The Weekend Kick-off: Wondolowski, SKC v DAL and the Watchability Score

by Harrison Crow (@Harrison_Crow)

Introduction

This is usually where we talk about the state of the union with MLS and what's general going on around the league. What I want to do is turn back a week before Chris Wondolowski scores his 100th goal and talk about him. 

Yes, Wondolowski is perhaps the most under appreciated striker/forward/midfield poacher in MLS history. We can say this because everyone pretty much freely admits this with the caveat that they continually underrate him while still in the same breath as they seem to perpetually follow up the thought with "but".

The truth is that, in the last 5 years since we've collecting data on MLS, Wondolowski has somehow collected 20 (!!!) more goals than anyone else in the league. Sure, there has been some turnover of some great talents over that time period. And yes, there are other talents that just really haven't had the same amount of time invested in the league that have been great elsewhere during that same period. These are all things people say to try and maybe mitigate or maybe restrain their appreciation of Wondo. Forget them, he's been awesome. I'll say what everyone probably won't, that I can't wait to see if he can break Landon's record.

#SKCvDAL

Most people say to build a rivalry you need important game to build that antagonism between players and supporters. Well, it's not a playoff game but this time around, but we have both teams jockeying for playoff position as we head into the middle of the season. 

Forget about the exact positions where each team resides, that's not important when you've not even reached the half way point in the season. If there was something worth thinking about from the standings at this point it's the teams' respective points per game (PPG). Since teams vary in their total games played, position is not very accurate.

SKC is a team that keeps being shown by our expected goal data to be far better than what they've been this season. Dallas on the other hand has pretty much been exactly where we would expect them to be with being near the top of the table. As we near the 14 match mark for each team we should soon have our points projection using expected goal data and we should have more clear perspective on where teams are at relative to the table.

WEEKEND WATCHABILITY SCORE

Here are the watchability scores for this weekend. Lower score means a better viewing experience.

Our metric is a bit strange in that it highlights NYC-HOU, CHI-MTL and ORL-CLB as the best games to watch this week. OCSC versus Columbus seems a bit more logical but NYC, Houston, Chicago, and Montreal are four teams that don't seem to, at least on the outside, have a lot going for them. But they are all teams they have parts of their games that keep things interesting both ascetically and competitively.

NERD IMAGERY