Gotta get some points on the road at some point..Quito needs to start going fwd.

RGVFC's home 3-0 win on Saturday night helped me get over Friday night.

Yep. We're one of two MLS sides with zero away points, and the other is dead-ass-last Colorado.

The scheduling gods gifted us seven home games in our first ten, but we need to sort this away business out when the other shoe drops.

2-0

Ass beating

Goodness that was fun to watch.

This is the team we saw at the beginning of the year. Keep playing like this!

I hope Eric Alexander is okay. He's been good in possession and linking up.

Keep it up Dynamo!

The game last nite was really fun love the tecate social deck

Great stuff.

And we get ANOTHER home game next week.

gig them said:

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Great stuff.

And we get ANOTHER home game next week.

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Star Wars Night!

Love it!

The games in hand thing has always annoyed me, though... why does the MLS struggle so much to keep everyone at the same # of games played?

gig them said:

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Love it!

The games in hand thing has always annoyed me, though... why does the MLS struggle so much to keep everyone at the same # of games played?

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They have the same deal in the Premier League, although I think they have more legitimate reasons to have scheduling issues (conflicts with the FA Cup, League Cup, European play, etc.). But it is annoying.

Can anyone tell me what the first tiebreaker is in the MLS standings? We are listed as first place in the West, although we're tied on points with Dallas and KC. Dallas has a better Goal Differential than we do, but we have the most Wins and Goals For (7 more Goals For than Dallas, who has played one less game).

We also have way more Goals Against than those two competitors, which suggests to me that we need to either tighten up our defense or keep scoring a ton of goals.

Right now our outstanding home record (six wins and one draw, courtesy of my attendance jinx) is keeping us on top of the standings. We need to learn to get some results on the road as well.

We have a great chance to start improving our road record this Wednesday at Philly, who have only two wins on the season.

Found the tiebreakers:

TEAM-STANDINGS TIE-BREAKING PROCEDURES
The team awarded the highest position in the MLS standings will be the team with the greatest number of points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a tie, 0 points for a loss). In the event that two teams finish the regular season with an equal number of points, the following system will be used to break the tie:

[ol]

Total number of wins

Goal Differential (GD)

Goals For (GF)

Fewest Disciplinary Points

Away Goals Differential

Away Goal For

Home Goals Differential

Home Goal For

Coin Toss (tie of 2 clubs) or Drawing of Lots (tie of 3 or more clubs)

[/ol]

I believe first tiebreaker is goal differential but not positive.

EDIT: and beaten to it, there ya go

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We need to learn to get some results on the road as well.

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We aren't really getting a ton of national run, and I think this is why. It's pretty easy to look at us and rationalize our early results as "hey look at all those home games" or "lol Houston is hot that's why they're winning."

We need to go on the road and tag someone, and you're right that Wednesday is a great, great chance.

I'd settle for local run. I was only able to watch highlights (in Spain on vacation) but the stadium still looked very empty.

Figured with 10 games gone, now was a decent time to reread the thread and see what's transpired. So far, credit were credit is due. Jordan and Canetti should be credited with the roster moves made in the offseason. Quioto and Elis are the standouts but more or less every acquisition has contributed positively. No one has been more impressive than Cabrera though. His impact on the team has been instant. He has the team playing to their strengths and playing entertaining soccer. He's made adjustments when necessary and gotten the best out of Cubo. I think he's a top 3 candidate for coach of the year as of this point.

Who knows if we'll be able to keep this up for the whole season (the road form is a huge concern and the home form will probably slip at least a bit at some point) and who knows if Jordan and Canetti just got lucky this offseason but so far, things are going pretty damn well.

Dynamo playing on the road...no points for guessing correctly how it's going.

Are we finally at a point to discuss how the MLS still looks like a rigged league? Home teams need butts in seats. Home team winning brings people back. MLS needs more folks showing up.

The Jekyll and Hyde for home/road games needs to get solved

Need to spring for league planes or bump the players out of coach class. Maybe an extra drink coupon?

That's the weird thing about the MLS... you don't really need road results to achieve your goals.

This is obviously a problem, but a 1.5 PPG (theoretically winning every remaining game at home and losing every remaining game on the road) would land us pretty safely in the playoffs.

I hate using PPG, but it's the only way I've ever been able to make sense of the MLS table.

Define rigged. I think the league definitely creates conditions in their overall structure to facilitate certain outcomes. I don't think the officiating is tilted to favor the home team in all circumstances. The officiating sucks for everyone equally.

A lot of the road results can be explained by the sheer size of the country and yes, I do think the way the teams travel has an effect as well. In the case of the Dynamo, their travel mid-week to Philly was about the equivalent of Arsenal going to Dynamo Kiev for a CL game. British media always freaks out during those fixtures. "Oh my goodness, that's a lot of travel so soon after a game. It's going to be a challenge." MLS teams do that on the regular...in coach, not some fancy charter jet. And teams like LA, Seattle, Portland, are traveling double that for their East coast road trips. It ain't easy on athletes and it has a significant affect.

I'd love to see someone do the leg work to take every MLS result since 1996 and see if there's a correlation between the road team's performance and the distance they traveled. Of course talent on the teams is probably a greater indicator but I feel like if you looked at every MLS result since the league started, that stuff would more or less even out and you could get a better sense if road travel is a factor.

Dre_00 said:

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Dynamo playing on the road...no points for guessing correctly how it's going.

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More of the same...

Whats up this lineup? no quito or torres, Beasley up front.

I think Wilmer is trying something "new", but it hasn't really worked. I think he is trying to work Quioto in slowly due to injuries, but I'm not 100% sure. Either way, we really need him because wenger continues to be a cluster fart anytime he gets near the opposing team's goal.

AG@RICE said:

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I think Wilmer is trying something "new", but it hasn't really worked. I think he is trying to work Quioto in slowly due to injuries, but I'm not 100% sure. Either way, we really need him because wenger continues to be a cluster fart anytime he gets near the opposing team's goal.

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I think Wenger had his best game of the season last night, but it's clear he's our fifth choice as a forward.

I want to see Cabrera use the same formation and line-up on the road that we use at home, but I understand we've had some health issues. I was glad to see Remick get some playing time.

After five road matches.... zero points, three goals scored, and fourteen goals conceded.

Ouch.

Obviously it sucks to have this kind of road record, but I do appreciate Cabrera's willingness to try drastic changes to spark some kind of change.

I appreciate that, but I'd much rather see him diagnose the problem. It's far more than a trend at this point.

Texas Derby tonight