Crew Game 3 Preview

Cured (Ham)

Not sure if it is more the Southwestern Virginia / Western Carolina accent or the salted ham that I like. Both. Well put together short.

Power Rankings after Rd. 3

The other guys:

WV Hooligan has the Crew 13th and DC 15th. I like Drew Epperley's analysis (and... not just because West Virginians are God's People, but that's part of it). Link.

Sounder at Heart also has Columbus at 13, DC 15. These guys use The Crowd (good). Link.

Amazingly, Major League Soccer's own "staff" has the Crew at 13 as well. Noticing a trend? It is unclear to me if MLSsoccer.com uses the votes of many or just one dude. Link.

Two things to take with you regarding Power Rankings:

1. Look for systems of measurement. Leave the "feelings" to 16th century alchemists like Nostradamus. NOTE: Helltown fully supports the practice of Alchemy. In fact I have a family member who has mastered parts of that mysterious science in real life as I have only mastered it in fake life.

2. Montreal: Not sure it is intellectually honest of all three of them to put Montreal at the bottom. They've had play the bad guy for two First Kicks and play a near on exhibition as a home opener. MLS offices have been remarkably cruel to them.

Not Just Lucky Anor, LJ Metric

Getting wins whilst starting and decisively beating opponents. Two important and easily measured metrics in the world of Major League Soccer.

Wins in soccer equates to points. 3 pts for a win, 1 for draw, 0 for loss. Divide the total number of games played into the total points earned by a team or player and you get Points per Game (PPG). Most leagues that play heavy cup and international league schedules use this metric because not all clubs are on the same number of games to associated league round. I use it on the upper right of this page for MLS. Sorting a league table in this way is sometimes called a True Table.

Decisively beating opponents can be acutely measured by goal difference. While it may not work on an individual game basis, it does work out over time. The bigger the positive number - the more convincing the victories are. These are high level generalities - but good enough to serve as an easy way to determine player importance to a club.

What I've done with Crew players over the past year or so is add each player's PPG and GD together to figure out who is contributing most to my beloved hometown club. It's a way for me to quantify performance.

Example: Will Hesmer. 11 wins, 8 draws, 14 loss. 1.24 PPG. In that same time frame the Crew has a GD of -0.18. Add the PPG and GD = 1.06. Pretty much an worthless number on its own but when put in relationship to the overall team performance of 1.27... you start getting a clearer picture. Hesmer is performing below the team average.

I'm going to take a quick conversational look at these two metrics as they stand from the start of the Columbus Crew's 2011 season to today (two games into 2012). 37 total Games.

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Last Saturday's game marked Bernardo Anor's 7th career start for Columbus. His record is now 4 Wins, 1 Draw, 2 Loss. That translates to 1.86 Points Per Game (PPG). Goal Difference (GD) with him starting is +0.71.

Anor PPG and GD are now tops on the Crew counting players with 7 or more starts.

If you compare that to Shaun Francis and his 7 career starts over that same time frame you get the second to last PPG of 1.00. 2 Wins, 1 Draw, 4 Loss. The Crew's GD with him starting is -0.43. Again, second to last on the team.

To put it another way; The difference between Anor and Francis' PPG (0.86) was the gap between the LA Galaxy and Chivas USA last year.

7 games isn't quite a large enough data set to make any major conclusions. Especially when comparing players of different position, but it is enough data to start asking questions.

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Floating up with Anor in PPG and GD is Tommy Heinemann, 1.50 PPG and +0.33 GD and Eddie Gaven, 1.48 PPG and +0.14 GD. No other active Crew player with over 7 starts has a positive GD besides Danny O'Rourke, +0.13 GD. But Danny's PPG is too low to be considered for this group.

I'm not the only one noticing Tommy's contributions and potential after his first year. LINK.

Justin Meram and Andy Gruenebaum are close to joining this 'winners club', need 3 more starts each though.

At the bottom with Francis is Dilly Duka, who deserves his own special spot with these two metrics. Duka only earns 0.89 PPG and has an astonishingly low -0.72 GD (18 games started, only 2 games short of the 20 I need in order to be 99% sure he needs to sit the bench or be traded).

Joining Duka is Rich Balchan with a 1.17 PPG and -0.33 GD (18 games started).

Below is the complete list sorted by the Metric I've described above (current players are in BOLD)

PPG+GD : Player : Games Started

2.57 : Bernardo Anor : 7
1.83 : Tom Heinemann : 12
1.62 : Eddie Gaven : 29
1.60 : Kevin Burns : 15
1.59 : Joshua Gardner : 22
1.38 : Emmanuel Ekpo : 29
1.38 : Julius James : 32
1.38 : Danny O´Rourke : 8
1.27 : Sebastian Miranda : 37
1.27 : Team Average : 15
1.26 : Chad Marshall : 35
1.23 : Dejan Rusmir : 13
1.08 : Andrés Mendoza : 26
1.06 : Will Hesmer : 33
0.96 : Robbie Rogers : 25
0.94 : Emilio Renteria : 16
0.83 : Rich Balchan : 18
0.57 : Shaun Francis : 7
0.17 : Dilly Duka : 18

These guys haven't reached the five games started yet but are contributing to the Team Average.

5.00 : Olman Vargas : 1
3.25 : Justin Meram : 4
3.00 : Andy Gruenebaum : 4
2.00 : Andy Iro : 2
1.50 : Kirk Urso : 2
1.50 : Milovan Mirosevic : 2
1.27 : Team Average : 15
1.25 : Jeff Cunningham : 4
0.75 : Eric Gehrig : 4
-1.50 : Tony Tchani : 2

Like I mentioned above, the number by itself doesn't mean much. It's just something simple to keep track of that I hope adds weight to my musings on Crew Football. The simplicity of soccer is the reason for it's greatness.

That said, this metric would get shot down were I to present it to the C level Emeryville team of the company I work for. It's not something they could put on a slide deck and present to the board during quarterly meetings. However.

It is definitely a metric that would be used by someone, say, on the operational level. Someone whose survival requires more sweat then swagger, flash and splash.

Recap: Crew Game 2, Montreal 0

Columbus looked improved over their week one performance yesterday. It is a sure bet that, like me, most of the 18,000 on hand were happy with the attacking formation Coach Warzycha employed.

Opening home game vibes and good, fast paced, soccer by both sides.

EARLY RED CARD

That lively play came to a screeching halt in the 16th minute as Montreal’s Jeb Brovsky elbowed the back of Milovan Mirosevic’s head. It was an aggressive challenge by Brovsky and looked incredibly violent from my vantage point. Replays show that he didn’t keep his arm straight and led with a bent elbow. It’s always unfortunate when a red comes out early. The game suffers and the official is usually left chasing the rest of the game.

MONTREAL PRESSING FOR GOAL

Montreal went on the attack searching for a quick goal after the Red was issued, undoubtedly so they could spend the remainder of the game bunkered. The plan almost worked as they were able to easily find holes in the Crew defensive third on a number of counters and breaks. That Montreal pressure shows itself the stat line; 17 shots (6 on target). Most of shots coming after going a man down must be slightly concerning for the Crew coaching staff.

PENALTY 1-0 CREW

15 minutes after the player ejection, Renteria was taken down in the box. Mirosevic finished off the penalty kick well and put the Crew up (reminder: Columbus led the league and set a club record in PKs with 9 last year).

66th MINUTE 2-0 CREW

Shaun Francis whipped a beautiful cross in from the left that Olman Vargas finished with a darting header. Impressive Goal.


GAME OVER, NOTES

Bernardo Anor had a stand out game. Andy Gruenebaum had one of the better goal keeping performances I’ve seen from the Crew in the past two years. Mirosevic also had a good game. Taking the ball away from Montreal players almost looked too easy for him.

Danny O’Rourke, Shaun Francis and even Miranda looked a little shaky in the back but they haven’t played much together. It’s worth mentioning again… Gruenebaum saved the day.

For Montreal, Justin Mapp. The guy was clearly one of the best on the field yesterday. Mapp sent in a handful of great crosses that might have changed the game had Crew GK not been in top form. Mapp also had one go off the crossbar in the first half.

Early Red Cards drop stink bombs on games and they seem to be all too common in MLS. However, that is the game to be played in these parts.

The Crew garnished all 3 points from an aggressive and feisty Montreal. That's all that is asked. On to next week.

Crew v Montreal, Important 3 Pts

The Crew host Montreal twice this year. In order for the Crew to make the playoffs they need to pull all 6 home points from the expansion Impact.

After spending some time looking at this match up I realize that Columbus will have to fight more than most think to get these 3 points.

Montreal has played in two high profile games already. Away in Vancouver (Loss) and Home (Draw) in front of 60k fans. In other words, their season started three weeks ago and are MLS game tested. Impact also have regular 2011 Crew starter Josh Gardner on the team. Gardner, I'm sure, has helped them go into tonight with confidence.

In reality, even though they have played a league game, the Crew are still in preseason mode. Two new signings three weeks into the season is not what anyone likes to see, but not unusual. However, two new signings that might play this week plants red flags around the front office.

There is more risk then reward for Columbus tonight. Unless it is decisive, get a win and fans and folks like me will clap politely and say 'we should beat an expansion side.' A loss and fans will press the panic button. A shutout loss and Warzycha will be in a heap of trouble.

In putting together my Game Program just about everything came down to this: We have an expansion team taking on a club that has very little year over year consistency.

Difficult to see, the future is.

Sign Expo Sign

Have been in Orlando for a trade show so before catching up on my Crew Game Program I figure I'll post three pictures from the Orlando event...
Speaking of signs... I will be on the Columbus Crew Stadium pitch with the winner of the Crew poster competition tomorrow before the game. Inside the normal game day program you will see the best design "Free Kick" has ever seen!

MLS Power Ranking after Round 2

Early on the Power Ranking but wanted to be able to go back to it this summer. This just compiles my individual player ratings and averages them up by position. Doing it that way gives me a few quarks like Vancouver's GK rating (no goals against). Reason being is they had to make a GK sub which'll wash out after a handful of games. A sub at that position usually indicates a problem, anyhow.

Similar issue with DC only it's just about every position. 20 different United players already seeing time, only 2 games played.

Some teams have only played one game so not much of a data set to pull from. Still, I'm happy with how my model holds up early on. From what I'm reading out there it isn't too far off what others think and feel.

Nice work this week weighted player ratings. Take a quick break.

Yes! Columbus is a Fortress! (usmnt)

(The) Dispatch and other reporter(s) reported quoted (Adam Jardy) Columbus Crew President Mark McCullers as saying:

"I fully expect that Crew Stadium will be a site for the U.S.- Mexico World Cup Qualifier. Our history of success with the U.S. National Team in this venue, both on and off the field, speaks for itself."

Woohoo! Yes! First things first though. I've seen the placards around Crew Stadium that do tell of USA victories, but what exactly are the numbers for the US Men's National Team here in Columbus? Is it something to be proud of?

8 Games. 5 Wins. 3 Draws. 0 Losses. 12 goals for, 1 against

That's right. USMNT has never lost in Columbus. Only other city to boast that stat with over 8 games? Fullerton. Wait. Fullerton? Yes. All in 1994. Sort of an outlying data point as we played a bunch of World Cup related games against the likes of Bolivia, Estonia and Armenia. Very important to note for the childrens: That was a REALLY good US team (maybe our best ever) against weaker competition.

Foxboro, Mass could argue for the modern international soccer fortress on US soil. Our "Wembley?". 14 wins, 4 draws, 2 loss. However, only one game against Mexico (Draw). Columbus boasts THREE double yous againnie Mexicanio. All 2-0 WINS.

I've put the usmnt record by host city (with at least 8 games) data up. LINK.

Washington DC pulls up in the 3rd spot behind Foxboro and Columbus. 12 wins in 20 games there. Cool fact is that DC holds the 2nd highest goals for avg. of all cities.

Not surprising that: In Miami, Chicago and NY... 50 Games, 17 wins, 12 draws, 21 losses all totaled, are not great places to get results. Making money? Maybe. A good thing is the 'away' feel the players might get. Tougher games make better teams.

I guess what I'm saying here is that, for whatever reason, Columbus is the right place to hold important National Team games if a win is necessary. It might not be what Mexico City is for Mexico but it is just about the best we've got.