City Blues By The Numbers

In a compacted 31 week season, NYCFC did not touch First Place until Week 27 after playing 28 games. But, when measured on even games played, NYC first tied for First Place after 16 games. They dropped to Fourth after losing the next 2 games, but were back tied after 19 games again. From Game 20 on they held First Place alone for all but 2 weeks (twice briefly falling to second to Philadelphia), and took First Place for good after 24 games played.

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Team Records Set

Most points (64).
Highest Goal Differential (21)
Highest East Finish (First)
Highest Supporters Shield Finish (Second)
Goals For (63)
Goals Against (42)

NYCFC is one of only 7 teams to finish a season with a winning Away record since 2015.
Since and including 2015, when NYC went 4-10-3 Away, no team has more Away points (103). The Red Bulls have 101.

NYCFC has the third highest point total since coming into the league in 2015 with 268, behind Red Bulls (286) and FC Dallas (271).
NYCFC has the highest total points over the last 4 years: 2016-2019 (231), ahead of Red Bulls (226) and Seattle (216).

In My End Is My Beginning

“At some point math takes over.” May 24, 2015

On May 25,2015  a series of posts on the NYCFC forums starting here, I began adding up how hard it would be to get the points necessary to make the playoffs. The day before, I responded to sa series of optimistic posts with the above terse statement that has animated my view all along: no matter how hard you believe (or don’t), if you look honestly at the numbers they won’t lie to you.  On July 19, I started a new thread with a series of posts whose theme was what needed to be done and hot it could happen, however unlikely. That effort was the beginning of this column.

It’s been fun, and it’s been a lot of work, and after 5 years I think I’m calling an end to creating it weekly.

It feels like there is  a nice symmetry to things. In 2015 I mostly seemed to be countering irrational exuberance, and in 2019, at least occasionally, I had to convince people that this team really was good and would finish well. It helped that the last 14 games of the season played exactly as I anticipated. As July turned to August, I started stating that the team could very well lose 2 of the next 3 (Away to RSL and Atlanta and hosting Houston in between), then dominate the next 7, and face a tough final 4 games of which the Atlanta game would be key. This did not take amazing foresight or brilliant analysis: I was just looking at the schedule.  But as it happened they did lose in RSL and Atlanta, won 19 points of the next 21, and then all but clinched by beating Atlanta. That’s a good way to go out.

For balance, probably my wrongest take ever was predicting NYCFC would not make the playoffs on May 29, 2016 after a a dispiriting Home draw against Orlando. An even more dismal Home loss to RSL a few days later produced even more pessimism, though I can’t find the specific post at the moment.

I’m not going to stop keeping track of the same stats and graphs, and I will occasionally write them up when I am inclined or inspired to do so, but I think I am done with the regular grind of creating weekly NYCFC content.

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.

Short and simple this week. The magic number for Atlanta is 6 and Philadelphia is 4. Beat Atlanta on Wednesday and they are done, while the number for Philadelphia is no worse than 1. A draw with Atlanta is not necessarily catastrophic, but the path to first place would be very muddied at best. Let’s not discuss a loss. On the upside, NYCFC can clinch first place on Wednesday.  On the same night that Atlanta and NYCFC go at it, The Union play San Jose on short rest after a cross country flight.  It’s a shame that the Quakes will be without their top scorer (Wondolowski) and assist generator (Espinoza).

All the possibilities.

NYCFC has clinched finishing ahead of everyone in the West except LAFC (their Magic Number for NYCFC is 3) and Minnesota, for whom NYCFC’s magic number is 1. NYCFC finished the season 7-2-3 against the West for exactly 2.00 PPG.

NYCFC has achieved it’s best point total in its 5 year history at 58, and has clinched having the fewest losses in team history. No matter what the team will have no more than 8 losses. The previous low was 9 in 2017.

Since and including June 29, when NYCFC hosted Philadelphia, the Pigeons are 6-2-0 when the other team scores first (2.25 PPG) , and just 5-2-2 when NYCFC scores first (1.89 PPG). Go figure.

Four straight wins matches the best such streaks of NYCFC’s history. Still, to put themselves in the best, most defensible position to win the top spot in the East, they might need to extend it to 7, because the next three home games against New England, toronto and San Jose, are the easiest on NYCFC’s remaining schedule.  NYCFC probably will need in the area of 12 more points to finish first in the East.  It will not help that NYC will play all or some of those games without all or some of Johnson, Matarrita, Chanot, Callens, Sands,, and TBD:  Héber (status uncertain) and Shradi (return date completely unguessable).

With less than a quarter of the season remaining, NYC have the league’s second best PPG, second fewest losses*, second best Goal Differential, second most Away points, second best Away PPG, are 1 of only 2 teams with a winning Away record and positive Away Goal Differential (LAFC is the other of course). Largely due to having fewer games played, they are third in Total Points (Philadelphia is second with 1 more point and 2 more Games Played), and fourth in Total Wins (Philly and Atlanta both have 1 more win with 2 and 1 additional games played).

• Some may wonder if the games in hand diminish this stat, but NYCFC has 3 fewer losses than the two closest in this category, with only 1 or 2 extra games to play. Even if NYCFC lose every extra game, they still lead this stat, pening the remaining games in common.

I do not know what the argument is that NYCFC is not clearly the second best team to date in MLS. Schedule congestion for Atlanta? It’s a fair point to note, with their recent Leagues Cup and MLS cup runs, plus the CCL early on. Some note that NYC has lost 3 of the most recent 4 games against teams above the playoff line: RB (both a win and loss), RSL, and Atlanta.  You can create excuses for all those games based on missing players and ref calls, but I prefer to note that NYC also has won against DC (A), the Galaxy (A), Philadelphia and Seattle, plus the previously noted RB game. NYC’s record against teams currently above the playoff line is 5-4-3, with 7 of the 12 games on the road, including 2 of the wins.

It’s hard to measure that against how other teams have played against playoff teams.  It is a small game sample, subject to change as teams move above and below the line, and most importantly, ignores Home and Away.  I think Home and Away is more important in MLS than playoff status. All of NYCFC’s remaining games are against teams currently above the playoff line, and 4 are Home and 3 Away.  If you gave me the opportunity to switch that to having only 3 of the Games against playoff teams, but all 7 Away, I would not take the offer.  I think you measure tough games in MLS at least as much by Away performance as by the opponent’s overall record.  With those disclaimers, I checked the records of Atlanta, Philadelphia, Seattle and Minnesota against current playoff teams. Of those, I would only say Philadelphia has a better record, subject to all the factors just listed. And the Union lag NYCFC in all other major stats.  besides the ones listed above, they had 5 fewer points at 27 games than NYC does now.

I dropped more low end results from the following table. I could conceivably add some to the top, but that seems hubristic, and simply unlikely, though not impossible.

2019 NYCFC is finally ahead of 2018 after 27 games, with 50 points to 48.  There is a tie with 2017, which team only managed 1 win and 4 ties in the final 7 games.  We’ll see if 2019 can survive the presumed absence of Heber and avoid a similar finish.

Finally, second place with games in hand looks good here.

Busy week so the text and commentary will be slight.

For this first time this year, NYCFC has played more games (26) than there have been weeks in the season.  Still a couple to make up though, as this year has only 31 weeks with the playoff shift.

This stat is not original to me, but NYCFC is 11-2-3 (2.25 PPG) when Heber plays at least 60 minutes and 2-3-5 (1.10 PPG) when he does not.

The charts:

I dropped 4 lines from the bottom of the possibilities chart, and frankly, 52 and even 55 seem barely possible. Both would entail a ridiculous collapse.

Two-game week so 2 of these. I started doing it at 16 games. NYC has been on top by itself 5 weeks, including the last 4 in a row, and tied twice: once with Atlanta (Wk16) and once with Philly (Wk19).  The Union was on top the other 4 weeks.

NYCFC has clinched over Cincinnati and Columbus.

Next Magic Numbers: Chicago 2, Orlando 6, Montreal 6.

NYCFC has 6 of the last 10 at Home, which is nice, but the next 6 games are where the team needs to accumulate wins and points.   Five of the next six are at home, and the lone Away game in that stretch is against Vancouver, which has a losing record at home right now.  Yes, that game involves transcontinental travel, and other games will be on short rest, and the Red Bulls are always tough, and NYCFC’s record at home against New England is worse than against any team outside of Portland.  But there is no denying these games are easier than the last 4 games of the season.  None of the 5 teams NYC will host at Yankee Stadium in this stretch has an Away PPG better than 1.15 PPG.  That’s New England’s Away PPG, and it’s also worth mentioning that the Revs are undefeated Away since firing Friedel (3-0-4).  But these are still 5 poor Away teams with an average of fewer than 3 Away wins per team. NYCFC probably needs 15+ points (OK maybe 13 or 14 if other things go well but that’s pushing it)  from these 6 games to have a shot at finishing first as it heads into the final 4 games, which include hosting Atlanta, and Away to Dallas, New England and Philadelphia.

It looks like a 3-way race for first place in the East right now.