MLS Week 10 Notes: Popsicles, Draws, & Streaks

1) Kasey Keller likes popsicles. At least he did as of 1990, since it was in that year's USA World Cup media guide. I wrote a post about some of the interesting facts from that guide it three years ago. So why am I bringing this up again? Well, Goal.com (which has become a really good site for MLS coverage, BTW) had an article where they encouraged fans to post questions for Keller. I wanted to know if he still enjoys popsicles 19 years later, and they picked that question to ask: See 1:55... The really funny thing to me is on Goal.com where they posted this video, somebody left the following comment: "Well, we know he still enjoys popsicles, but we don't know what he considers his greatest achievement..... Splendid choice of questions.........." Awesome. 2) Did you know that New England's Steve Ralston has started 15+ games in every single MLS season? He's the only player to do that. Several other players have long current streaks in that category: 10 years for Jay Heaps, Chris Klein, Tyrone Marshall, 9 years for Nick Garcia and Sasha Victorine, 8 years for Landon Donovan, and 7 for Kevin Hartman. 3) The Chicago Fire's unbeaten streak is now at 10 games to start the season (4-0-6). If you count shootouts as draws, the longest streak is 1997 DC at 14 games (9-0-5). If you don't want to count that, then the record is 12 games by 2000 KC (10-0-2). Two other shootout era teams went 12 games without a real loss: 1996 LA (10-0-2) and 1999 DAL (6-0-6). 4) Also, the Los Angeles Galaxy as you can probably guess are the quickest team to reach 8 draws in a season (10 games, 1-1-8). The record was previously held by 2006 NY, who got it in their 13th game (2-3-8). Only 5 draws away from tying the record high in a season (13, by several teams). 5) Speaking of draws, I know a lot of people are commenting on the high percentage of them this season. But if you're going to compare this year to 2000-02 like Ridge Mahoney of Soccer America, then you really should use for those three years the number of games that were drawn after 90 minutes because it's not a fair comparison otherwise. You can mention the actual number of draws, but it's important to mention the "after 90 minutes" numbers too. 2003 had the highest percentage of tied games after 90 minutes with around 35%, so to me that's the high mark we should be looking to this year if we're talking about all time highs. 6) Update on the home/away games dipsarity. Teams that have played 2+ fewer home games than away games, and therefore should be a bit better than their record indicates: CHI (-2) and NE (-3). The only team to have played 2+ more home games is TOR (+3), so they might looking a little better now than they really are. I had them pegged as the 9th best team in the league entering the year, and it seems likely they will be in that 7-9 range at year's end, either barely in or out of the playoffs. 7) Much has been made of the poor away form of New York and Real Salt Lake, who both sport 0-4-1 records with zero goals scored. Hardcore MLS fans can probably remember the two teams to have gone winless away from home (2003 LA, 2005 RSL), but I bet you couldn't tell me who holds the record for the fewest away goals scored in a season. The answer? 2002 DC, who scored only 6 goals in 14 games for an average of 0.429 per game (both records).

OTFATT 2009: Update #2

Previous Updates #1 4/12 68 players remaining OTFATT is short for "On the field, all the time." In these updates throughout the season, I'll be keeping track of which MLS players have played every minute of every game (regular season only). That feat has been accomplished 35 times in 13 season by 28 different players. Click here for that list. We're down to 34 players overall, which is exactly half of what we had in the first update. Houston still has five players, while New York is the first team to go to zero. Surprisingly, only 5/15 keepers are left while two rookies remain: Darrius Barnes and Omar Gonzalez. As usual, there are very few non-keepers, defenders, or DMs remaining. Brian McBride is the last remaining forward. Pretty soon the discipline situations will come into play. Already, a couple of guys on the list (Beckerman, Brennan) are one yellow away from suspension. Remaining Candidates (37) 4 CHI Busch, McBride, Pause, Ward 4 CHV Bornstein, Marsch, Talley, Thornton 2 CLB Carroll, O'Rourke 2 COL Clark, Harvey 2 DAL Ferreira, Moor 1 DC Namoff 5 HOU Boswell, Cameron, Clark, Holden, Onstad 2 KC Conrad, Hartman 2 LA Donovan, Gonzalez 4 NE Barnes, Heaps, Joseph 2 RSL Beckerman, Johnson 2 SEA Hurtado, Marshall 3 SJ Cannon, Garcia 2 TOR Brennan, Serioux Order of teams being totally wiped out, with last surviving player: 1. NY-Dane Richards (4/18)

Age of MLS Golden Boot Winners

Seven years later, the starters up top for the USA vs Mexico 2002 World Cup game are still going strong. Brian McBride & Josh Wolff are currently tied for the MLS golden boot lead with 6 goals each. A lot of people seem to be surprised at Wolff playing so well, but he's always been a top MLS player. Maybe all the injuries and playing in Kansas City have caused people to underrate him. Or maybe it's just the lack of goalscoring with the national team, as few would say he's underrated there. I don't think he should be called back up; he's had many chances and he's not going to get better, but it's nice to see him and McBride still playing well. Can they keep it up? If either player ends up leading the league in goals, they'll set a new record for the oldest MLS Golden Boot winner. Only one player has captured the honor in his 30s; that would be Honduran import Alex Pineda Chacon in 2001. One note: the actual golden boot award has only existed since 2005. I'm going back and retroactively figuring out who it would've been (assists are the first tiebreaker). Age of MLS Golden Boot Winners (age as of July 1 that season) 1996 Lassiter, Roy TB 27.31 1997 Moreno, Jaime DC 23.45 1998 John, Stern CLB 21.67 1999 Kreis, Jason DAL 26.50 2000 Diallo, Mamadou TB 28.86 2001 Pineda Chacon, Alex MIA 31.53 2002 Ruiz, Carlos LA 22.79 2003 Ruiz, Carlos LA 23.79 2004 Ching, Brian SJ 26.11 2005 Twellman, Taylor NE 25.34 2006 Cunningham, Jeff RSL 29.86 2007 Emilio, Luciano DC 28.55 2008 Donovan, Landon LA 26.33 Which ages have scored the most goals in MLS? Through 2008, 23 year olds lead the list by almost 2% over their nearest competitor. The years 22-28 are very productive and then it starts to dip a bit. The average age of every goal scored in league history (1996-2008) is 25.93. If you're interested in the top single season goalscorers for each age, click here.

How the 7,000th MLS Regular Season Goal was Scored

The number was 6,994 entering the weekend. The early game saw Chicago defeat Toronto by the score of 2-0, so with the later games starting to kick off and four goals to go it was anyone's guess as to who would hit the milestone. (all times Eastern) 7:35 pm - NE vs COL kicks off. 7:37 pm - NY vs HOU kicks off. 7:38 pm - Goal #6,997: Conor Casey scores in the third minute as the Rapids take a 1-0 lead on the road. 7:52 pm - Goal # 6,998: Steve Ralston equalizes for the Revs from a penalty. 8:37 pm - DAL vs SEA kicks off. 8:55 pm - Goal #6,999: Jhon Kennedy Hurtado gives the Sounders a lead in Dallas. One more... 9:06 pm - RSL vs KC kicks off. At this point, any player on the eight teams in action could get it. 9:12 pm - Brad Evans hits the post for Seattle! No goal. 9:14 pm - Goal #7,000: Chris Wondolowski gets the Dynamo on the board, and the milestone off the cross from Corey Ashe. Video here. 10 minutes later: Wolyniec, Rocha, and Wolff (I believe in that order) all score at about the same time. I'm glad to see MLSnet has published an article about this accomplishment, even featuring a quote from Wondo about hearing the news. Check it out. MLS Milestone Goals 1,000 Thomas Dooley 9/14/1997 CLB vs KC 2,000 Alex Bunbury 7/3/1999 KC @ TB 3,000 Sasha Victorine 5/9/2001 LA @ TB 4,000 Mark Chung 6/25/2003 COL vs LA 5,000 Andy Williams 8/6/2005 RSL vs CHV 6,000 Brian Ching 7/22/2007 HOU @ NE 7,000 Chris Wondolowski 5/16/2009 HOU @ NY

MLS: All Competitions PPG Ranking

The list of the best & worst single season performances has been linked on the left side of this blog for a long time now. It's a list of the regular season records from all 149 MLS team seasons. When people talk about the the best records ever, that's usually what they mean: regular season only. But what if you looked at every game the team played, and ranked them by PPG using that? I counted all shootouts (1996-99) as draws. The column on the far right labled "OVR Diff" tells you how a team's all competitions PPG compares to its regular season PPG. For example, the minus sign indicates that 1998 LA's all competitions PPG is worse than the regular season only PPG. All Competitions Single Season Ranking GP W L D Pts PPG OVR Diff 1 1998 Los Angeles 36 24 7 5 77 2.139 -0.049 2 2002 Los Angeles 38 24 11 3 75 1.974 0.152 3 2003 Chicago 38 22 8 8 74 1.947 0.181 4 2008 Columbus 36 21 8 7 70 1.944 0.044 5 1998 DC United 43 24 8 11 83 1.930 0.024 6 2001 Miami 34 20 9 5 65 1.912 -0.127 7 2000 Chicago 44 26 12 6 84 1.909 0.128 7 1997 DC United 44 24 8 12 84 1.909 0.065 9 1998 Chicago 41 24 11 6 78 1.902 0.121 10 2001 Chicago 37 21 9 7 70 1.892 -0.071 11 2005 San Jose 36 19 6 11 68 1.889 -0.111 12 2001 San Jose 35 19 8 8 65 1.857 0.126 13 2001 Los Angeles 41 22 9 10 76 1.854 0.046 14 1999 DC United 42 22 9 11 77 1.833 -0.042 15 1999 Los Angeles 41 22 10 9 75 1.829 0.017 16 2007 New England 38 20 9 9 69 1.816 0.149 17 1996 DC United 41 23 13 5 74 1.805 0.274 18 2000 Kansas City 40 20 8 12 72 1.800 0.019 19 2004 Kansas City 38 20 11 7 67 1.763 0.130 19 1996 Tampa Bay 38 21 13 4 67 1.763 -0.143 21 2005 New England 37 19 10 8 65 1.757 -0.087 22 2007 Houston 43 22 12 9 75 1.744 0.011 23 2006 DC United 38 18 9 11 65 1.711 -0.008 24 2000 New York 41 22 15 4 70 1.707 0.020 25 2003 San Jose 37 18 10 9 63 1.703 0.003 26 2000 Los Angeles 41 20 12 9 69 1.683 0.120 27 1999 Dallas 40 19 11 10 67 1.675 -0.106 27 2005 Los Angeles 40 20 13 7 67 1.675 0.269 29 1996 Los Angeles 38 18 11 9 63 1.658 0.002 30 2007 Chivas USA 33 15 9 9 54 1.636 -0.130 31 2006 Chicago 38 18 12 8 62 1.632 0.163 32 2007 DC United 43 20 13 10 70 1.628 -0.205 33 1998 Columbus 41 20 15 6 66 1.610 0.047 34 2008 Houston 48 19 9 20 77 1.604 -0.096 35 1999 Columbus 40 18 12 10 64 1.600 0.069 36 2005 DC United 42 19 13 10 67 1.595 -0.092 37 2002 San Jose 36 18 15 3 57 1.583 -0.024 38 2001 Columbus 33 15 11 7 52 1.576 -0.155 39 2002 Columbus 37 17 13 7 58 1.568 0.210 40 1999 Chicago 39 17 12 10 61 1.564 -0.092 41 2004 Columbus 34 13 7 14 53 1.559 -0.075 41 2002 Dallas 34 15 11 8 53 1.559 0.023 43 2008 Chicago 36 16 12 8 56 1.556 0.022 43 2006 Dallas 36 17 14 5 56 1.556 -0.069 45 1999 Colorado 37 16 12 9 57 1.541 -0.053 46 2005 Chicago 39 18 15 6 60 1.538 0.007 46 2005 Dallas 39 16 11 12 60 1.538 0.038 48 2001 New York 36 17 15 4 55 1.528 -0.088 48 2000 Tampa Bay 36 17 15 4 55 1.528 -0.097 50 1997 Los Angeles 38 17 14 7 58 1.526 0.026 51 2006 Houston 39 15 10 14 59 1.513 0.075 52 2003 New England 37 15 12 10 55 1.486 -0.014 52 2003 New York 37 15 12 10 55 1.486 0.086 54 2004 DC United 35 14 11 10 52 1.486 0.086 55 1997 Kansas City 35 14 12 9 51 1.457 -0.137 56 1997 Dallas 40 17 16 7 58 1.450 0.075 57 2007 Dallas 39 16 15 8 56 1.436 -0.031 58 2002 Colorado 35 15 15 5 50 1.429 -0.107 58 2005 New York 35 13 11 11 50 1.429 -0.040 60 2006 New England 40 14 11 15 57 1.425 -0.075 61 2000 Dallas 37 16 17 4 52 1.405 -0.032 62 2008 New England 42 16 15 11 59 1.405 -0.029 63 2002 New England 35 15 16 4 49 1.400 0.043 64 1997 Colorado 38 16 17 5 53 1.395 0.113 65 1998 Colorado 36 15 16 5 50 1.389 -0.049 65 1997 Tampa Bay 36 15 16 5 50 1.389 -0.080 67 1996 Dallas 37 14 14 9 51 1.378 0.003 67 2000 Miami 37 15 16 6 51 1.378 0.097 69 2002 Kansas City 40 15 15 10 55 1.375 0.089 70 2008 Kansas City 35 12 11 12 48 1.371 -0.029 70 1996 San Jose 35 13 13 9 48 1.371 -0.035 72 2002 Chicago 36 15 17 4 49 1.361 0.040 72 1997 Columbus 36 14 15 7 49 1.361 0.017 72 2005 Kansas City 36 12 11 13 49 1.361 -0.045 75 2003 Kansas City 34 12 12 10 46 1.353 -0.047 75 2004 Los Angeles 34 12 12 10 46 1.353 -0.080 77 2006 Chivas USA 35 11 10 14 47 1.343 -0.001 77 2008 Real Salt Lake 35 12 12 11 47 1.343 0.010 79 2004 Colorado 33 11 11 11 44 1.333 -0.033 79 2003 DC United 36 13 14 9 48 1.333 0.033 79 2000 New England 36 14 16 6 48 1.333 -0.073 79 2007 New York 33 12 13 8 44 1.333 -0.100 83 2007 Los Angeles 38 14 16 8 50 1.316 0.182 84 2008 New York 35 12 13 10 46 1.314 0.014 85 2008 Colorado 32 12 14 6 42 1.313 0.046 86 2005 Colorado 36 13 15 8 47 1.306 -0.101 87 2001 DC United 37 15 19 3 48 1.297 0.297 87 2004 San Jose 37 12 13 12 48 1.297 0.031 89 2007 Chicago 34 11 12 11 44 1.294 -0.039 89 2003 Colorado 34 12 14 8 44 1.294 -0.039 89 2007 Kansas City 34 12 14 8 44 1.294 -0.039 92 2008 Chivas USA 38 13 15 10 49 1.289 -0.144 92 2006 Los Angeles 38 14 17 7 49 1.289 0.071 94 1996 Columbus 35 12 14 9 45 1.286 -0.027 94 2000 Columbus 35 13 16 6 45 1.286 0.098 96 2004 Dallas 33 12 15 6 42 1.273 0.073 97 2006 Colorado 37 13 16 8 47 1.270 -0.011 98 2002 New York 30 12 16 2 38 1.267 0.017 99 2004 Chicago 38 13 16 9 48 1.263 0.163 99 1996 Kansas City 38 13 16 9 48 1.263 -0.081 101 2003 Columbus 35 12 15 8 44 1.257 -0.010 102 2003 Los Angeles 39 13 16 10 49 1.256 0.056 103 1999 San Jose 32 9 10 13 40 1.250 0.000 104 1998 New York 37 14 19 4 46 1.243 0.024 105 2007 Colorado 33 11 14 8 41 1.242 0.076 106 2006 Real Salt Lake 34 11 14 9 42 1.235 0.017 106 1998 San Jose 34 11 14 9 42 1.235 0.048 108 1997 New York 35 13 18 4 43 1.229 0.072 109 2000 Colorado 36 13 18 5 44 1.222 -0.122 110 2008 Dallas 32 9 11 12 39 1.219 0.019 110 2001 New England 32 11 15 6 39 1.219 0.219 112 2008 DC United 47 17 24 6 57 1.213 -0.021 113 2004 New York 33 11 15 7 40 1.212 -0.121 114 2001 Kansas City 38 14 20 4 46 1.211 -0.123 115 2006 Kansas City 34 11 15 8 41 1.206 0.018 116 2001 Dallas 30 10 14 6 36 1.200 -0.146 116 1997 New England 35 11 15 9 42 1.200 -0.081 116 1996 New York 35 12 17 6 42 1.200 -0.081 116 1999 Tampa Bay 35 10 13 12 42 1.200 -0.019 120 2006 New York 36 10 13 13 43 1.194 -0.024 121 2007 Columbus 31 9 12 10 37 1.194 -0.040 122 1998 Tampa Bay 34 11 16 7 40 1.176 -0.042 122 2008 Toronto 34 10 14 10 40 1.176 0.010 124 2002 DC United 30 10 15 5 35 1.167 0.024 125 1998 Dallas 39 13 20 6 45 1.154 -0.065 126 2005 Columbus 33 11 17 5 38 1.152 -0.036 127 2004 New England 34 9 13 12 39 1.147 0.047 127 1997 San Jose 34 10 15 9 39 1.147 0.022 129 1996 New England 32 9 15 8 35 1.094 0.000 130 1998 Kansas City 33 10 17 6 36 1.091 -0.034 131 1998 Miami 36 11 19 6 39 1.083 -0.010 132 2008 Los Angeles 31 8 14 9 33 1.065 -0.035 132 2008 San Jose 31 8 14 9 33 1.065 -0.035 134 1996 Colorado 34 10 18 6 36 1.059 0.028 134 2006 Columbus 34 9 16 9 36 1.059 0.028 136 1998 New England 32 9 17 6 33 1.031 0.000 136 1999 New England 32 7 13 12 33 1.031 0.000 138 2000 DC United 35 10 19 6 36 1.029 0.091 139 1999 Miami 34 8 16 10 34 1.000 -0.031 139 2000 San Jose 35 9 18 8 35 1.000 0.094 141 2007 Real Salt Lake 32 7 16 9 30 0.938 0.038 142 2001 Colorado 27 5 14 8 23 0.852 -0.033 143 2007 Toronto 30 6 17 7 25 0.833 0.000 144 1999 Kansas City 32 6 18 8 26 0.813 0.000 145 2003 Dallas 31 6 20 5 23 0.742 -0.025 146 2005 Chivas USA 34 5 23 6 21 0.618 0.055 147 1999 New York 33 4 21 8 20 0.606 -0.019 147 2005 Real Salt Lake 33 5 23 5 20 0.606 -0.019 149 2001 Tampa Bay 28 4 22 2 14 0.500 -0.019 Biggest Changes? Which teams look better as a result of this? The 2002 Galaxy won the MLS Cup and advanced to the Open Cup final going 8-2-0 combined in both tournaments, and they rocket up to second overall. Still, their PPG improvement is only the 10th best on the list. The top three includes two underdog MLS champions: 1996 DC (2nd) and 2005 LA (3rd). Outside of regular season play they were 8-0-1 and 7-0-1 respectively. But the biggest PPG improvement comes from a pretty middling team: 2001 DC. That was the team that made it to the final of the Giants Cup (don't ask), as well as the semifinals of the Champions Cup and Open Cup. They went 8-16-2 in MLS, and 7-3-1 outside of it. The teams that came out looking worst by comparison? 3rd place goes to the 2001 Dallas Burn. One point from four games in the playoffs and Open Cup. Bonus shame goes to them for being one of only two MLS teams to lose to a PDL team. 2nd place goes to another team from the same year, 2001 CLB. It's not surprising to see several 2001 teams listed because it was the shortest season in league history (originally 28 games, made even shorter by cancellations due to 9/11). Anyway, the Crew also competed in the Giants Cup, as well as the playoffs and Open Cup. They went 2-4-1 in those competitions compared to 13-7-6 in the league. The top decrease is also held by a DC team: 2007 DC. The Supporters' Shield winners went 16-7-7 in the regular season, but ended up playing 13 additional games in five different competitions (Champions Cup, Open Cup, Superliga, Copa Sudamericana, and playoffs), going 4-6-3.