Sore losers

I had to get my word in on this because it's just ridiculous. What sore losers were the Atlante players at the end of last night's SuperLiga match against New England Revolution. For those of you unfamiliar with the SuperLiga: it is a tournament between the MLS and FMF (Mexican league) that pairs up 4 teams from each league in groups that play each other during the start of the Mexican Apertura tournament and the middle of the MLS tournament. It's worth nothing internationally and has limited attendance. I think it would be more appropriate if it were a playoff for spots in the Conmebol's (South American conference) Copa Sudamericana or Copa Libertadores. I don't really see its viability.
Back to the content about last night's match. In my view, the Revs dominated play, scored a legitimate goal and won the game outright. This morning on XM Deportivo (in Spanish, of course) I heard the Mexican media completely trounce the game official(s). They complained of having Mexican teams always lose favor in Concacaf and in Conmebol. In Concacaf they insist that there is a prejudice since Mexico has the most dominant league. I looked at goal.com (in Spanish click on the button for the language at the top of the page) and they didn't say anything about it being unfair, however. Maybe it's something strictly for the Mexican media. They also said they doubt Mexican teams will continue playing in the SuperLiga if such treatment continues to happen. Some of the local XM Deportivo commentators insisted that things were being blown out of proportion and that being based here (XM personnel), they should support the MLS.
Interesting stuff. What do you guys think?

Soccerbud: Eric Wynalda

Truth be told, one of my more cherished soccer moments had to be the free kick* taken by Eric Wynalda against Switzerland at the USA '94 World Cup. For some wild reason (I was a kid and living in the USA prior to the internet and with little info on soccer) I hadn't taken into account that the world cup would take place in the United States before I (we) decided to spend the summer in Ecuador. Back then Ecuador was still a lowly semi-pro soccer nation beaten out of existence by teams like Bolivia and Uruguay.
Wynalda had to be my favorite player for the US squad. Alexi Lalas, Cobi Jones, and Tony Meola also caught my eye during that famed soccer event. Back then I used to side with Germany (noting my background in a German elementary school while growing up) and never sided with south american sides (Colombia, Brazil, Argentina). Thus, the USA's win against Colombia (yes, the demise of Escobar after his own goal comes to mind) saw me as the lone cheerleader in a living room full of Ecuadoreans.
Wynalda did more for US soccer than most will admit these days. He has been outspoken and ousted from ESPN for his flowery language and unfortunate references (repeatedly referred to C. Blanco as a player "he loved to hate" while praising him for his abilities on the field; also referred to flares in Bridgeview's Toyota Park as "looking like California" during its unfortunate wild fire stint a year ago). Wynalda also wrote his name in soccer lore with the first ever goal in MLS with the [cheeselly named] San Jose Clash. His goal scoring record for the national team (33, I believe) was only recently broken by Landon Donovan. I'm happy to say that his outspoken nature has not gone away and he will continue to grace us diehard soccer fans through the written medium in the MajorLeagueSoccer mag (yes, I subscribed). His latest rants deal with the coaching crisis in MLS and how he feels the better coaches are those who have risen through the MLS ranks as players in the league (Kinnear, Nicol, Preki, Nowak) and that supercoaches like Ruud Gullit simply won't work in the league because they aren't aware of its many facets (salary cap, long-distance travel, etc). I actually like Gullit and I think he may work . . . but that's another blog entry.

*I'll have video highlights of the goal once youtube starts working properly. You can view it here.

MLS Attendance stats week 18

I concur with my BigSoccer soccerbuds that not much has changed this week in terms of attendance. A few small caveats, however. Dallas saw it's attendance values go up thanks to another sellout Beckham crowd. That also effectively brought their numbers up for the 08-07 difference and their deficit doesn't look quite so bad. Only Columbus and KC remain in attendance difference limbo and both teams have yet to see Becks come to town. The difference from the total final numbers for last season is actually just 289 below. It's safe to assume that final numbers may well be higher than last season's and echoing BigSoccer, this should be the second best attendance record since 1996 (founding of MLS). Some have postulated that maybe we shouldn't be counting that season either.
This time around I wanted to go a bit more in-depth into some of the graphical statistics. Previously I had compared relative attendance to average attendance numbers. I'm doing something similar with the plot on your right except this time it's average attendance vs median for teams in the eastern conference. This is also a way to show how one Beckham game can alter a team's mean attendance but it's median will still be quite small. Such is the case with New England although their higher mean is actually due to a double header with a Brazil international game at Gillette Stadium. When Becks comes to town the numbers should be even higher, effectively masking out the true nature of their poor attendance for a team that is unstoppable this season (minus Twellman!). The plot also reveals that although New York has seen its share of <10K games (2, to be exact), the majority of their games have actually been respectable. DC's median lags behind its mean while the opposite is true for the Crew, who saw the lowest attendance for a single game this season at 6733. KC's average is actually slightly less than its median and this even in an already small venue. TFC rules, enough said (and I'm far from being Canadian).

Commentary: Tuzos USA??

Since my buds over at MLSrumors are taking their time with this one, I thought I would break the news to the english-speaking world. The show Futbol de Primera on XM Satellite Radio's XM Deportivo had a report with an interview with Pachuca president Jesus Martinez in which he asserted that Pachuca is working closely with both MLS and USL with the possibility of bringing the franchise to the United States and putting a team in one of the above mentioned leagues. You can listen to it on the fdpradio.com website under "Jesus Ramirez y los proyectos de Pachuca" (in Spanish: Jesus Martinez and the Pachuca Projects). This is reminiscent of our report about CD America looking to do the same thing with MLS. I hope more information about Pachuca and MLS/USL will surface in the next few days. I thought that CD America coming to the MLS would be interesting, but with Pachuca I'm beginning to think we're pushing it a little. This is an American league, as some readers of this website have made clear in the past, one or even two teams loosely bound to teams abroad is one thing. We don't want to turn the MLS into another mexican league plus some original MLS teams. Personally, I'd like to see a Barca USA or Boca Jrs USA before another Club America or Tuzos USA. As far as them going to the USL , be my guest(they already have teams like Crystal Palace USA). That's something worth tapping into and can create a formative league for an ever expanding MLS, especially noting that the league is on the verge of adding two additional Canadian teams. But that's a story worth an entire blog entry.

MLS Attendance stats week 17

The Becks parade continues to rage on in the Eastern conference, bringing numbers much higher than in the beginning of the season. Although the New York-LA game may not have been as high in attendance as it was last year, it was large enough to bring NYRB's season average above that of last year's (see the 07-08 plot difference). Because I know a lot of you out there in bigsoccerland like to see other aspects of statistics, I'm including median plots for the east and the west in high definition (just click for full page). Note that NY's median is still higher than 15,000 even though they had two games below 10,000 this season. Their relative attendance currently sits at 69%, much better than NE, RSL, CHV, DAL.

New England's meager attendance shows its ugly face in the median analysis (KC not included do to a smaller stadium). Even so, NE's attendance is not much differend than it was a year ago for the entire season (see difference plot). I've also read that KC's game with LA will be held at Arrowhead. This should put another inflationary figure into the Eastern conference and effectively raise KC's average to make it look more like San Jose's out west (>120% relative attendance). Therein lies the Achilles heel of relative analysis and this has prompted me to come up with a relative median that I will introduce in the coming weeks. Such a number will, hopefully, do away with the inflationary effects of switching venues. This isn't the same problem with DC, NE or NY since their inherent MLS capacity is already twice that of SJ and KC.
Just wanted to remind everyone and to alert new visitors to the site: all numbers are based on official public MLS numbers and all plots are on the right column.

MLS Attendance stats week 16

Week 16 update. For this week I decided to change the "MLS capacity" for the Houston Dynamo from 32,000 to 27,000 per the suggestion of a reader. I had been wondering about this for a while since Houston's numbers were lower in relative terms when compared to the other teams out west even though their average attendance was second only to the Galaxy. This change added 10 points to Houston's relative attendance pushing it up to 62%. It may have changed the overall numbers but only for the relative plots and only when Houston had a home game. As a highlight this week I'm including a relative vs average attendance plot for the western conference, similar to what I did for the east last week. You'll notice that the numbers tend to cluster around 15K for averages with varying levels of relative attendance (lowest for Chivas and highest for Colorado). Still, notice that the difference plots show that Chivas is one of only 3 teams exceeding the 2008 numbers. These numbers, as you know, are transient and we can expect important changes in the next few weeks. LA-NY on Saturday should shift a lot of numbers for New York and in general terms as well. I expect Chivas to remain strong for the rest of the season, keeping in mind that they still must "host" Beckham and the LA circus.

PREVIEW: MLS Attendance stats week 16

Since a lot of attendance analysis out in MLS soccerland is looking into other meaningful statistics like median, I thought I would follow along and create some new plots. These plots will not be regulars like the ones on the right column but instead I'll post them from time to time to show interesting trends. I think they speak for themselves by showing the markedly low attendance in places like New England, Kansas City and San Jose. This analysis also takes away the inflationary effects of overattendance due to Beckham and/or scheduled international doubleheaders. The analysis also makes Houston look better than its relative attendance suggests. I still wonder if the 32,000 capacity at Robertson Stadium is also the MLS capacity but I've had no word on a different number. Also note that LA's numbers show just how many times they have sold out the stadium since the median is 27,000. Another surprising number is New York's. Even though they've had two games under 10K, it still doesn't mean attendance has been that bad overall.
These plots are only valid through week 16. Full week 16 numbers and plots will be posted tomorrow.