I've been meaning to play around with Tableau for a while and I thought my work with games back would be a good start. Visually it isn't that striking, but I think it does a decent job of conveying the information.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
On MLS Being a Retirement Home
The European Leagues have started up again, MLS is deep into the playoff race, yet I still find myself waxing nostalgic for the 2010 World Cup. It's a wonderful period of time where it's socially acceptable to watch 3 matches a day for two weeks straight before being weened off of it throught the knockout stage whereas the rest of the time I guiltily own up to watching 4 matches when someone asks me how I spent my Saturday. Normally I can stave off my desire to be back in the summer of 2010, painfully watching the US team concede early goals, only to find some way to get the result late in the match. Today, however, I decided to revisit Bing's Visual Search for the World Cup. It's a neat little tool that lets you sort and filter the players from the tournament based on a number of different categories. Looking at the oldest players I noticed two things:
- Old players tend to be goal keepers
- A lot of the oldies have played or are playing in MLS
Neither of these observations are too surprising. Keepers tend to peak later in their careers so you'd expect them to be over represented at the tail end of the age spectrum. Of the 11 players that weren't keepers, 4 of them had MLS experience: Cuauhtemoc Blanco, Carlos Pavon, Simon Elliot and Blaise Nkufo. Given MLS's reputation as a retirement home for footballers, I wasn't too surprised until I noticed that Nkufo is the only one still playing in the league. If Beckham hadn't been injured, he too would have been on the list, but as a special case since he's been splitting his time between the LA Galaxy and AC Milan. If MLS is a retirement home, it certainly isn't a final resting place. It's nice to see MLS Alums moving on to different clubs and still competing with the world's best, even at the ripe old age of 35.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
On Home Field Advantage
Over and over in the press I keep hearing about what a difficult place Qwest Field is to play. Being a season ticket holder, my impression is quite different. Sure, the atmosphere is fantastic and I love going to matches, but I never consider Qwest the fortress that some people like to make it out to be.
Home field advantage in soccer is almost taken as fact and is the reason behind the beloved away goals rule (the theory being that it is more difficult to score away from home so those goals should count more heavily). Stadiums with high attendences and rabid fans are seen as being more advantageous than smaller, quieter stadiums. Altitude is also seen as an advantage, so much so that FIFA tried to ban World Cup qualifiers played above a certain altitude.
Home field advantage in soccer is almost taken as fact and is the reason behind the beloved away goals rule (the theory being that it is more difficult to score away from home so those goals should count more heavily). Stadiums with high attendences and rabid fans are seen as being more advantageous than smaller, quieter stadiums. Altitude is also seen as an advantage, so much so that FIFA tried to ban World Cup qualifiers played above a certain altitude.
On the Playoff Race
One of the problems I've run into with following MLS is figuring out where my team stands in the playoff race. In essence, the top 8 teams make it into the playoffs. In reality, it's possible for a team not in the top 8 to make it into the playoffs, but the likelihood of that happening is very slim. The full rules for qualifying are availabe here. For most soccer leagues, it's easy to figure out who the top 8 teams are. They have a single table format with a balanced schedule. Very few teams have played a different number of matches than the other teams in the league. It's easy to compare apples to apples in this scenario. MLS, on the other hand, has a very bizarre way of scheduling matchs and it's uncommon for teams to have played the same number of matches at any point in the season. How, then, do you figure out where you stand in the table without running through all the scenarios of "Well, if team A beats team B, and then draws against team C, and we beat team D, then...".
I've several approaches to this problem. The first is to use the average points earned per game as an estimate of what a team will do in their games-in-hand. This is a decent approach for the middle of the season when a team's performance will be averaged out over a large number of games. Towards the end of the season, this approach doesn't work as well. For example, if a team is averaged 1.2 PPM, then assuming they will earn 2.4 PPM in their two games-in-hand can be a poor assumption. It's quite reasonable for them to pick up the full 6.
Another approach is to use Monte Carlo simulations to calculate the possible outcomes of future matches. Sports Club Stats is a good example of this approach. The problem is that their estimates are limited to the quality of the model they use for estimating the outcomes. Your outputs are only as good as your inputs and quite frankly, the discipline isn't mature enough to have quality inputs just yet.
Baseball has the concept of games back. It's a beautiful metric that tells you exactly what your team needs to do in order to move into first. Any casual baseball fan can understand it. It's a simple formula that encapsulates where a team stands no matter how many games-in-hand are in play. It got me thinking about whether or not something similar could be applied to a league with trinary outcomes (win, loss, tie). I tweaked the formula a bit to work with ties and the results are decent but take some getting used to. Instead of the simplicity of a half or full game back, there are now weird situations like being 1/6 of a game back. I'm going to update the results each week for the rest of the season to get a feel for how it works. Below are the latest standings as of 9/27.
Both the Sounders and KC are deep in the playoff race after going through some dark times this season. At their worst points during the season the teams were only 2 and 2.5 GB respectively. I think that's a testament to parity in MLS and the fact that half the teams qualify for the playoffs.
I've several approaches to this problem. The first is to use the average points earned per game as an estimate of what a team will do in their games-in-hand. This is a decent approach for the middle of the season when a team's performance will be averaged out over a large number of games. Towards the end of the season, this approach doesn't work as well. For example, if a team is averaged 1.2 PPM, then assuming they will earn 2.4 PPM in their two games-in-hand can be a poor assumption. It's quite reasonable for them to pick up the full 6.
Another approach is to use Monte Carlo simulations to calculate the possible outcomes of future matches. Sports Club Stats is a good example of this approach. The problem is that their estimates are limited to the quality of the model they use for estimating the outcomes. Your outputs are only as good as your inputs and quite frankly, the discipline isn't mature enough to have quality inputs just yet.
Baseball has the concept of games back. It's a beautiful metric that tells you exactly what your team needs to do in order to move into first. Any casual baseball fan can understand it. It's a simple formula that encapsulates where a team stands no matter how many games-in-hand are in play. It got me thinking about whether or not something similar could be applied to a league with trinary outcomes (win, loss, tie). I tweaked the formula a bit to work with ties and the results are decent but take some getting used to. Instead of the simplicity of a half or full game back, there are now weird situations like being 1/6 of a game back. I'm going to update the results each week for the rest of the season to get a feel for how it works. Below are the latest standings as of 9/27.
| Team Name | Points | GP | GB From Playoffs |
| Los Angeles Galaxy | 50 | 26 | -3 2/3 |
| Real Salt Lake | 48 | 26 | -3 |
| FC Dallas | 46 | 26 | -2 1/3 |
| Columbus Crew | 45 | 26 | -2 |
| New York Red Bulls | 44 | 26 | -1 2/3 |
| San Jose Earthquakes | 39 | 24 | -1 |
| Colorado Rapids | 38 | 25 | - 1/6 |
| Seattle Sounders FC | 39 | 26 | 0 |
| Kansas City Wizards | 33 | 25 | 1 1/2 |
| Toronto FC | 31 | 26 | 2 2/3 |
| Chicago Fire | 26 | 24 | 3 1/3 |
| Philadelphia Union | 27 | 25 | 3 1/2 |
| Chivas USA | 25 | 25 | 4 1/6 |
| New England Revolution | 26 | 26 | 4 1/3 |
| Houston Dynamo | 26 | 26 | 4 1/3 |
| D.C. United | 18 | 26 | 7 |
Both the Sounders and KC are deep in the playoff race after going through some dark times this season. At their worst points during the season the teams were only 2 and 2.5 GB respectively. I think that's a testament to parity in MLS and the fact that half the teams qualify for the playoffs.
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