Too late for coffee, too early for beer

Another week of MLS action in the books and a bit of soul searching needed for some teams. And I'd be remiss not to at least mention the San Jose-Los Angeles game. Great match from the highlights I saw, wish I had watched the whole thing. Hopefull that opened some eyes to outside fans.

Once more I'll preface this with some excuses. Real Salt Lake were the big losers this week but only drop two places into third. I think they'll slide a little more before too long if New York or Kansas City can get something together. Seattle also continues to fall and I imagine will settle out a place or three lower. Toronto is actually making a run at Dallas for the title of NOT WORST, but I think they've still got a ways to go.

And, yeah, a frustrating loss to Chicago at home has me a bit upset. Hopefully we cna weather the next few games without Roger and make an appearence in the MLS Cup final game, but we have to get past Philadelphia first and I don't want them looking past that game again.

At any rate, here's the table.

Week 17
Team	Rank	Weekly Δ	Rating	Weekly Δ
San Jose	1	+1	6.353	0.335
DC	2	+1	6.941	0.309
Salt Lake City	3	-2	7.294	-0.794
New York	4	NC	7.706	-0.143
Kansas City	5	NC	8.471	-0.658
Chicago	6	+2	9.294	0.393
Vancouver	7	-1	9.647	-0.335
Seattle	8	-1	10.000	-0.375
Columbus	9	NC	10.235	0.390
Houston	10	NC	10.588	0.224
Colorado	11	NC	10.941	0.309
LA	12	NC	12.059	0.191
Chivas	13	NC	12.706	0.044
New England	14	NC	12.882	0.118
Portland	15	NC	13.529	-0.279
Montreal	16	NC	13.765	-0.452
Philadelphia	17	NC	14.412	0.026
Dallas	18	NC	15.118	-0.118
Toronto	19	NC	17.824	0.614

Way to go San Jose. It might be time for me to try to pick up Wondoloski on my fantasy team again...

Work is a terrible way to make a living.

Gah! I meant to update this at the beginning of the week and got totally sidetracked with actual work. Leaving my laptop in the the lab like a chump. Annoying. Now I can't pretend like my whole "system" is actually working. Oh well.

Yes, I took the Round 1 data and plugged it into the same spradsheet I use to calculate power rankings for MLS teams. Yes, I feel like it's shaking out a little better now that a first set of games has happened. Yes, this will be the last sentence that begins with the word "yes". Let's just get to the numbers.

Team	Ranking	Change	Rating
Russia	1	+1	1.5
Ukraine	2	+2	3.5
Spain	2	-1	3.5
Germany	4	+3	4.5
Denmark	5	+5	7
Sweden	5	-2	7
France	7	+1	7.5
Portugal	8	-3	9
Italy	9	+2	9.5
Croatia	10	+6	10.5
England	11	+3	11
Czech Republic	11	-5	11
Greece	13	NC	11.5
Ireland	14	-5	12
Netherlands	15	-2	13
Poland	16	-1	13.5

I will say the rating this week is different than the rating last week because I generally just like to use average weekly rank as the "rating", but since before the first match there was only 1 point it didn't make sense. The rating would have just been equal to the rank. So I posted the numeric value that determines the rating. This round's "rating" is actually average position for the last two points (hence the multiple .5's).

Croatia is the big mover hopping up siz places. Denmark's big upset also bumps them up five places, while, shockingly, Netherlands drops all the way down to 15. Then again, if I posted this on time, Portugal's win over them would have made it seem likeI know what I'm talking about.

Ireland's poor showing hurt them the most, dropping 5 places. And, unfortunatly for me, the Pole's fall to last, though they're still far from out of it.

Here's a Euro logo, just because.

Now, let's "simulate" the results so I can feel better about myself. Maybe with the rest of the games this week I'll get lucky and call one right.

Assuming the higher ranked teams wins, it would look like this.

Czech Republic beats Greece (correct!)
Russia beats Poland (tie, push mash, should have been a blowout... yay Poland!)
Portugal beats Denmark (correct!)
Germany beats Netherlands (correct!)
Italy beats Croatia (should be close... tie?)
Spain beats Ireland (seems like a no brainer)
Ukraine beats France
Sweden beats England (people won't like that one...)

All I'm gonna say at this point is man I can't wait for the weekend.