Rapids 10th Best MLS Champions

I can't say that they're deserving champions (no team that finishes 7th can be, IMO). But they certainly don't belong in the same category as last year's RSL team. In fact, they rank as the third best champions of the past seven years: GP W L D Pts PPG GF GA GD GFA GAA GDA OFF DEF GD 1 2008 Columbus 30 17 7 6 57 1.900 50 36 14 1.667 1.200 0.467 6 8 7 2 1999 DC United 32 17 6 9 60 1.875 65 43 22 2.031 1.344 0.688 2 10 2 3 1997 DC United 32 17 7 8 59 1.844 70 53 17 2.188 1.656 0.531 1 14 5 4 2002 Los Angeles 28 16 9 3 51 1.821 44 33 11 1.571 1.179 0.393 7 7 9 5 2000 Kansas City 32 16 7 9 57 1.781 47 29 18 1.469 0.906 0.563 9 2 4 6 1998 Chicago 32 18 11 3 57 1.781 62 45 17 1.938 1.406 0.531 3 12 5 7 2007 Houston 30 15 8 7 52 1.733 43 23 20 1.433 0.767 0.667 11 1 3 8 2001 San Jose 26 13 7 6 45 1.731 47 29 18 1.808 1.115 0.692 5 4 1 9 2003 San Jose 30 14 7 9 51 1.700 45 35 10 1.500 1.167 0.333 8 5 10 10 2010 Colorado 30 12 8 10 46 1.533 44 32 12 1.467 1.067 0.400 10 3 8 11 1996 DC United 32 15 13 4 49 1.531 62 56 6 1.938 1.750 0.188 3 15 12 12 2006 Houston 32 11 8 13 46 1.438 44 40 4 1.375 1.250 0.125 14 9 13 13 2005 Los Angeles 32 13 13 6 45 1.406 44 45 -1 1.375 1.406 -0.031 14 12 15 14 2004 DC United 30 11 10 9 42 1.400 43 42 1 1.433 1.400 0.033 11 11 14 15 2009 Real Salt Lake 30 11 12 7 40 1.333 43 35 8 1.433 1.167 0.267 11 5 11

MLS Week 14 Notes

1) The Colorado Rapids defeated DC United by a score 3:0. This means that next year it will be at least a decade that the Rapids have gone undefeated against DC at home: 2001-07-04 3-1 W 2002-04-03 2-0 W 2003-04-26 1-1 D 2003-06-11 0-0 D 2004-05-22 2-1 W 2005-09-03 1-0 W 2006-05-06 2-1 W 2007-04-07 2-1 W 2008-05-04 2-0 W 2009-06-20 3-0 W 10 matches over 9 years. That's not even the longest streak in the league, however. CHI-SJ, NY-KC, COL-LA, and NE-NY are all current 12 game streaks. And in terms of time, San Jose has never won at Chicago...ever. That does include one shootout win, though. I posted last September which teams couldn't win where, which needs to be updated. 2) Speaking of Colorado, they're looking really good so far. They have the third best PPG in the league, though the standings currently place them fourth in the west. They've also played two fewer games at home than away. One stat that I always remember about the Rapids is the fact that they have never finished above third in their division/conference. Over the past 13 years, their placement has been as follows: 5-4-3-4-3-4-4-3-3-3-4-4-4 Total mediocrity. They've also never finished above 4th on the overall table. Is this their year? Can Pat Noonan make it to yet another MLS Cup? 3) Nick Garcia has switched teams, but he's still played every minute of every regular season match he's been available for. Unfortunately, unlike Chris Klein in 2007 (who played 32 matches in a 30 game season), if he lasts for the entire year he won't play more matches than the length of the season. He'd actually play only 29. More on this in the next OTFATT update. 4) New York may have gone 20 away games winless in the regular season, but that's not a record thanks to the shootout messing things up as usual. I consider the record to be 21 games, jointly held by KC and NY who each were pitiful in 1998-99. Also as usual, I hope this streak can continue for two more games so any confusion is gone. 5) Toronto FC has now had two players change the names that they go by this season since last year: Abdus Ibrahim is now Fuad Ibrahim, while Nana Attakota-Gyan is now just Nana Attakora. Chad Barrett may have to become the third if he doesn't start finishing...

MLS Week 11 Notes

1) Jeff Cunningham is seven games away from history. At that point, he'll tie Jason Kreis for the dubious record of having played the most MLS regular season games without playing in an MLS Cup. See the top 25 post-2008 here. Kreis has held the record for three years now, but Cunningham should have it all to his own shortly. 2) The Colorado Rapids are second in the league for offense with 1.60 goals per game. If you have a gut feeling that it's unusual to see them scoring so frequently, then you're right. They've never finished higher than 4th in that category, and they've only been in the top half in two of thirteen years. I suppose looking back, they were on the right track last year, finishing 5th and breaking a nine year streak of lower half finishes. 3) New England's offense, on the other hand, has been pathetic. Maybe that'll change now that Taylor Twellman is back, but currently they're averaging a goal per game which is tied for worst in the league. They're also on pace to set two new records: Fewest shots per game (8.0) and fewest corner kicks per game (3.4). The current records are held by 2007 Toronto (9.2) and 2006 Dallas (3.5) respectively. 4) Chicago was the league's last undefeated team. How have those teams done in previous years? Usually pretty well, although the last two years (NY and Dallas) are exceptions. Before the past two years, every year a team in that category finished in the top three of the league (a couple years featured multiple teams tying for the last undefeated status). Columbus was the league's last winless team, and the omens aren't good for them. Only once has such a team advanced past the first round of the playoffs (2002 NE). I counted shootouts as draws in both these categories, and also I went by the number of games into the year rather than by the calendar. 5) Even though there have been plenty of draws (did you hear?), this year's home field advantage (0.68) is right in line with the all time average (around 0.67 PPG). So it's not like away teams are having a harder time getting points than in previous years.

Most Frequent MLS Matchups

Already this year, the Los Angeles Galaxy and Colorado Rapids have met on three occasions. If it seems like the two teams have played each other an awful lot in the past, there's a good reason. On April 4th, that became the first MLS matchup to have been played 60 times in all competitions. They're now up to 62, but they won't play any each other again. This is actually the first year they won't play 3 or more regular season games against each other. Sunday's DC vs NY game made that pairing the second to reach the 60 game mark. They too won't be playing in the league more than twice for the first time, which is also the case for DC-NE. Pretty sure those are the only three matchups to have played more than twice every year since 1996, so it's almost like they tried to end those streaks all together this year. Those three matchups are also the top three most frequent in the regular season with 52 for COL-LA and 51 for the other two. NE-NY will also hit 50 on June 7th. Top Ten Most Frequent MLS Matchups (all competitions) 62 COL vs LA 60 DC vs NY 58 DAL vs LA 57 COL vs DAL 57 DC vs NE 56 NE vs NY 54 CLB vs DC 54 CLB vs NE 54 COL vs KC 54 LA vs SJ Next at 53 are CLB-NY and KC-LA.