Gotta pick em all!

Getting predictions in early today ahead of the Canada clash and, also, so I don't have to worry about it any more.

It would also be great if I could sotp picking SKC wins, it seems like that's bad luck. I guess it wasn't at the start of the season though...

Anyway, here's what we've got this week. A bunch of two goal wins and some draws.

Team	Result	GD	Confidence
Montreal	WIN	+2	97.21%
Toronto	LOSS	-2	97.21%
Kansas City	WIN	+2	88.50%
Chicago	LOSS	-2	88.50%
New York	WIN	+2	93.67%
Toronto	LOSS	-2	93.67%
DC	WIN	+2	95.74%
Montreal	LOSS	-2	95.74%
New England	DRAW	0	97.09%
Seattle	DRAW	0	97.09%
Salt Lake City	DRAW	0	86.33%
Columbus	DRAW	0	86.33%
Houston	WIN	+2	96.75%
Philadelphia	LOSS	-2	96.75%
Colorado	WIN	+2	90.13%
Portland	LOSS	-2	90.13%
LA	DRAW	0	74.36%
San Jose	DRAW	0	74.36%

The Dutch continue to underwhelm

While it wasn't the most exciting or action packed match of the year, good to see SKC advance to the semi finals after a pretty easy win over the Dayton Dutch Lions. There were actually a few nervy moments in the first half; a shot that just swerved at the last second that had Jimmy beat otherwise and a Jimmy touch over the bar that was apprently given as a goal kick (it looked like Jimmy thought it was offsides and brought the ball out further and the ref had him pull it back for a goal kick, even though he got a hand on it... from where I was, at least).

Probably not a great match for a neutral observer to watch, but as a Kansas City fan it was nice to see them actually win a match without making it interesting.

The couple people I talked to about heading back to Philly for a rematch seemed pretty adament they'd rather have faced the Harrisburg City Islanders, and while I generally agree with them, I think the setup of a revenge match is too good of a story line to not be excited about.

The only other fun fact I'll throw out there is Dayton's midfielder Akeem Priestly was drafted by Kansas City in 2009 but not offered a contract. I'm sure he would have absolutely loved to have put one in against us. So there was the slightest of connections for at least one Dayton player. Maybe more if I really researched it.

A couple of snapshots from the match before we hit up some ratings.

And now, some ratings. I didn't put much thought into any of it, especially not for Dayton's players. I also feel like CJ Sapong's face should get it's own line item here...

 

Dayton Dutch Lions
Matthew William	4.6
Shane Smith	4.6
Mettin Copier	4.3
Daniel Holowaty	4.6
Nixon Dias	4.3
Gregory Preciado	4.3
Joel DeLass	4.6
Bret Jones	4.6
Mikael McNamara	4.6
Akeem Priestly	4.6
Thomas Garner	4.6
Gerit-Jan Bartels	4.6
Gibson Bardsley	4.6
Kyle Knotek	4.6
Team Average	4.5
Sporting Kansas City
Jimmy Nielsen	5.7
Matt Besler	5.7
Seth Sinovic	6.6
Konrad Warzycha	4.3
Lawrence Olum	5.7
Graham Zusi	6.0
Roger Espinzoa	4.3
Michael Harrington	5.7
Jacob Peterson	5.7
Michael Thomas	4.9
Peterson Joseph	4.9
CJ Sapong	7.4
Teal Bunbury	4.3
Soony Saad	5.4
Team Average	5.5

 

Man of the match to Sapong for his "face brace".

Monday again? I thought Monday was last week.

I've almost gotten into a roll with doing these. Scary, huh? Maybe during the office season I'll even write up a nifty little script or something to automate the whole thing and just be done with thought and effort once and for all. Were it so easy.

Anyway, here's the updated spreadsheet incoroprating the last rounds of games into the metric. A few interesting things. RSL still holds onto the top slot, but just barely, which is a bit surprising given their recent run of form and losing a direct match against San Jose. Once again this was sort of intentional as I wanted rankings to change a bit more gradually than how most of the talking heads update their rankings, but maybe in this case it's a bit too slow.

Another anomoly seems to be New York winning against a direct foe and seemingly actually dropping in ranking slightly. This seems to be because a lot of teams actually had slightly better results than their results given other teams slightly beter form then them this week. Because it's a relative system, even a good performance can result in losing some rating when compared to other, great results.

Seattle is just a hair above Chicago but they'll likely be falling a lot if they can't right their ship soon. Same for RSL. Kansas City has fallen to basically the worst of the best level. I'm still hoping a win against Dayton sets up a rematch against Philly.

I've been wondering what it will take to get Toronto to overtake Dallas as well. I feel like TFC will be winning again after the All Star break. Not sure I can say the same for Dallas...

Seattle was this weeks big loser, dropping 0.758 points while LA was the big winner, picking up 0.750. Are they back? Doubtful, but in a parity league with a playoff system all you need to do is limp across the finish line at the end of the season and who knows what can happen...

Anyway, here's the full table.

Week 16
Team	Rank	Weekly Δ	Rating	Weekly Δ
Salt Lake City	1	NC	6.5	-0.567
San Jose	2	NC	6.6875	0.313
DC	3	NC	7.25	-0.117
New York	4	+1	7.5625	-0.029
Kansas City	5	-1	7.8125	-0.613
Vancouver	6	+1	9.3125	-0.446
Seattle	7	-1	9.625	-0.758
Chicago	8	NC	9.6875	0.446
Columbus	9	+1	10.625	-0.158
Houston	10	-1	10.8125	-0.479
Colorado	11	NC	11.25	-0.583
LA	12	+1	12.25	0.750
Chivas	13	-1	12.75	0.117
New England	14	NC	13	0.200
Portland	15	NC	13.25	0.483
Montreal	16	NC	13.3125	0.554
Philadelphia	17	+1	14.4375	0.496
Dallas	18	-1	15	-0.267
Toronto	19	NC	18.4375	0.296

Real Salt Lake will get no crest love this week, as I don't think they deserve it.

Why do I do this to myself

So normally I'd say the less said about that game, the better, but this is one that's probably important to talk about. I'll probably throw up a bunch of links to other discussion lately. For me, I'll let the numbers do the talking, and the numbers are pretty dismal. Here's player ratings for last nights match against Philly.

Philadelphia Union
Zac MacMath	6.6
Carlos Valdes	6.6
Raymon Gaddis	5.4
Michael Farfan	6.0
Freddy Adu	4.2
Brian Carrol	5.1
Keon Daniel	4.2
Gabriel Farfan	4.8
Amobi Okugo	5.1
Michael Lahoud	4.8
Lionard Pajoy	7.8
Jack McInerney	7.5
Antoine Hoppenot	5.4
Team Average	5.7
Sporting Kansas City
Jimmy Nielsen	3.9
Aurelien Collin	4.2
Seth Sinovic	3.9
Chance Myers	4.2
Lawrence Olum	4.2
Graham Zusi	4.8
Roger Espinzoa	4.8
Julio Cesar	4.5
Jacob Peterson	4.2
Michael Thomas	4.2
Kei Kamara	4.8
CJ Sapong	4.5
Teal Bunbury	4.2
Soony Saad	4.2
Team Average	4.4

Pretty much a dominating performance by Philadelphia, though I'd argue in large part it was just poorness on SKC's part, the defending especially. Get healthy soon, Mr. Besler.

Man of the match goes to Lionard Pajoy for his goal, assist, and play on both sides of the field, while SKCs man of the match gets splitbetween Kei Kamara, Graham Zusi, and Roger Espinzoa. Hard to really award any one anything after that kind of smackdown from one of the worst teams in the league though.

The crazy thing is this sets up what could be an epic rematch in the US Open cup if both SKC and Philadelphia advance to the semi finals. Both are playing lower division sides, so it's a definite possibility, and one I'm sure fans and players on both teams would want. Let's hope Kansas City gets it done on Tuesday.

#### barf

One more number dump before I call it a night. I should have done this after the last round, but, you know, lazy, beer, etc. etc. So here's how the final rankings for Euro 2012 played out post group stage. I think this is where I'll hang up my numerical cleats as in the knock out rounds anything goes, but for the hell of it we'll use it to prdeict the rest of the tournement.

Team	Ranking	Change	Rating	Change
Spain	1	+1	2.25	0.42
Germany	2	+1	3.25	1.08
Russia	3	-2	4	-2.00
Portugal	4	+2	6.5	1.17
France	5	-1	7	-1.00
Ukraine	6	-1	7.688	-1.35
England	7	+2	8	1.33
Italy	8	+1	8.25	1.08
Sweden	9	-1	8.5	0.50
Czech Republic	10	+1	8.75	0.92
Denmark	11	-4	9.25	-1.25
Croatia	12	-1	10	-0.33
Greece	13	NC	11.25	1.08
Poland	14	NC	13	-0.33
Netherlands	15	+1	14	-0.33
Ireland	15	-1	14	-0.67

So. Prediction time wooooooo!

Portugal over Czech Republic (just happened!)

Spain over France.

Germany over Greece.

England over Italy (I've picked against England so much, now watch this be the one where they lose...)

Which means the next round would be...

Spain over Portugal (should be a great game)

Germany over England

Which sets up...

Spain over Germany. So #1 beating #2. Could it happen? Maybe, but I thought Russia would be there too. But really, who knows, it's been a great set of matches and I'm totally looking forward to the rest of the games.