Climbing the Ladder

"All" or Nothing

July 29, 2010
By scaryice
"All" or Nothing

It's not too early to be thinking about the 2011 Superdraft. Last night, the Vancouver Whitecaps won a coin toss at the all star game between the two expansion teams, which means that they'll get to decide whether they want the first pick in the Superd...
Read more »

Tags: ,
Posted in Climbing the Ladder, Publishers | View Comments

MLS Time Statistics

July 23, 2010
By scaryice
MLS Time Statistics

Goal differential is a statistic commonly found on every soccer league table. It's easy to look at it and see that some teams may be better or worse than their record indicates. The same goes for other sports; you'd expect a team with more points score...
Read more »

Tags: ,
Posted in Climbing the Ladder, Publishers | View Comments

History of Don Garber’s All Star Commissioner’s Picks

July 19, 2010
By scaryice
History of Don Garber’s All Star Commissioner’s Picks

2000 Luis Hernandez & Brian McBride 2001 Luis Hernandez & Santino Quaranta 2002 Marco Etcheverry & Joselito Vaca 2003 Mauricio Cienfuegos...
Read more »

Tags: ,
Posted in Climbing the Ladder, Publishers | View Comments

Branco Boskovic – 1st Montenegrin MLS Player & 94th Nationality

July 16, 2010
By scaryice
Branco Boskovic – 1st Montenegrin MLS Player & 94th Nationality

DC's new DP came on as a second half sub against in the losing effort against Seattle last night. As a result, he & Montenegro became the 94th "soccer nationality" to play an official game for an MLS team. That's the 5th country added to list this ...
Read more »

Tags: ,
Posted in Climbing the Ladder, Publishers | View Comments

Superliga – All Time Statistics

July 14, 2010
By scaryice
Superliga – All Time Statistics

Here are the all time MLS stats for the Superliga (2007-09), featuring MLS & Mexican teams. It starts today, did you remember? Chicago, Chivas, Houston, and New England will compete, and all have previous experience.Records ...
Read more »

Tags:
Posted in Climbing the Ladder, Publishers | View Comments

Big Stories to Take from the 2010 World Cup

July 14, 2010
By scaryice
Big Stories to Take from the 2010 World Cup

1) Ratings Success. This is the most important American story from the 2010 World Cup. With the time difference in South Africa the same as 2006 in Germany, it allowed us to have an equal comparison between the ratings. The results: ESPN - up 31%, and ...
Read more »

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Climbing the Ladder, Publishers | View Comments

USMNT: Records By Cycle

July 11, 2010
By scaryice
USMNT: Records By Cycle

All matches GP W L D Pts PPG GF GA GD GFA GAA GDA 1990 ...
Read more »

Tags:
Posted in Climbing the Ladder, Publishers | View Comments

OTFATT 2010 – Update #3

July 7, 2010
By scaryice
OTFATT 2010 – Update #3

Previous Updates #1 4/21 66 players remaining#25/2427 players remainingOTFATT is short for "On the field, all the time." In these updates throughout the season, I'll be keeping track of which MLS players have played every minute of every g...
Read more »

Tags:
Posted in Climbing the Ladder, Publishers | View Comments

Open Cup 2010: Success for MLS

July 2, 2010
By scaryice
Open Cup 2010: Success for MLS

The round of 16 in the 2010 Lamar Hunt US Open Cup is over, and it was a good couple of nights for MLS. Six out of eight teams advanced to the quarterfinals, the most since the current format has been in place (2007-10).2007 - 3 teams2008 - 5 teams2009...
Read more »

Tags: ,
Posted in Climbing the Ladder, Publishers | View Comments

208 to 1: World Cup 2010 Eliminations Timeline

June 29, 2010
By scaryice
208 to 1: World Cup 2010 Eliminations Timeline

UPDATE: Completed!Yes, we know now who qualified for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. In the future, it will be easy to look at the qualifying standings to see how things turned out. However, one thing that can't easily be determined from a sim...
Read more »

Tags:
Posted in Climbing the Ladder, Publishers | View Comments

World Cup 1998-2010: Fewest Minutes Leading in the Group Stage & Still Advanced

June 23, 2010
By scaryice
World Cup 1998-2010: Fewest Minutes Leading in the Group Stage & Still Advanced

EDIT: The USA's next opponent, Ghana, joins the list after only leading for 5 minutes.For the group stages in the 1998-2010 World Cups (with the current format, where only two teams advanced from each group rather than three). Stoppage time is counted ...
Read more »

Tags: ,
Posted in Climbing the Ladder, Publishers | View Comments

USMNT: Number of Caps for World Cup Openers (1990-2010)

June 19, 2010
By scaryice
USMNT: Number of Caps for World Cup Openers (1990-2010)

Looking at the opening games of the World Cup for the USA in each of the past six tournaments, here's how many caps the entire team had at that moment: Caps AvgMedian 1990 297 27.0029...
Read more »

Tags: , ,
Posted in Climbing the Ladder, Publishers | View Comments

Working on Transcript

June 14, 2010
By scaryice
Working on Transcript

I'm going to be transcribing the USA-England broadcast as I did with the USA's first games in 2002 and 2006, so I can add Martin Tyler and John Harkes to the World Cup announcer analysis. Eventually, I'll need to add the first games of 1990, 1994, and ...
Read more »

Posted in Climbing the Ladder, Publishers | View Comments

World Cup 2010: Group A & B

June 10, 2010
By scaryice
World Cup 2010: Group A & B

Why I picked France & South Africa to advance:For all the talk that France is in rough shape (including from former and current internationals), they still have the most talented players in the group (despite being weaker than 2006). I don't believ...
Read more »

Tags:
Posted in Climbing the Ladder, Publishers | View Comments

2010 World Cup Predictions

June 9, 2010
By scaryice
2010 World Cup Predictions

Four years ago, I predicted 12/16 teams right to advance to the round of 16. I missed Ecuador/Ghana/Switzerland/Ukraine, picking Poland/USA/South Korea/Tunisia instead. I did get France going to the final, though I predicted Brazil to defeat them to wi...
Read more »

Tags:
Posted in Climbing the Ladder, Publishers | View Comments

2010 World Cup: Who Do the Rating Systems Predict to Advance?

June 7, 2010
By scaryice
2010 World Cup: Who Do the Rating Systems Predict to Advance?

Four years ago, I looked at a number of factors in an attempt to see which would best predict the 16 teams to advance out of the group stage: form, GDP, odds, qualifying record, population, etc. In the end, the best predictors were the ELO rankings and...
Read more »

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Climbing the Ladder, Publishers | View Comments

The Top 25 Youngest MLS Players

June 3, 2010
By scaryice
The Top 25 Youngest MLS Players

Also see:Top 25 Oldest MLS PlayersTop 25 Oldest MLS DebutsEDIT 6/2/2010: Bumping this post due to a huge day of young debuts. First, let's talk about Toronto's final 2010 Canadian Championship game against Vancouver. They'd already clinched the title, ...
Read more »

Tags:
Posted in Climbing the Ladder, Publishers | View Comments

MLS History: Longest Unbeaten & Winless Streaks

May 30, 2010
By scaryice
MLS History: Longest Unbeaten & Winless Streaks

Bumped and updated (through the 2009 season), because the 2010 LA Galaxy are on the verge of history. Counting the end of last season, they are currently unbeaten in their last 14 regular season games (already 4th all time) and 18 games overall (2nd al...
Read more »

Tags: ,
Posted in Climbing the Ladder, Publishers | View Comments

Home/away Disparity 2010

May 30, 2010
By scaryice
Home/away Disparity 2010

As usual, some teams have played unbalanced schedules to this point. Looking at this, we can see which teams are probably a little better or worse than they currently appear in the standings.

DC (+2) and Houston (+3) have played a few more home games, and will be at a disadvantage from...
Read more »

Tags:
Posted in Climbing the Ladder, Publishers | View Comments

New ESPN Fan Zone Survey

May 27, 2010
By scaryice
New ESPN Fan Zone Survey

What is ESPN Fan Zone? Read their FAQ. I highly encourage anyone who wants to express their opinions to ESPN to sign up. It's probably the best way to directly have an impact.

The other day, they sent me a new soccer survey, this one focused solely on the...
Read more »

Tags: ,
Posted in Climbing the Ladder, Publishers | View Comments