Sleep when youre dead, which may be soon...

Okay, getting caught up again. Numbers through June 19th. No commentary other than whoever said that having your second kid is easier than having your first needs to get punched in the dick until they're infertile. Movement might look a little screwy given the weird scheduling. Next week may not be better...

Anyway, rankings...

Graph.

I'm going to bed.

Lucky Week 13?

So not a lot of movement in this weeks rankings, which may be a good thing. I like it when teams settle down and trends get less violent. Of course that doesn't mean there wasn't plenty of action happening. Portland making some noise, a reality check for Seattle, Chivas has, perhaps, bottomed out, and Kansas City very luckily manages to creep up a notch to #6.

Here's the full table.

And now the handy graphy-graph. Dallas on top once more, but Portland has very nearly caught them... Click to embiggen.

Magic Bonus Update!

Magic bonus update!

For awhile I've thought about making a tweak to the formula to make it a little more sensitive to short term performance. I've sort of tried to account for that with the Flavor of the Week rankings, but today I thought I'd try to go ahead and combine the two and see how the average looks. i.e. the "mashup" system would be equally weighted between season long performance as well as last five game performance. I don't know if I like it more or less but I'll track it for a few weeks and see how it looks.

Edit - 

Huh. You know, after comparing the mashup numbers, I think I might like them more. They compare really well with what ESPN and MLS have while still maintaining some numerical defensibility and still identifying teams where the other rankings seem to be too knee jerk.

I think I'm gonna keep the mashup numbers and start including that weekly.

Timmmbbbbeerrrrrrr

So... how bout them Timbers eh? Who'd've thunk they'd be carving out an identity as a road team? And why do I have to be the asshole who says it...

THE TIMBERS WOULD BE A BETTER TEAM IF THEY PLAYED ON A BIGGER FIELD.

Seriously, they look really good when they have space to work in. Jeld-Wenn doesn't suit their style. It's just not that great of a stadium. there. I said it.

Anway, was a poor game all around, actually. My wife (8 months pregnant) twisted her ankle, so we decided to leave early so we could get her home to ice it (and avoid all the traffic getting out of the lot). And by early, I mean I literally went to get the car at the opening kick and missed Chance Myers first MLS goal. Which is funny, because I was totally talking to one of the trainers on the flight home from New York about Chance and asked whether he thought he'd ever score. He laughed and sort of shrugged, saying Chance lit up the Reserve League back in the day with goals in almost every game, but just didn't seem like he'd ever score in an MLS game. And then, yeah. One minute in. Was hillarious. Did I post about that in my New York post? No? DAMMIT! Okay, I should have.

Anyway, yeah, I was really glad to see Chance score, and one would think that scoring early would mean te game would be a done deal. Forcing visitors to chase a game that early, for that long, seems like it would be perfect for SKCs style, and yet, somehow, defending just fell apart. I actually Jimmy had a really poor game in the nets, and the lack of run-of-play goals worries me some...

Still, early in the season, and it's hard to say Portland is a poor team this year, so... let's see the numbers.

No real surprise seeing Chance Myers as man of the match, unless you count a player from the losing team (not to mention a defender whose back line leaked three goals) as a surprise...

Wanna see some pictures? Suuuure you do.

Must watch

For those who missed the match, it looks like the full game is still up on YouTube. I'm gonna try to download it when I get home in case they take it down, but really, if you've got the time, this was just a hilarious, hilarious game.

I don't even know if congratulations are in order to Cal FC or what, but I haven't had this much fun watching a game at 1:00 AM in... well... ever.

The magical Wynalda trololol eff you road tour side show 1 : Portland Timbers 0

Problem?

Portland Land.

Warning. Nothing really soccer related here, just a trip update. Safe to skip, for sure.

For a better account, check out what Ben wrote up.

Well then, that was a fun little trip.

I actually hadn't planned on going at all in the first place until I found out I could actually piggy back the whole thing on top of a business trip, which worked out great. I flew out on Thursday, routing through Chicago, unfortunately. I hate flying east to go west. But it worked out mostly fine in the end. Got into Portland late, opted to eat at a Buffalo Wild Wings by my hotel instead of going downtown, which may have been a mistake. Not that anything was bad (for the record, Thai curry wings are excellent), but I'd later learn that downtown Portland was awesome.

Also, apparently, there was some sort of convention in town and no hotels to be had anywhere, so I was sort of stuck out by the airport. The good news was, they were overbooked and had to stick me in a three room suite. Oh the horror.

So Friday. Woke up very early. Like, 4:00 AM early. 6:00 AM Central, true, but even with a new kid I can usually make it until at least 7:00. So I sort of forced myself to lay in bed, with mixed results, but I was up and wide awake, so I made my way out to the harbor. This trip was scheduled real well actually, as the Dred Essayons was actually in port. We do a lot of the harbor and channel work along the West Coast, and let me tell you, the Essayons is a really impressive vessel. Bigger than I thought, even, and in great shape for something that works as hard as it does.

So work went well. Went out after and had a meal at the Bridgeport Brewing Company and would definitely recomend. Great pizza, excellent beer.

Afterwards I met up with the rest of the Cauldron crew that had made the trip as well as the girls and guys from the Timber's Army at The Bitter End. And yes, I am just link bombing at this point, but these places deserve a notice if you're in the area.

Yes though, much love to everyone with the Timber's supporters. Great bunch of people, very welcoming and inviting, and I'd love to buy em each a beer in Kansas City next year.

Hotel, then sleep, then up again at 4:00. Groan. Wound up walking around Cascade Station by the hotel for a little bit. Accidentally wandered into a car show. Not a big car guy or anything, but it was sort of cool.

Wound up getting a nice bottle of Oregon wine for the wife out there too, but by then it was time to head downtown. I thought I had big plans, but the light rail got me off in the middle of the Saturday market and I had to wander around. Their market reminded me of essentially taking each small local market Kansas City had and combining it with City Market, and then moving it a bit closer to the river. It was really cool. Actually, a lot of Portland reminded me of just a more condensed version of Kansas City. Nothing really seemed bigger or better, everything was just closer and more condensed, which I definitely liked.

After the market I started to wander towards Jeld-Wen and saw a bar with GolTV on, so I figured I had to stop. Admittedly, I normally wouldn't venture into a place called the MVP Sports Bar, but I was really impressed. They had the River Plate game on, great beer, and apparently their food menu was mostly Thai food, which was awesome. Met a cool girl and her boyfriend who were soccer nuts and wound up talking to them for longer than I meant to (missed a chance to see the Japanese garden) and a few beers later it was game time.

Met up with everyone back at The Bitter End and we started our long meander towards the stadium. We took the long way (3.5 blocks around instead of 0.5 blocks the other way.. and not short blocks...).

It was worth it. I guess? No matter.

Jeld-Wen itself was really cool. It had kind of a Wrigely feel to it. Which in one way is really cool. In the other way, it definitely felt old and in need of some love. I actually think I'm just spoiled by Livestrong. And I don't mean to take anything away from Jeld-Wen. It's gotta be one of the best parks in MLS and I'd love to go back.

So the game. Yeah... maybe the one low-light of the trip. Not that I even mind the loss, but it just wasn't a well played game by either side. I think we looked poor because we were gassed. I think Portland looked poor because... well, they just didn't look like all that great of a team. Chance Myers with the only goal of the game, an own goal, to seal it 1-0 for Portland. I do think the Timber's Army should send Chance the hunk of wood they cut for the goal though. Nice little parting gift.

And I will say, seeing TA out there doing their thing was really impressive. I'd definitely love to see what the Cauldron could do at Livestrong given a bigger stand, but Portland really is a soccer city and they represented well.

Game over, back across the street for a few more beers. Totally packed with Timber's folks again, and 99% of them awesome to talk to. The one negative was that by 11:00 I was ready to head back and started asking for cab advice. The few people I talked to insisted I take the light rail back, to save money and it wouldn't take much longer and so forth... well, I was a good dozen beers into my night at that point so took their advice and headed off to the red line station. No one mentioned the red line stopped running half an hour ago.

So, between walking, waiting, realizing what was up, finding my way back, and grabbing a cab, I wasted an hour of sleep I could have used. Finally slept till 9:00 though, which was great.

Good flight home, happy to be back, and would love to go again. All around an excellent trip and one I'd love to make again in two years. Really, there's a bunch of more detail and minutiae that I didn't get into here. Just wanted to dump some photos. And much thanks to Sam Pierron and Sean Dane for everything they did to coordinate things.





Don't rate the player, rate the game

Had a great time in Portland. Only thing that could have gone better was a better result. I'll probably track down some links to other peoples analysis and take aways as far as the game is concerned. My only thoughts were that we looked like we played poor because we were gassed and Portland played poor because they're just not that good.

It wasn't all that great of a game, though the last 5-10 minutes got to be tense. All in all though I still feel like this is a great team. If we're going to lose 1 game out of 8 and the only goal scored on us in that game is a really crazy own goal, I'll take it every year. Our defense is still playing awesome.

At any rate, here's some player ratings. Since we've never lost before I wasn't sure if I should keep Man of the Match to SKC or whoever played best overall. I guess we'll say overall. In that case, Troy Perkins gets the knod for leading Portland to a clean sheet and a win with a couple of good saves.

For SKC Graham Zusi get's some love, and all in all the defense wasn't too bad, especially Mr. Nielsen, who made some great stops as well.

Player	Rating
Portland Timbers
Troy Perkins	7.1
Eric Brunner	6.7
Lovel Palmer	5.8
Hanyer Mosquera	6.7
Mike Chabla	6.3
Steve Purdy	6.3
Darlington Nagbe	5.4
Eric Alexander	4.1
Jack Jewsbury	5.8
Diego Chara	5.8
Franck Songo'o	4.1
Frederick Braun	4.1
Kris Boyd	3.6
Jorge Perlaza	4.5
Sporting Kansas City
Jimmy Nielsen	4.9
Aurelien Collin	4.5
Matt Besler	4.9
Chance Myers	3.6
Seth Sinovic	4.9
Graham Zusi	5.4
Roger Espinoza	4.5
Bobby Convey	4.5
Julio Cesar	4.5
Paolo Nagamura	4.1
Kei Kamara	4.5
CJ Sapong	4.5
Teal Bunbry	4.1

Draw something.

Oh man, you're not going to like this at all...

Parsing the WPL numbers over lunch and was a bit surprised at just how much disagreement there is over this weeks games. So much so I even considered tweaking the formula, before realizing that even in the next notch down there would still be more than half of the matches predicted for draws. As such, I left it as is, and anticipate a wild week of come from behind draws and some crazy frantic actions. However, there is one result people seem to agree on, which for me was just as surprising...

What was it? Read on.

Here we go.

DC and Montreal draw.
Vancouver and Kansas City draw.
Toronto and Chicago draw.
Columbus and Houston draw.
Colorado and LA draw.
Vancouver and Dallas draw.
Portland and Kansas City draw.
Chivas and Phildelphia draw.
San Jose beats Salt Lake City by 1 goal.
DC and New York draw.

I don't know what the record for draws in a week is, but I can tell you the next few days will be interesting.

Anyway, I'm off to Portland tomorrow for just my second away game ever, so I'm super excited. Much more to come next week, and here's to hoping for a win tonight.

In all honesty, I'm okay with draws here. Playing road games on short rest will always be tough and if we can grind it out and just not lose we've got a week off next week. Also, after this week, SKC will be two thirds of their way finished playing "tougher" Western teams. While I don't much buy that the Western conference is superior, it does mean less travel to the West coast, which I think is a bit of a good thing.

Anyway, 2 points from two games this week would be okay. 3 would be better. 4 better still and 6 would be amasin'.