the New guy

Long time reader. first time poster. rabid Helltown fan. and spirit-partner of Helltown Brewmasters United.

I'm coming to you from Raleigh, NC. looking all the way across the sea to the Premier League and scanning the local landscape for MLS inspiration.

this is Bleeno. and i'm honored to be here.

now let's get started. and i'll keep this brief. cause i don't want to ramble on and on.

The Crew.

a fan? not yet. YET. i'll be a fan when i know more. but i wouldn't profess to be a fan without at least knowing the players names for crying out loud. so that's my first objective. and what better way to meet my objective than to play FIFA 11.

straight outta the gate I'm into it. Goal - Gaven. this guy consistently is getting big numbers. man of the match kind of numbers. and he settles in all over the midfield, which i love. side note: I'm a Liverpool fan. and Gerrard does this in spades. attacking. holding. defending. on the wing. versatile. it's very important to be able to change your formation (which i love to do. cause i like to tinker) and not have to make two substitutions just to make the formation work. Gaven - A+.

unfortunately, the FIFA roster and the actual roster seem a bit different. and i don't know enough to know what's what. so, i need time.

MLS.

a fan? not yet. YET. but, i'll be a fan when i know more...

Crew and Sounders 1

I'm not going to make any bones about this; I admire the Sounders. Their fan base is, and has been, large, loyal and thoughtful. Seattle showed a lot of class last night.

The pivotal point in the game was the penalty given on a corner in the second half. It's the kind of foul that happens often enough in soccer so I'm not going to make too much about it other then, well, it is there.

Watching the Crew now through 8 games I've come to realize that they are somewhat a team of two tactics. One built on the other. Defend and Defend / Attack. This is a good balance to have. I see some teams have either / or but not often mastering both. Philadelphia has Defend (and does it well). Salt Lake and New York have perhaps mastered the Defend / Attack tactic averaging 1.5 and 1.4 goals a game and letting in an astonishingly little in turn (.3 and .4 p/GM)

Columbus is right there with them on the Goals Against p/GM and if they showed anything last night, they may have the ability to get more goals even though none got through during the run of play. 17 shots got off and most were in the 2nd half when they went into their Defend / Attack mode.

The Crew played a better game this week then they did last week which may be a testament to what kind of season KC might be having verses the one Seattle is. Seattle is a far better team then Sporting KC. Had the Crew played this well last week the score would have been much different then the 2-1 line. That's neither her nor there though. Seattle did what they had to do to keep the Crew from taking 3 points.



Billy's Players of the Game (BPOTG this week):

- Mr. Gaven... again for me. I was happy to see the ball going to him more this week. While it took away from Robbie's runs down the side I do believe going to him created real chances. About bounce here or there on a rainy night would have changed The Crew's fortunes.

- Mr. Levesque for the Sounders. Really. Maybe a reach but the shoes he was trying to fill with Brad Evans out... I could go with all the Seattle defenders in the game but I saw Levesque in the back helping against the Crew attack and the 10 corners the Crew won. I liked the way he played.

- Kasey Keller. Solid.

Important to notes:
Ekpo coming off the bench for the Crew had a much improved game over last weekend as well. The Crew's defensive line was shaken in the first few minutes of the game with a heading goal by Montero and wasn't called on much in the 2nd half because the guys up front were busy pushing the issue.

As for the highly paid Mendoza? Perhaps I'll get to him later on. With the Players Union salary numbers out I have a lot to chew on in relationship to my player ratings. Preview: It ain't going to be pretty for him.

MLS Player Ratings Made Easy

While working on a project at work I figured out a way to assign productivity scores in a way that was easier for people to understand. Some teachers already use the method: Sliding Scale. What I've done is take the player ratings that I have been using and put it on a 100 pt scale. The best player receives a perfect 100, the lowest rated = 0.

The best player, according to my ratings, right now is Thierry Henry with a score of 4.4. The lowest rated player in the MLS right now is Shavar Thomas at -2.00. The difference is 6.4 pts. In adjusting the -2.0 to equal Zero and 4.4 = One I just divide everyones score in and multiply by 100.


An early explanation of my Player Scores can be found HERE. Although, that description is not complete, it gives the gist of what I'm using. I'll probably never fully explain all the ingredients I'm using. I did test my score scale on the EPL and it passes the smell test, so I'll stick with it.

This will also allow me to make it easier to understand team power rankings. Since I'm using a 0 to 100 spectrum on the players the score a player receives tells me the score percentile he is in.

Example: The Crew's Designated Player Andres Mendoza has a score of 43. A score that puts him, statistically, around the middle of the 389 players that have minutes this season. Considering his is the 10th highest payed player in the league? I'd say that is an issue... for another post on another day. Shawn Mitchell touched on this in his column today.

Go on Stoke.

Portland 18k > 60k Arsenal

That's crowd size. Better clear that up because a good percentage of MLS players make between those numbers in salary.

Portland's win over Philadelphia has generated slightly anomalous data. All year we've seen teams with positive Goal Difference in the top half of the True Table. If you take a look at it now, after last nights game, you notice the Timbers have a -2 GD. Jumping 4 teams with better (and positive) GD on the True Table is strange. It usually points to inconsistent play.

Here is what the EPL True Table looks like as of this morning.

Me thinks it may have to do with Home Field in the case with Portland (and the Union traveling cross country). Folks at other networks had to of taken notice of the atmosphere during last nights game. What a good win for Portland. The crowd was creative and they sounded just as loud as what I hear at some Arsenal games.

In staying consistent with my scoring system you can see in my Team Power rankings color map how things shake out by Team and Position. Philadelphia Union are still at the top and Portland is below league average at every spot.

Again... big win for Portland.

Here are my top 5 players for the Timbers. Kenny cracks the top 20 at 16th overall and Jack Jewsbury is 24th.

3.09: Kenny Cooper
2.97: Jack Jewsbury
2.45: Rodney Wallace
1.96: Jorge Perlaza
1.84: Eric Brunner

An Afternoon Off

Well, not quite an entire afternoon, but a few hours home early.

Got Keepers ranked now. I didn't actually mean to assign any efficient scores to the position but with new stats come surprises.

Billy's Computer Machine has crunched the numbers and this is what he got for the top 5:

3.21: Faryd Mondragon: Philadelphia
2.83: William Hesmer: Columbus
2.67: Tally Hall: Houston
2.54: Kasey Keller: Seattle
2.42: Matt Pickens: Colorado

Admittedly this is heavy on the Goals Against category. But isn't that what the position is all about? The position has to be the maestro out there. Mondragon (10 saves) has not been nearly as busy as Kasey Keller (23) and poor Stefan Frei has had to try and keep out 35 shots. I've got him ranked 9th.

Nick Rimando (6th in my world) has been having an outstanding season. If I were to look at the position only and strip out all other aspects of the game he would probably be the best. 88% save rate on 17 shots. But stripping out the rest of the game would be a disservice to the beautiful part of the Beautiful Game. As the season goes on and more data points are available I'll be able to see if my rating system can hold for GK position.

I do think great individual players can lift an entire team on an individual game basis but over the long haul the game of soccer is a team game. This is what makes the lack of playoffs in the EPL understandable. It's not just the starting XI or even the short list of regulars on the bench. It's about the entire team right down past the reserves.

If you were to suspend all reality and imagine a player like Messi on a MLS team, then what? Would that team just dominate the league like having a superstar over in the NBA on your team like a Kobe or LeBron? No. Of course not. But were Messi's MLS team to make the playoffs would that teams chances increase in winning the title as opposed to having the most wins during the season? Highly likely.

A player like Messi does not nor has not existed in the MLS. But Charlie Davies this year is on pace to have an amazing year. If DC can sneak into the playoffs then we may see some weirdness happen.

On another note, the "beta" tag has been added to the MLS logo over at MLSsoccer.com. Good.

MLS Stat 180

MLSsoccer.com updated their statistics pages. I hope they are still working on them. Why did they change? Why are not all players on the All players tab? Why are players duplicated on team pages?

Among those spectacular improvements they have managed to include efficiency statistics I like: Goals p/90 Minutes and Scoring Chance Percentage. Most like to call the latter Goals p/Shot, but that's a minor quibble. I like that the site is trying to improve their stat pages. I hope they keep it going.

Since their stat pages are still under construction (I really hope they are) I've had to jump ship and find another source. Thankfully I found one over at... wait. I keep quiet on that for now. I'm nervous that I'll jinx it. I will say that over at my now home for MLS stats they publish the correct order of Wins, Draws and Losses. Yes! They do. It's a conspiracy. This new source is a major nationwide newspaper. Lets hope the W-L-T thing gets scrapped. I'm looking at you too CrewXtra over at the Dispatch. Still with the Red Cards p/GM? seriously.

Speaking Modern Language

Prost Amerika Soccer. Seattle Soccer with a European Accent.

And with that... we have two MLS games tonight. DC v. Seattle and Houston v. Colorado.

Let's look at: DC / Seattle
'Cause Seattle takes on Columbus this weekend. Just sayin'.

Super Awesome Sasquatch Overall Team Rankings:
9th: Seattle
14th: DC

Offensive Super Sasquatch Team Rankings:
15th: Seattle
2nd: DC

What does this mean? Umm, not much. DC has an edge in shear offensive productivity. Much of it due to Davies early season. Neither of these teams have anyone in my to 30 Overall player rankings.

Brad Evans and Osvaldo Alonso for Seattle crack the top 50. I have to go to Chris Pontius at 89th for the highest DC man.

It'll be interesting to see if Seattle can hold off DC in this still early season.

The Larry Routine

Say it!

Crew Do Score a Couple, Win

(Pictured: Omar Salgado)

Renteria scored on a penalty and one during the run of play. The penalty was a cheap one that came off a sloppy play by the Whitecaps keeper. The run of play goal was off his left foot and, um, I'm trying to frame this right; his first goal off his left foot in 11 years and 50 goals. Yes, his first.

Renteria has EPL grade right foot power, and as he proved last night, his left has some power as well. Just strange that a striker hasn't had a goal from his weak foot after 11 years of play.

On the Whitecaps side the team set up shop on defense for the 1st half. This appears to be a running theme for opponents of the Crew. This is something the team really has to work on attacking because this tactic of barricading against the Crew is working. Most of it is the Crew's fault because the seem content kicking it around for possession. In fact, they do it to a point of frustration. When Ekpo was inserted in the 2nd half on defense he wouldn't even turn up field when he had the ball, he was content just knocking it back to Hesmer in goal. After a couple times I was literally shouting at my TV. Hesmer also deserves a card for time wasting. Not going to give him a pass because he lives in German Village. He has a nasty, nasty habbit.

In today's Columbus Dispatch, Commentary Columnist Bob Hunter wrote a piece on fans not showing up for Crew games (last night ~11k). He seems to think it is lack of goals keeping them away and he actually talked to GM Mark McCullers about it. Mr. McCullers thinks part of it is pushing out popular players.

I say "actually talked" because beat writer Shawn Mitchell mostly just pulled player quotes from MLSsoccer.com for his column. That is a head scratcher. Are these players so surrounded by press that he can't get his own quotes after the game?

In any case and anyway. Crew win.
Man o' the Match: Omar Salgado (Whitecaps)
I'm going to give it to the 17 year old for scoring his first MLS goal on a great header in the corner.

Best Crew Players of the Game or BCPOTG? Gaven. Duka. Gardner.
Again, Gaven is quality on and off the ball. Dilly Duka is all hustle (Duka deserves note for that). Gardner also had a decent game and if for nothing else, saved the 3 pts with a heads up play blocking a shot by Khalfan.

Who/What struggled?
Ekpo coming off the bench. I'm also going to say the offensive strategy of going to Robbie Rogers side of the pitch too much. Way too much. A ton of speed and decent touches but zero creativity there right now. In Rogers defense, no big target in the middle. Tommy Heinemann did not play.

Another minor struggle the Crew have is free kicks. They had two right on outside the 18 yard box and elected to pass it in, not take shots. Gotta take shots there. If nothing else, to minimize the chance of a break on your own goal.