MLS Worst Goal Difference
Leaking Goals A few people have pointed out that Major League Soccer's Colorado Rapids made the playoffs despite having the worst goal difference in the league. They seem suprised by this. They shouldn't be. They're reading too much into what goal difference means. It's a nice stat and makes for a handy tie-breaker. But there is no evidence of a direct correlation between goal difference and a team getting wins and ties. The Colorado Rapids showed that this year with lots of narrow wins and too many blow-out losses. It made for an ugly goal difference. But it didn't keep them from making the playoffs. The Rapids are not the first team in Major League Soccer history to make the playoff's despite having the worst goal difference for the season. Here is a breakdown of which team had the worst goal difference each year in the league's history, where they placed, and if they made the playoffs. Worst Goal Differences 1996 - Colorado Rapids; -15; 5th place in the West; didn't make playoffs 1997 - New England Revolution; -13; 4th place in the East; made playoffs 1998 - Miami Fusion; -22; 3rd place in the East; made playoffs 1999 - Metrostars; -32; 6th place in the East; did not make playoffs 2000 - San Jose Earthquakes; -25; 4th place in Western Division; did not make playoffs 2001 - Tampa Bay Mutiny; -34; last place in Central Division; did not make playoffs 2002 - DC United; -9; last place in the East; did not make playoffs 2003- Dallas Burn; -29; last place in the West; did not make playoffs 2004- Dallas Burn; -11; last place in the West; did not make playoffs 2005- Chivas USA; -36; last place in the West; did not make playoffs 2006- Colorado Rapids; -13; 4th place in the West; made playoffs For those interested in the league's history, 1998 was a weird year. Lots of teams in the MLS had big negative goal differences. And the 2 division leaders pounded their opponents for lots of goals and held them to very few. DC, 1st place in the east, had 78 GF, 48 GA. LA, first place in the west, had 85 GF, 44 GA.
2 comments:
allen, i confess my knowledge of american soccer is not the best. thanks for providing some info for us europeans..... i read a good article today about the us leauge with particular attention to steve nicol who is manager of new england. he was anexcellent right-back for liverpool and scotland (when they were a good team) too back in the day.... here's the BBC link if your interested.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/6072932.stm
Don't worry about. American soccer is far from the best so no need to know a lot about it. The main quirks to remember is that the MLS is a single-entity. That means that techically all teams are owned by the league with each investor being buying into the league and owning / operating a team. As far as players go, they have a salary cap (IIRC the cap for 2006 was $1.4 - 1.6 million for a team) so teams that do the best tend to find a good mix of young players making little $$$ and some experienced vets. And the league loves parity. So you tend to see a lot of teams finish with nearly identical records. Oh, and of course there's the quirk of havint he supporters shield for the best regular season record. But teams really want to win in the playoffs and win the MLS Cup. Usually that's not the team with the best regualr seaosn record.
As far as skill level, there's a few players that can make it in the top leagues in Europe Ryan Nelson (at Blackburn now, ex-DC United) or Brian McBrdie (Fulham, ex-Columbus Crew). But for the most part the league's probaby aroud a League One level.
Thanks for the heads up on the story.
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