Real Salt Lake by the Numbers (week 12)

Well the 1-1 draw against Colorado didn’t do anything to help RSL’s place in the standings, in fact the LA victory over Toronto put us further back as we now sit in 6th place in the West and 12th overall.

And as unlikely as it seems the result actually made the likelyhood that RSL would make the playoffs better than last week. Last week RSL’s chance was just 18.91% but with all the results around the league the chance of us making the playoffs are up to 25.51% according to sportsclubstats.com:

So we sit today with a 1 in 4 chance of making the playoffs but this weekend’s matchup could provide a boost of almost 20 percentage points if we can get our first road win of the season. So if RSL can end the season with 40 total points (we are currently averaging just 1 point per match), there is a 51% chance of making the playoffs, those numbers drop to just over 10% if we end the season with 38 points. This clearly shows how important each and every point at home and on the road is, 43 points would boost our chance to 97% and 46 move that percentage to 100%. So how do we get 31 points from our remaining 18 matches (a 1.72 points per match), well the first step is to become dominant at home again, with 9 home matches left a 7-1-1 record would get us 22 points and improving our road record match last year’s 2-9-4 would require a 2-4-3 effort from our remaining 9 road matches. Last year after 6 road matches our record was 0-6-0, so our measly 1 point on the road is better than the effort from last year.

There is no doubt that RSL has dug itself a hole with their recent form a plunge from a 80% chance of making the playoffs after the 6-0 beatdown of New England to where we are today is disheartening at best and disgusting is closer to reality. I am not sure what changes need to be made to the staff or roster, not sure what formation can make a difference, but it is clear that something is going to have to change if RSL is going to make the type of run that they made last year. Whatever that change is it will need to resolve the scoring issues, RSL has just 2 goals in their last 6 matches, and 4 in their last 8, but it was the huge defensive efforts in the middle third of the season last year (just 3 goals allowed in the those 10 matches and 16 points earned) that were the difference.

So let’s take a quick look at the points total, RSL currently has 12 points after 12 matches.

You can see that we are 3 points behind last season, but still slightly ahead of any other of RSL’s past seasons. Expectations are high and so far the results have been much lower than those expectations, so fans are now waiting to see what can RSL do in LA against the Galaxy, how will they respond to facing the very hot Dynamo in Houston on the 20th? Will the hole be deeper or when RSL faces off against TFC on the 27th at Rio Tinto will we end the first half of the 2009 season? Last year after 15 matches RSL had 19 points, to equal that total they will need two wins and a draw from their next 3 matches, a tough task.

OFF MY SOAPBOX

This entry was posted on June 10, 2009 at 9:39 pm and is filed under The soapbox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.