Everything in the Interconference Play posts is presented from an East Conference point of view. E.G., a Home game means the East team is Home.
Interconference play is done for the year.
This week four games, 2 home and 2 away.
East Record 3-1-0
Season To Date
East Record 32-38-30
At Home 24-9-17 (50 games)
On Road 8-29-13 (50 games)
Goal Differential -7
East Points 126
West Points 144
Despite perceptions, the West is not much better than the East.
Over 100 games, the West outscored the East by 7 goals. That’s less than one extra goal per team and 0.07 goals per game..
Over 100 games, the West won 6 more games than the East. That’s less than one extra win per team.
The West is better, but not by much. Those 6 wins count as 18 points, which seems to expand their influence, but it is still only 6 wins. I’ll update this again when the season ends but as of when I write this the West has played 8 fewer ties than the East. That gives the West an additional 8 points in its standings that do not reflect actual superiority. How much better is the West? 6 wins spread among 10 teams in 100 games. That’s the amount the West is better. Last year the West won 11 more games than the East.
Some final notes:
- Both conferences won fewer IC games due to the additional ties they played with each other. For the same reason, together the West and the East gained fewer points from interconference play than last year in the same number of games , but the East still improved its PPG by closing the gap against the West. Last year the West won 1.57 PPG in IC games; this year they earned 1.44 PPG. Last year the East won 1.24 PPG in IC play. This year the East earned 1.26.
- NYCFC was 6-2-2 for 2.0 PPG against the West. The East excluding NYCFC was only 26-36-28 for 1.18 PPG. Last year NYCFC was 2-6-2 against the West for 0.80 PPG. Arguably the entire improvement of the East against the West this year is attributable to NYCFC.
- As of all games through Sunday August 7, the West had 10 more wins than the East with 81 IC games played. Since then the East went 9-5-5 in the final 19 IC games for 1.68 PPG.
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