Tuesday, August 16, 2011

2011-12 CONCACAF Champions League Results by Country

With the group stage kicking off tonight, it seemed like a good time to total things up by country. The surprises so far:

MLS Goes Five-for-Five: All four US teams made it through to the group stage. Additionally Toronto FC made it to the group stage and propelled Canada to the top of the list thus far.

The Caribbean Flame-out: This is the first year in which no team from the Caribbean made it out of the prelims, and the first year in which the Puerto Rico Islanders won't be competing in the group stage.

              W   L   T    GF   GA   DIFF  Win%   PPG

Canada 2 0 0 4 2 2 100 3.00
Mexico 3 1 0 11 3 8 75.0 2.25
USA 3 1 0 4 1 3 75.0 2.25
Costa Rica 1 0 1 10 2 8 50.0 2.00
Honduras 1 1 0 4 2 2 50.0 1.50
Puerto Rico 1 1 0 3 3 0 50.0 1.50
Panama 1 1 0 1 2 -1 50.0 1.50
Guatemala 1 1 0 2 4 -2 50.0 1.50
El Salvador 1 3 0 3 5 -2 25.0 0.75
Guyana 0 1 1 2 10 -8 0.0 0.50
Nicaragua 0 2 0 2 4 -2 0.0 0.00
Haiti 0 2 0 0 7 -7 0.0 0.00


Unlike past years, I will just keep updating the standings in this post throughout the competition.

Saturday, August 06, 2011

Which US Teams Do the Best in the CONCACAF Champions League?

Now that we have a couple of years of data to work with, I wanted to know if how teams qualified for the CCL had any correlation to their success. There are four ways to qualify for the tournament:
  • Win MLS Cup
  • Win the US Open Cup
  • Win the Supporters Shield
  • Be the MLS Cup Runner Up
If the same team fills more than one of these slots (like Columbus which won MLS Cup and the Supporters Shield in the same year) another team gets one of the slots. In the analysis below, those teams are lumped into the "other" category. For any team that would have qualified in more than one way, I've counted them in BOTH of the appropriate categories below.

I assumed that the winners of the Supporters Shield would have the best record - after all they had the best record over the course of an entire season. It seemed like these teams should be best over the long haul in this sort of tournament. I was a little surprised by what I found.

MLS Cup Runner Up
Through three years, the teams that lost the MLS Cup game have fared the worst. In fact, until this year, no team even made it through to the group stage. These numbers will change after the 2011-12 tournament as all four US teams punched their tickets to the group stage this year.
          Team            W   L   T   GF   GA   DIF  Win%   PPG
2007-08 New England 0 2 0 1 6 -5 0.0 0.00
2009-10 NY Red Bulls 0 1 1 3 4 -1 0.0 0.50
2010-11 Los Angeles 1 1 0 3 5 -2 50.0 1.50
Total 1 4 1 7 15 -8 16.7 0.67

Other
Chivas made it into the tournament in 2007-08 because New England won the US Open Cup and lost the MLS Cup game. Houston qualified in 2009-10 because Columbus won the double the year before. It's hard to draw any conclusions with the data so heavily concentrated in one season.
          Team            W   L   T   GF   GA   DIF  Win%   PPG
2007-08 Chivas USA 0 1 1 1 3 -2 0.0 0.50
2009-10 Houston 2 3 1 9 8 1 33.3 1.17
Total 2 4 2 10 11 -1 25.0 1.00


Supporters' Shield Winners
Here's an interesting one. If DC United doesn't flame out in the inaugural tournament, the results come out much differently. When you remove their stats, the Points Per Game rises to 1.38, which puts the Supporters Shield winners just behind the MLS Cup Winners.
          Team            W   L   T   GF   GA   DIF  Win%   PPG
2007-08 DC United 0 5 1 4 13 -9 0.0 0.17
2009-10 Columbus 2 3 3 9 14 -5 25.0 1.13
2010-11 Columbus 4 3 1 11 8 3 50.0 1.63
Total 6 11 5 24 35 -11 27.3 1.05

US Open Cup Winners
Truthfully I thought these numbers would be much worse, as it seems like many MLS teams don't take the Open Cup very seriously. As it turns out, the numbers are faily 'meh' - not horrible, not great. 1.17 Points Per Game is good enough for second best.
          Team            W   L   T   GF   GA   DIF  Win%   PPG
2007-08 New England 0 2 0 1 6 -5 0.0 0.00
2009-10 DC United 4 2 2 14 10 4 50.0 1.75
2010-11 Seattle 2 5 1 8 12 -4 25.0 0.88
Total 6 9 3 23 28 -5 33.3 1.17

MLS Cup Champions
The MLS Cup Winners have actually had the best success, buoyed in part by the great run by Real Salt Lake in the most recent edition of the tournament. Maybe the playoffs prove something after all.
          Team            W   L   T   GF   GA   DIF  Win%   PPG   
2007-08 Houston 2 2 4 10 13 -3 25.0 1.25
2009-10 Columbus 2 3 3 9 14 -5 25.0 1.13
2010-11 Real Salt Lake 6 3 3 26 17 9 50.0 1.75
Total 10 8 10 45 44 1 35.7 1.43

Saturday, July 30, 2011

CONCACAF Champions League - MLS vs USL/NASL

Since qualifying for the CONCACAF Champions League is by country and not by league, it's possible for the same league to qualify teams for multiple countries. For the current 2011-12 tournament, the USL/NASL could have qualified teams by winning the US Open Cup, the Nutrilite Canadian Championship and through the qualifying for Caribbean teams.

As it turned out, the NASL only qualified one team (the Puerto Rico Islanders, while MLS qualified five teams -- all four American representatives and the Canadian spot seized by Toronto FC.

I thought it might be interesting to see CCL results broken down by league, so here's some numbers for you.

All-time Results
          W   L   T  GF   GA  DIFF  Win%  PPG
MLS 26 34 22 107 123 -16 31.7 1.22
2008-09 2 10 6 16 35 -19 11.1 0.67
2009-10 8 10 8 35 37 -2 30.8 1.23
2010-11 16 14 8 56 51 5 42.1 1.47

USL 15 11 12 53 51 2 39.5 1.50
2008-09 11 5 6 33 26 7 50.0 1.77
2009-10 1 3 4 7 12 -5 12.5 0.88
2010-11 3 3 2 13 13 0 37.5 1.38

Some might use this data to argue that USL/NASL teams are not that far off quality-wise from their MLS counterparts. However if you look a little deeper, you can see that a USL/NASL team has only managed to wrest a qualifying spot away from an MLS team once -- in 2008 when the Montreal Impact represented Canada. If anything, you might be able to argue that MLS should annex the Puerto Rico Islanders, as they make up the bulk of the non-MLS results.

All-time qualifiers

MLS
2008-09: New England Revolution, Chivas USA, Houston Dynamo and DC United (USA)
2009-10: Columbus Crew, DC United, Houston Dynamo and NY Red Bulls (USA), Toronto FC (Canada)
2010-11: Columbus Crew, Los Angeles Galaxy, Real Salt Lake and Seattle Sounders (USA), Toronto FC (Canada)

USL
2008-09: Montreal Impact (Canada), Puerto Rico Islanders (Caribbean)
2009-10: Puerto Rico Islanders (Caribbean)
2010-11: Puerto Rico Islanders (Caribbean)

CONCACAF Champions League -- All-Time Results by Country

Below are the results by country for the first three full years of the Champions League. Once the 2011-12 tourney is done, I'll update this post.

As you can see, not every country competes in the tournament every year. The 2011-12 tournament will see two new countries added to the list: Guyana and Haiti.


W L T GF GA DIFF Win% PPG
Belize 0 2 0 0 12 -12 0.0 0.00
2008-09 0 2 0 0 12 -12 0.0 0.00

Canada 8 5 7 23 20 3 40.0 1.55
2008-09 5 2 3 15 10 5 50.0 1.80
2009-10 0 1 1 0 1 -1 0.0 0.50
2010-11 3 2 3 8 9 -1 37.5 1.50

Costa Rica 11 12 7 40 49 -9 36.7 1.33
2008-09 3 3 2 9 12 -3 37.5 1.38
2009-10 2 5 3 11 20 -9 20.0 0.90
2010-11 6 4 2 20 17 3 50.0 1.67

El Salvador 4 13 9 20 51 -31 15.4 0.81
2008-09 2 3 3 9 12 -3 25.0 1.13
2009-10 1 5 2 5 21 -16 12.5 0.63
2010-11 1 5 4 6 18 -12 10.0 0.70

Guatemala 7 11 7 32 55 -23 28.0 1.12
2008-09 2 3 3 13 18 -5 25.0 1.13
2009-10 3 5 1 9 21 -12 33.3 1.11
2010-11 2 3 3 10 16 -6 25.0 1.13

Honduras 22 23 7 80 83 -3 42.3 1.40
2008-09 6 5 5 27 18 9 37.5 1.44
2009-10 9 9 0 29 39 -10 50.0 1.50
2010-11 7 9 2 24 26 -2 38.9 1.28

Jamaica 0 1 0 0 3 -3 0.0 0.00
2008-09 0 1 0 0 3 -3 0.0 0.00

Mexico 73 30 24 254 122 132 57.5 1.91
2008-09 23 12 10 84 44 40 51.1 1.76
2009-10 25 8 7 79 36 43 62.5 2.05
2010-11 25 10 7 91 42 49 59.5 1.95

Nicaragua 0 1 1 0 1 -1 0.0 0.50
2008-09 0 1 1 0 1 -1 0.0 0.50

Panama 11 21 6 46 70 -24 28.9 0.95
2008-09 4 7 5 21 25 -4 25.0 1.06
2009-10 5 6 1 17 18 -1 41.7 1.33
2010-11 2 8 0 8 27 -19 20.0 0.30

Puerto Rico 10 9 9 38 41 -3 35.7 1.39
2008-09 6 3 3 18 16 2 50.0 1.75
2009-10 1 3 4 7 12 -5 12.5 0.88
2010-11 3 3 2 13 13 0 37.5 1.38

Trinidad & Tobago 8 22 4 43 78 -35 23.5 0.82
2008-09 3 5 0 9 16 -7 37.5 1.13
2009-10 4 10 2 21 31 -10 25.0 0.88
2010-11 1 7 2 13 31 -18 10.0 0.50

USA 23 31 18 99 113 -14 31.9 1.21
2008-09 2 10 6 16 35 -19 11.1 0.67
2009-10 8 9 7 35 36 -1 33.33 1.29
2010-11 13 12 5 48 42 6 43.33 1.47

Final 2010-11 CONCACAF Champions League Results By Country

Well, I suppose if I'm going to do this again for 2011-12, I should probably post the summary stats from last year first, huh?


W L T GF GA DIF Win% PPG
Mexico 25 10 7 91 42 49 59.5 1.95
Costa Rica 6 4 2 20 17 3 50.0 1.67
Canada 3 2 3 8 9 -1 37.5 1.50
USA 13 12 5 48 42 6 43.3 1.47
Puerto Rico 3 3 2 13 13 0 37.5 1.38
Honduras 7 9 2 24 26 -2 38.9 1.28
Guatemala 2 3 3 10 16 -6 25.0 1.13
El Salvador 1 5 4 6 18 -12 10.0 0.70
Trinidad & Tobago 1 7 2 13 31 -18 10.0 0.50
Panama 2 8 0 8 27 -19 20.0 0.30

Thursday, September 02, 2010

Superliga Overall Team Records

These are the overall records for each team that's competed in the Superliga tournament. All ties in the knockout stages have been counted as wins and losses for the teams involved based on the results of the penalty kick shootout.

Team             W   L   T   GF   GA   DF  PTS   PPG  
America 1 2 0 3 4 -1 3 1.00
Atlante 2 2 0 5 7 -2 6 1.50
Chicago 4 4 0 8 10 -2 12 1.50
Chivas USA 2 4 3 8 10 -2 9 1.00
Dallas 0 1 2 7 8 -1 2 0.67
DC United 1 5 1 6 12 -6 4 0.57
Guadalajara 3 2 1 6 6 0 10 1.67
Houston 7 4 2 20 10 10 23 1.77
Kansas City 0 1 2 2 4 -2 2 0.67
Los Angeles 3 2 0 12 9 3 9 1.80
Morelia 3 2 3 14 10 4 12 1.50
New England 10 2 2 18 11 7 32 2.29
Pachuca 4 6 2 11 17 -6 14 1.17
Puebla 2 2 0 6 4 2 6 1.50
Pumas UNAM 0 2 1 2 4 -2 1 0.33
San Luis 1 1 1 4 3 1 4 1.33
Santos 1 4 2 8 11 -3 5 0.71
Tigres 4 1 0 9 8 1 12 2.40