Total-MLS Weekly Review – July 26

It’s the All-Star Break in Major League Soccer. Well it’s not really a break but the MLS All-Star Game vs Manchester United is tomorrow. It was a great week of MLS action. Let’s take a look at the action in the Weekly Review.

Team of the Week: Sporting Kansas City

To all contenders in the Eastern Conference: You can’t say I didn’t warn you. After the opening of Livestrong Sporting Park, I predicted that SKC would have a much more successful second half of the season, although even I wasn’t bold enough to predict their recent domination. The baby blues have been one of the hottest teams in the league since their June 9th debut, going on a 12 game undefeated run. This past week SKC dominated their northern opponents Toronto FC 4-2, in a game that really highlighted the outrageous potential this offense has. Kei Kamara and Omar Bravo each found the net twice, and newly labeled DP Jeferson distributed the ball well in SKC’s rout. Can you imagine if Teal Bunbury was in top form? The Union, Crew, and Red Bulls are trying hard not to.

Player of the Week: Sanna Nyassi

The speedy winger takes home this week’s POW honors. Nyassi turned the NYRB defenders into cones last Wednesday on his way to the first hattrick of his MLS career. We all knew that Nyassi was fast, but nobody expected him to move so well with a ball at his feet against one of the better defenses in the MLS. It was a week that may cause scouts to rethink their defensive gameplans against Colorado in the future.

Goal of the Week: Kei Kamara

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Kamara’s scissor kick got things going down in Kansas City.

Support=Success?: A Study on How Important Attendance Is

How important is attendance to a team’s success/failure? It is a big question to ask considering team support varies so dramatically from team to team. However, I decided to take on the challenge of analyzing this sensitive topic: Do the cheeks in the seats prevent disappointing defeats? There is only one way to find out. On to the table…

Note 1- Attendance is “Att Rnk” and Capacity filled is “Cap Rnk.”

Note 2- I will not factor in Vancouver/Portland’s attendance into this study. New franchises almost always pull tremendous crowds to games in their first year of existence. Unfortunately however, these team’s attendances will likely go down once their debut year craziness ceases. Therefore, it made more sense not to include them instead of predicting their long-term attendance figures.

The top five teams in attendance this 2011 MLS season are above on the graph and the worst five teams in attendance are below. Now if the theory “More Support=More Wins” is correct, the first five teams should all be in the top half of the table and the next five, near the bottom. Let us see.

By the graph you can clearly see that the connection between support and success is not as direct as you may have once thought. Although Toronto is the third most supported team in the league, TFC rarely comes out to play at BMO when the 12th man is in full force. Columbus also busts the idea that teams must ride the crowd at home, as the Crew are fourth in the league in home points despite rarely drawing 12k+ crowds. This study proves once again that though we may think highly of ourselves, we are merely not essential to silverware.

(image courtesy of sportingkc.com)