Crew, Cincy - 2nd to Last, Last

A pretty remarkable turn of results here recently have left the Columbus Crew and FC Cincinnati at the bottom of the combined MLS true table (Points Per Game). It is astonishingly poor.

Side note: NYCFC is not first in the East. I have them winning it.

PPG	Team	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
2.18	Los Angeles FC	17	11	4	2	39	14	25	37
1.73	New York City FC	15	6	8	1	27	19	8	26
1.72	LA Galaxy	18	10	1	7	24	22	2	31
1.71	Atlanta United	17	9	2	6	23	15	8	29
1.71	Seattle Sounders FC	17	8	5	4	27	21	6	29
1.68	Philadelphia Union	19	9	5	5	34	25	9	32
1.63	DC United	19	8	7	4	25	19	6	31
1.59	New York Red Bulls	17	8	3	6	30	20	10	27
1.50	Montreal Impact	20	9	3	8	24	31	-7	30
1.50	Houston Dynamo	16	7	3	6	22	22	0	24
1.47	San Jose Earthquakes	17	7	4	6	28	27	1	25
1.41	Minnesota United	17	7	3	7	30	26	4	24
1.37	FC Dallas	19	7	5	7	27	25	2	26
1.35	Real Salt Lake	17	7	2	8	24	28	-4	23
1.28	Toronto FC	18	6	5	7	30	31	-1	23
1.25	Portland Timbers	16	6	2	8	25	28	-3	20
1.24	Orlando City	17	6	3	8	24	22	2	21
1.12	Sporting Kansas City	17	4	7	6	27	29	-2	19
1.11	New England Revolution	18	5	5	8	20	35	-15	20
1.06	Chicago Fire	18	4	7	7	26	27	-1	19
1.06	Colorado Rapids	18	5	4	9	28	36	-8	19
1.05	Vancouver Whitecaps	19	4	8	7	21	25	-4	20
0.94	Columbus Crew	18	5	2	11	16	27	-11	17
0.61	FC Cincinnati	18	3	2	13	15	42	-27	11

First MLS Table of the Year!

The first combined MLS true table has become a regular thing for me here on Helltown. I usually wait until Major League Soccer is about 10% into the year. As I type right now MLS is 13% into the 2014 season. So... here.

While the exact places where teams fall on the table aren't that telling, the stories behind them are. The general quality of a MLS team can usually be figured out by the end of April / middle of May. We are a few weeks off that still but we are far enough to be able to start the story.

As per usual, I'll keep an updated table on the right hand side of this blog along with other MLS stats / measurements I find informative and cut through the bullshit. I update them about once a week.

Last year I started to add images to the table so I turned last year's table into a gif and it looked neat. I highlighted the Crew in yellow but also tracked New England and Philadelphia because I did a deep dive into the three teams last year, predicting their final places on the table. I was very happy with my conclusions. They were right! Even thought the Crew and Union were above New England when I wrote the piece, I correctly figured the Revs to jump both of them. I also picked Philly to finish above the Crew, which they did. If I'm getting technical... also was just about dead on my preseason Crew prediction overall last year. Proud. Analysis!

I'll do the same with the table this year. All starts with the true table. What better way to start than with a still from Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation star, Scarlett Johansson. As it should.