MLS Table, Crew

Columbus is on their best run since the first few weeks of the season after a draw with Cincinnati last weekend. In their last six games, they have managed 9 points. 11 other teams are on a better run. While that still isn't great, it does put them back in "hey we are average" range, verses "we are hot garbage."

PPG	Team	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
2.29	Los Angeles FC	24	17	4	3	65	25	40	55
1.73	Philadelphia Union	26	13	6	7	48	38	10	45
1.68	Atlanta United	25	13	3	9	43	30	13	42
1.65	New York City FC	23	10	8	5	41	31	10	38
1.63	Seattle Sounders FC	24	11	6	7	38	34	4	39
1.58	Minnesota United	24	11	5	8	42	35	7	38
1.58	San Jose Earthquakes	24	11	5	8	41	36	5	38
1.54	LA Galaxy	24	12	1	11	31	36	-5	37
1.54	Real Salt Lake	24	11	4	9	35	32	3	37
1.50	DC United	26	10	9	7	34	32	2	39
1.48	New York Red Bulls	25	11	4	10	43	38	5	37
1.48	Portland Timbers	23	10	4	9	38	34	4	34
1.44	FC Dallas	25	10	6	9	36	31	5	36
1.36	New England Revolution	25	9	7	9	37	44	-7	34
1.32	Toronto FC	25	9	6	10	39	41	-2	33
1.27	Montreal Impact	26	10	3	13	36	47	-11	33
1.20	Orlando City	25	8	6	11	33	34	-1	30
1.20	Houston Dynamo	25	9	3	13	35	41	-6	30
1.17	Sporting Kansas City	24	7	7	10	37	43	-6	28
1.15	Chicago Fire	26	7	9	10	38	37	1	30
1.08	Colorado Rapids	24	7	5	12	41	49	-8	26
1.00	Columbus Crew	26	7	5	14	27	39	-12	26
0.92	Vancouver Whitecaps	26	5	9	12	26	45	-19	24
0.72	FC Cincinnati	25	5	3	17	25	57	-32	18

Obviously, with just 8 games remaining, the playoffs are out of reach. I expect the rest of the season will be pushing for a positive "the team is improving" narrative that helps grease the rails for season tickets next year.

It's going to be a hard sell, in my opinion. Wherever I work, I tend to be the "soccer guy." My latest job (well, most of my jobs) has me working with a very large group (think 100s). There are casual sports fans that might go to a game or two as well as "Ohio sports guy" that is curious.

They are not enthusiastic about buying a ticket.

Something that popped up in a conversation recently that happens quite a bit is the "quality" aspect of the game. Anyone that has a passing interest in the sport mentions how it looks like high school (or rec league).

Last weekend's game was a terrible advertisement for MLS/Columbus Crew. The game was not good! It's funny and perhaps ironic that the biggest criticism I hear about going to Crew games is the level of play and not the stadium experience. In my decade of writing about this team and being the token "soccer guy" at work, nobody with passing interest in the Crew has ever been critical of the stadium or experience.

Top Left Mids in MLS

[Season start - July 26, 2019 - I round ages]

Somewhat bizarrely, Left mids in MLS are a hot commodity. Their average salary is second only to Forwards and tops even those of top cental mids. The reason is likely simple. Left footed mids can whip the ball into right foot dominate forwards. I wish there were more to it than that, but there likely isn't. Anyhow:

29: Median Age of top LM's in MLS
$1.2m: Median salary

	Name(2)	BIRTHPLACE	Team	Age	Salary
1	Maximiliano Moralez	Granadero Baigorria, Argentina	NYC	32	$2,000,000
2	Sebastián Blanco	Buenos Aires, Argentina	PDX	31	$1,375,008
3	Lucas Rodríguez	Buenos Aires, Argentina	DC	22	$298,550
4	Nani	Praia, Cape Verde	ORL	33	$2,486,250
5	Aleksandar Katai	Srbobran, Yugoslavia	CHI	29	$1,380,333
6	Vako	Ozurgeti, Georgia	SJE	27	$1,604,042
7	Daniel Royer	Schladming, Austria	NYR	29	$768,750
8	Memo Rodriguez	Wharton, Texas	HOU	24	$82,750
9	Uriel Antuna	Gomez Palacio, Mexico	LAG	22	$420,000
10	Víctor Rodríguez	Barcelona, Spain	SEA	30	$1,087,500

There seems to be a wide range of ages and nationalities and wages on this list (outside of Argentina's top 3), which kinda confirms the ends that teams go to find a good crosser of the ball.

The disparity in salary tells us that this position needs a lot of work in MLS. In this top 10 you can go from a player making $83k to over $2 million.

Here's how WhoScored has the ratings:

WS	Name(2)	Team
7.38	Maximiliano Moralez	NYC
7.31	Nani	ORL
7.23	Sebastián Blanco	PDX
7.23	Vako	SJE
7.21	Aleksandar Katai	CHI
7.15	Memo Rodriguez	HOU
7.11	Ignacio Piatti	MTL
7.10	Lucas Rodríguez	DC
7.00	Kevin Molino	MIN
6.95	Daniel Royer	NYR
6.93	Víctor Rodríguez	SEA
6.91	David Accam	CLB
6.87	Justin Meram	ATL

Not that both Accam and Meram make an appearance on this list. Columbus had both at one point, but somehow saw that as a position that needed an upgrade. In fact, they still do because they are shipping Accam away after the season.

Here are my other TOP IN MLS lists, so far:

FORWARDs
CENTRAL MIDFIELD
RIGHT MIDFIELD
LEFT BACKS
CENTER BACKS
RIGHT BACKS