan 102 ’04 – C. Gomez 134, S. Joseph 64, Kirovski 62 ’05 – Rolff 89, Sealy 70, Hercules Gomez 59 ’06 – Cooper 90, Van de Burgh 56, Kljestan 55 ’07 – JP Angel 100, Emilio 90, Scheletto 81, Findley 61, Galindo 45, Movsisyan 43 ’08 – Casey 57, Lopez 41, Javier Morales 34, Dube 28, Huckerby 24, Kamara 23 ’09 – Montero 31, Ferriera 23, Lillingston 18 I’d like to see a longer series in Round 1 of the MLS Playoffs. First-to-5 may have confused fringe fans and angered Euros, but the system probably remains the very best way to determine a fair difference between two teams while including ties as a result. For reference, in the ’09 MLS playoffs, 4 series of 6 were determined by an odd goal. One series featured a split winner, two series featured a draw, one finalist and the Champion were determined by pks. The very last team to qualify lifted the Cup after a road win against a Defending Champion 1-seed, and pk victories in the Semifinal and Final. A nice story certainly. I’m not demanding change now, but that same Playoff group run on First to 5 until the Final might have been more interesting. Full marks to Finley, but I have to think a different Champion would have been produced. As is, there’s an argument to be made about lucking in to a road win and being good with the coin flip whim of the improbable. It is what it is. I’d like a truer test to determine a Champion. I’d add that without First-to-5 the 2000 Final might have been NY and LA. That’s aside from KC fans never having the Mo-Molnar past Hartman moment – my most memorable in game moment of all time.
Good stuff as always Dave. Only a few minor points. How's that semi-interesting when 1) Sealy played 2 more seasons in the league than Lopez. 2) Sealy played 99% of his time as a forward? Unlike Lopez. Sure Lopez's pedigree is higher, but did anyone expect him to have more goals than Sealy after 2 seasons? Actually MLS has been fairly dubious in handing out some secondary assists in the league's history. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2p7O2EO0AM"]YouTube- MLS: Why the secondary assist sucks (part one)[/ame] I wouldn't mind that returning either, it gives an advantage to the higher seed that some many people complained about lately.
If you gonna do series of games with the goal of eliminated the weaker teams why not just award the crown to the league winner. Playoffs are playoffs - right? Do or die? Two legs should be enough right?
I would like to see the playoffs changed as well. No matter how you do it, people will bitch, An idea I have is that if you are going to have 4 teams from each Conference, do a round robin and see you finishes with the most points. That will be your conference champion. The first place team gets all home games. The second place team gets 2 home games. the third place team gets 1 home game and the fourth place team gets none. Just an idea.
First, it's Scott Sealy. Second, double Lopez' output to even up the years played and Sealy is still 8 up. Third, KC's history has mostly been one where midfielders score as much or even more often than the forwards so, accounting for positon as suggested may not exactly be an evener. It wasn't just Preki scoring out of midfield. Fourth, among the full list of all-time scorers, there isn't any other stat that pops the eye more that this one. Two things, no such thing as a dubious assit, IMO. If you touched it... NBA and the NHL agree, and they have forever. Also, when MLS went to Elias as their number guru some "official" stats were indeed changed. Everything was reviewed are their judgement was rendered. Anyway, until MLS makes public the league stat database that has everything tracked, then more numbers is a good policy to have in a numbers light game. I'm not one to willingly bow to Moreno or anything DC, I think his game is highly overrated due to a variety of factors. 100 assists is impressive regardless of how it comes. Make it so! Boring. Also, 2000 leagues around the world do this already. I like variety in life. It's been mentioned. The biggest downside here is that one team's fanbase in each league has no reward for their team's accomplishment. That alone make the concept basically unacceptable to both fans and Owners.
KC's history up until just before Klein left was like that. Since 2004ish the Wizards forwards have been getting more of the goals. Arnaud, Wolff, Sealy, and Johnson have been leading our team in scoring since then. Arnaud's best seasons production wise have been when he's been up top.
Compared to watching 450+ minutes of the same two teams grinding out 1-1 draws like Galaxy and Real? ..... not sure I could have tolerated four more games of that stalemate and if the goal is to breed excitement this would probably do the opposite. The FA Cup, back in the days prior to the Premier League used to replay drawn games, not once, but three times before penalties. I sat through four Arsenal vs Leeds United games that Arsenal ultimately won but man it was torture. The offside rule wasn't the new onside if you are level rule, and you could pass back to goalkeepers .... and with two teams more scared to lose than to win it wasn't fun. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KcaQWzzfnQ"]YouTube- 1990-91 FA Cup 4th Rd, 3rd Replay - Leeds v Arsenal[/ame]
Just a note for history sake, the first-to-five series MLS used to have was not however many games it took to get to 5 points, it was a 3 game series. Whoever had the most points in those 3 games went through, it was called first-to-five, because 5 guaranteed you went through. If teams were still tied on 4 or 3 points after those first 3 games, a "mini-game" was held immediately after the third game, and from there onto PKs. The 2000 season featured this for the Wizards in the conference final, we tied at home the first game, lost in LA, then won 1-0 in the 3rd game. We played a mini-game against LA and Molnar scored again in the mini-game to win it.
You have a point. In a capped, draft league with equivalencies built in, that is probably a price that must be paid. Soccer in general is a sport that lends itself to draws, be they 0-0 or 3-3. First to 5 is never longer than a 3-game series..and for clarity in Kuhn's assertion below, if one team won the first two games the series ended in a 6 points to 0 "sweep". No series ever featured 3 draws. First-to-5's main advantage was determining clear differential over three games in a sport that demands the acceptance of draws as a result over :90. That seems much more important where Caps and Drafts tend to equalize teams over time. Further, as MLS expands into 20 teams or more, only the best teams (as opposed to the top 50% today) will make the playoffs - assuming it stays 8 teams.
If there is a benevolent God, it will. One of my top items on Santa's list this year will be "Please, no more cupcakes 'champions' who caught fire at the tail end of the season." Staying with an eight team playoff through the expansion phase of the league will diminish the likelihood of that considerably, not that I actually expect that to happen. Eventually, adding a tier of four "play-in" games will probably be too financially tempting for the league to resist.