Monday, November 26, 2007

The MLS Playoff System, Post Mortem, Ad Naseum, Et Cetera-- Where the Critics have a point...

Now that the dust has settled on the MLS playoffs, it's as decent a time as any to take another look at the MLS playoff format.

Taking the 2007 playoffs into account, the higher seeds advance 70% in the first round. In the second round (single game elimination), the higher seeds advance 80% of the time (as both New England and Houston did this time around).

#2 seed Houston, of course, won the whole thing against fellow #2 seed New England.

So why was everyone complaining? I think there's a few arguments.

1. Quality of Play. Other formats might create more attractive games.

2. Creating incentives for intense play in the regular season. Rewarding higher seeds more (or differently) might make the regular season more meaningul.

3. Rewarding strong regular season performance. #3 is sort of the flip side to #2-- central to #3 is the idea that a team that does well in the regular season ought to have an easier road to the championship. The playoffs ought to reduce the number of fluke results for such teams.

As I've stated before, #2 and #3 appear to be dealt with pretty well by the current system. MLS high seeds already advance at a very rate. Making the rate even higher might have the perverse effect of making the playoffs seem less compelling if fans think the playoffs are just a rubber stamp affair.

But, even with a 70% advancement rate with higher seeds, the MLS playoff critics still have a few points.
1. Higher seeds win because they are better teams-- not because of the playoff format. This argument is 50% brilliance and 50% not-so-brilliance. First, the not-so-brilliant part: the higher seeds are only playing against teams that that they are better than because... wait for it... playing weak teams is part of the format's reward for being a higher seed. And the stats have shown that it's a pretty hefty advantage indeed.

But here's a more nuanced take: higher seeds aren't given much other advantage in the two-leg format. If a higher seed is hit by inopportune injuries (like Razov and Galindo's injuries for #1 Chivas USA, or Emilio and Moreno's injuries for #1 DC United), then their "better team" advantage evaporates because of bad timing. Injuries are a fact of life in sports, but this doesn't seem entirely "fair" that the playoff advantage gained from an entire season of work could be destroyed because of injuries at precisely the wrong moment. This is precisely the case where you'd want a higher seed to get a more concrete advantage, such as playing an extra game at home.

Then there's also this developing problem: Right now, MLS playoff teams include a few teams below 0.500. The worst MLS playoff teams are frequently pretty bad teams. However, when the league expands to 16 teams, gone will be the days when the 8 seed is a below 0.500 team. The 8 seed will be a progressively better team with each expansion of the league. What's this mean? It means that the advantage for high seeds in the current format will be correspondingly diminished. If, in five years, we start to see 1 and 2 seeds start to fall regularly to their lower seeded opponents, we'll need to revisit the playoff format.

2. The playoff format doesn't reward regular season prowess. Obviously, the stats show that the regular season is rewarded in the post-season with advancement about 70% of the time. But what if, as I suggested previously, no onr believes that the format is rewarding, even though the stats show that it positively is? Fans won't believe the regular season to be meaningful and players won't play like it is.

There are a couple of reasons why this might actually be the case.
A. Playing weaker teams only gives you a bonus if you actually play hard and are better. So your reward for playing hard and being better all season is... two more games of needing to play harder and be better in the playoffs. People like getting perks: having home field advantage is a little like getting a perk-- if a home team plays a visitor even, they'll likely win.

B. The MLS playoff format isn't an intuitively obvious reward as it is in other US leagues. The rewards might not be concrete enough or be compelling in small increments (i.e. would you rather play the Fire as a #1 seed or the Wizards as a #2 seed). Economists are frequently confounded by evidence that people frequently make irrational decisions because of little presnetational differences. If that's the case in MLS, maybe we need to re-think how the playoff format is presented to the players.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Why UEFA World Cup Qualification is Silly

Some folks are celebrating England's failure to qualify for the 2008 European Championship. I'll admit to joining in, just a little bit. Teams like Croatia can't be toyed with. While England may, in fact, be a superior team, Croatia had played consistently well and already shown it was capable of beating in England in Zagreb.

But do I really and truly believe England shouldn't be at the Euros? No. I think they're definitely stronger than either of the hosts. They're probably stronger than Greece and Turkey. Come to think of it, I think they'd be favorites against half the teams that did make it to the tournament.

So, while it's only fair to call out England's manager and players for a thouroughly uninspiring campaign, the UEFA qualifying system is absolute garbage. Depending on the strength of the group, a team might play only four meaningful matches. And the top teams will never play each other. We know Turkey can beat Greece and Norway, but that's an entirely different task than beating Italy and Germany.

So while there are almost always great teams among the failed contenders in UEFA, there are almost always terrible teams among the survivors-- teams that are almost guaranteed to be flops at the World Cup. We're left with the counter-intuitive situation where some are clamoring for more World Cup spots for UEFA based on the quality of teams that UEFA leaves behind, while others rightly point out that the continent also qualified the worst team in the 2006 World Cup (Serbia) and a couple of the monumental failures in 2002.

Of course, there will always be teams that underperform. And I believe UEFA has the deepest pool of talent of any confederation. But it's their responsibility to get the right teams to the big tournaments.

And frankly, the 2010 qualification draw for UEFA looks to set an all-time record for terrible. The Czech Republic may need to play precisely one meaningful match (against Poland on the road) to advance. On the plus side, Israel's in a very tight, competitive group and has its best shot at advancing to the World Cup in recent years. But the down side is that their toughest matches (against Greece and Switzerland) will not tell us much about their quality against top opponents. Do we really want to see the Netherlands beat Norway and Scotland to go the World Cup?

Now, of course, there will be upsets. There will always be upsets. But there are upsets on one hand, and flukes on the other. You don't want to determine participation in the WOrld Cup based on a couple of fluke results. But that's precisely what's guaranteed to happen yet again.

World Cup 2010...

So the qualification draw for the 2010 World Cup is already done.

The bad news is that I won't get to make any trips to pleasant Carribean islands in February to support the U.S. national team.

The good news is that the draw for the U.S. looks no better or worse than past draws.

The U.S. needs to beat the winner of Dominica-Barbados in June and then it would move on to a group of four, with two teams advancing. If the results pan out as expected (and generally, it would require a fairly big upset for them not to), the groups would be as follows:

Group 1
U.S.
Guatemala
Cuba
Trinidad and Tobago

These are each potentially tricky teams for the U.S. Each of the road trips will be difficult as each team is capable of taking points off the U.S. And who knows what playing in Havana will be like? If the U.S. starts off the campaign with a couple of games on the road, I wouldn't be shocked to see them with 2 points from 2 matches. But the U.S. should dominate at home, which will be enough to ensure their qualification for the final round.

Group 2
Mexico
Honduras
Canada
Jamaica

Whoa Nelly. I feel awfully bad for Canada. It seems like they're trying pretty hard north of the border to get their backwards soccer federation in order. And Canada sends a good number of players out to decent leagues (at least by CONCACAF standards), so there is talent. But this is a tough, tough group. Mexico, with its massive home field advatange and superior talent, ought to go through. But this is as tough a group as you can have at this stage.

Group 3

Costa Rica
El Salvador/Panama
Suriname/Montserrat/Guyana
Nicaragua/Haiti

I'd call this the weakest group. I expect Costa Rica to cruise. It's tough to call the winner of three of the pre-qualifying matches. Panama is no pushover, and El Salvador has fallen far, but you never know what you're going to get with the Central American sides. Haiti should beat Nicaragua, but, again, you really don't know what you're going to get with these teams.

Which means that Costa Rica is the clear winner here. Whoever else advances will just be making up numbers in the final round of qualification.

Friday, November 9, 2007

Why do so many people think Ruud Gullit is an "awesome" choice?

A big name does not a big manager make.

Otherwise, why not hire Lindsay Lohan?

Don't get me wrong: it is perfectly acceptable for the Galaxy to decide they need a "sexy" coach. And new Galaxy coach Ruud Gullit is, apparently, a sexy man.

But why would anyone think he's a great choice, an awesome choice, a new frontier for the league?

We've had coaches that have coached World Cup teams (even some good ones) and we've had coaches that have won the World Cup. So the idea that Gullit, with a coaching win in the FA Cup with Chelsea, breaks new ground smacks of a pointless fixation on the English premiership.

Gullit was a great player. But as a manager, the results were mixed. He hasn't coached in a couple of years and his last strint, one fourth place finish during a year at Feyenoord in Holland, was considered disappointing. Before that, you have to go back to the 90s for his last job. What we're left with is an FA Cup, which Ruud backers never fail to remind you "happened back when Chelsea never won anything." And Gullit never seems to stick around anywhere-- both his managerial and playing career are marked by frequent disagreements and marching off into the sunsent in a huff. If any manager came to MLS with Ruud's credentials, he'd be politely shown the door. But because we are remember Gullit as an awesome player and a good man (raising awareness against Apartheid when Europe wasn't really focused on it), we want him to be a good coach.

And he may yet turn into one. But let's not confuse hope with reality.

Nice goal, good game

And so the Revs beat the Fire and are now heading to MLS Cup, where most folks are expecting a rematch of last year's final with the Houston Dynamo.

The Revs weren't quite as awesome this year as in year's past. Andy Dorman stepped up his game and was a capable replacement for Clint Dempsey, who's now knocking on real stardom at Fulham. But Dorman's fine play only lasted half a season. The additional contributions of Ralston and Wells Thompson don't really compensate for losing a guy like Dempsey. But the Revs still had Taylor Twellman and Pat Noonan. They still have Defender of the Year Michael Parkhurst.

And the Chicago Fire know that they have Shalrie Joseph.

It was funny how many 50-50 balls ended up on Joseph's feet. The Fire had to feel frustrated-- they played well enough but seemed to come up just short in every important moment. Ironically, Fire coach Osorio, who correctly noted the lack of tactical variance in the league, found his team unable to break down a compact New England defense. And the Fire goal, announced by waves of attacks and crosses, never came to be.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Don't Call It an Upset

The first round of MLS playoffs saw the two teams with the best records (number 1 seed, DC United and number 2 seed Chivas USA) go crashing out to the 7 and 8 seeds, Chicago and Kansas City.

And a number of people are upset about the "upsets". These folks believe that the playoff format (home and away in round one) doesn't give enough of an advantage to the higher seeds. Generally, they'd like to see MLS move to a best of three or single elimination.

Personally, I like single elimination, but I think the dissenters are off-base here. I don't think Chicago's triumph over United is really an upset at all: Chicago's been among the best teams in MLS since midseason, which coincidentally was when they added an experienced coach, a superstar midfielder and a talented and versitile defender. Their mediocre 10-10-10 record reflects the first half struggles of an almost entirely different team. And United, for their part, were hit by injuries to two key players right before the series started. An upset? Not really.

Kansas City's win over Chivas USA is, indeed, a bit more of an upset. But again, what do you expect? Chivas USA was missing its two leading scorers. The Goats were lucky during the regular season that their depth was never tested, but who was surprised to see them fall in Kansas City when they started Laurent Merlin and Jon Cunliffe up top? Kansas City earned their win, but Chivas USA lost because the dropoff from their starters to their bench was simply too large.

So if these aren't real upsets, what does this mean for the playoff format? It means you can't use these results as evidence that the playoff format isn't giving enough of an advantage to higher seeds. In theory, the advantage posed by having the Western Conference Champion facing a below .500 team ought to be more than enough. Do you really need more reward than facing Kansas City instead of, say, Houston? And the results since the playoff format was adopted in 2003 seem to bear this out: about 65-70% of the higher seeds have made it through the first round....