18 września 2007
Hooligans Acting Like Gentlemen...or Ladies
I was watching one of ESPN's broadcasts of the Women's World Cup. Tony DiCicco talked about the new tie-breaker, the "Fair Play" ranking. Each team starts with ten points, and then loses 1 point for a yellow card, two points for a sending off for a second yellow and three points for a red card. DiCicco's broadcast partner remarked that this was so complicated it might require a calculator.What, to subtract two from ten?
I thought, hey, what if they did this in MLS. It turns out that they do something like that. Their "Fair Play" system is a heck of a lot more complicated, but comes down to reds and yellows, with consideration to teams that have "clean games." You can find them at the bottom of this article.
Note to those of you that think that New York Red Bulls and New England Revolution are a bunch of hacks (me for New York, and I'm looking at you Dan Loney for New England): guess what the number one and two teams are?
In last...the "class" of Major League Soccer, DC United.
Then I thought...let's apply a rough version of this system to TRD. I went by the same system used in the Women's World Cup, since there are as few games being evaluated. I started them at 10 (good a spot as any), and took one off for anyone sent to the box for minor penalty accumulation, two off for a major, and three for an expulsion. Note that the stats do not include the final and the third place match (which included the only expulsion I can think of this season), since the stats have not yet been posted.Copper Queens: -48
Furious Truckstop Waitresses: -56
Iron Curtain: -109
Vice Squad: -110
Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.
