The Congested Schedule This Season

[rocker]

Recently, people have observed that TFC has played a lot of games.

I wanted to quantify this schedule congestion. I examined the schedules of all teams in the eastern division, recording how many "days of rest" teams had between games (I know they practice and travel on those days, so it's not all rest... can be considered non-game days for lack of a better word). I included all matches teams played -- friendlies, US Open Cup games, and NCC games etc.

Here are the results (sorted by highest average days off):

Crew---- 5.05
Dc------ 4.89
Houston- 4.78
NE------ 4.57
Philly---- 4.50
KC------ 4.38
Fire----- 4.33
NY------ 4.33
TFC----- 3.67

What to make of this?

1) There's no direct or exact correlation between rest and standings
2) But most teams are relatively close in days off, except for TFC, so strong correlation probably would be hard to find.
3) The Crew have had the least congested schedule so far; TFC has had by far the most congested schedule -- I mean there must be some benefit for the Crew to have a day and a half more between games than TFC
4) I don't have all the injury lists for the eastern terms, but TFC seems to have suffered a great deal of injuries this season -- I wonder if it has anything to do with the fixture congestion? Trainers will tell you that when you play so much and don't recover, you can get more easily injured.

TFC's league schedule is much easier the rest of the season (a quick glance and it looks like close to 6 days off between games later in the season). If we make the group stage of the CCL, however, that advantage is reduced.

In the future I'd like to see the FO refrain from frontloading league games because we're always going to have the NCC to play in. We need a better balance -- the team is just shooting itself in the foot by having to play more games than anybody else. It also didn't help to have a rebuilding team with a new coach and little depth dealing with fixture congestion.

Thoughts?

[TFC07]

Wow, great research!

And yes, lack of rest is hurting TFC badly! TFC's results and injuries is the proof of that! Also having so many new players and learning to play a new system just makes it harder for TFC to be successful early on the season. Hopefully 2nd half of the season TFC starts winning tons of games and give us hope for the future.

[james]

i was more pissed off that we had so many home games in the spring. Shit weather and all, and made it harder for fans to go or couldnt care to go to 4 games in 2 weeks for example.

[Beach_Red]

In the future I'd like to see the FO refrain from frontloading league games because we're always going to have the NCC to play in. We need a better balance -- the team is just shooting itself in the foot by having to play more games than anybody else. It also didn't help to have a rebuilding team with a new coach and little depth dealing with fixture congestion.

Thoughts?

My thoughts are that the TFC FO get very little out of the league and should press for a lot more. This is a revenue-sharing league (that breaks its own rules a lot) and for four season TFC delivered sold-out games and the league used Toronto as a marketing tool. In exchange we got the MLS Cup, something no one really wanted and an all-star game.

Yes, TFC should press the league for a better schedule.

But the team shouldn't use it as an excuse .

[Roogsy]

I think the FO is very aware of these things but has limited say. Our schedule is unfavourable because the league is considering other interests above our team's preferences.

[CretanBull]

I don't think the schedule matters. If we play two games in 4 days we lose. If we play games a week apart, we lose. Too much time off, we lose. Too little time off, we lose.

[rocker]

I don't think the schedule matters. If we play two games in 4 days we lose. If we play games a week apart, we lose. Too much time off, we lose. Too little time off, we lose.

Well, our record with a week's rest is better than on a few days rest. Not massively better, but slightly better. Although the sample size is lower because we only had 8 gaps of a week versus 17 gaps of 3 days rest or less. I was shocked to see we had 7 gaps of just 2 days rest. Columbus has never had to play with only 2 days rest.

I just think having the most congested schedule in the east cannot be disregarded as a factor.

If we were a good team, it might be the difference between being winning the supporters shield and finishing second. If we were an average team, it might be the diff between making the playoffs and finishing 11th.

Ideally, I'm sure every coach would like a week between games to train properly, particularly if the team has a lot of new players.

[PopePouri]

I think it's a major issue and it probably contributed to our injury woes.

[prizby]

so when we have more rest in the 2nd half (depending on champs league), should we be better off?

[Oldtimer]

The schedule is set by the league, not TFC. TFC can protest a fixed number of dates in the draft schedule with reasons before it is finalized, and the league will make some changes before the schedule gets finalized.

Things that influence the schedule:

Teams that are secondary tenants in a stadium who have to work around the other sport's schedule (New England, Seattle, etc.)

Weather

TV demands

Which stadiums need Beckham to sell out

FIFA dates (to some extent) and expected absences of star players.

Last of all, the home team's preferences

[DangerRed]

This is great research and definitely points to a clear factor influencing our poor form this season, aside from "Gargan and Harden suck."

It shouldn't be disregarded, though, that as someone above said, we play poorly with a week's rest and we play poorly with two days' rest. Mind you, if injuries accumulate quicker when you're playing with only two days' downtime, you could argue our poor form during the week-of-rest periods is at least partly due to the toll the short-gap games take on our players.

In any case, it's refreshing to see that there's clearly something else at play affecting us other than our squad's own faults and shortcomings.

[tiberius]

The schedule is set by the league, not TFC. TFC can protest a fixed number of dates in the draft schedule with reasons before it is finalized, and the league will make some changes before the schedule gets finalized.

Things that influence the schedule:

Teams that are secondary tenants in a stadium who have to work around the other sport's schedule (New England, Seattle, etc.)

Weather

TV demands

Which stadiums need Beckham to sell out

FIFA dates (to some extent) and expected absences of star players.

Last of all, the home team's preferences

Just musing, but you would think revenue might enter into the equation - next year TFC will put more bums in seats if they have weekend summer home games (June July August) and revenue will be down if they have a schedule like this year with a lot of spring and mid-week games. This is just a fact of having a team in the great white north, with fewer season tickets being sold... Perhaps this is too complex to factor this in... I dunno

[ensco]

Interesting. It probably does matter - I wonder if it correlates somewhat to our injury problem.

[ManUtd4ever]

While fixture congestion is certainly not the root cause of TFC's futility this season, it certainly may have had an impact on the health of the first team roster players. In any event, it appears the worst is over, and reinforcements are on the way.

[Batman]

I agree with a lot of the points here.
Too much congestion.
Too many front loaded early spring games when the weather just plain sucked.
Too much front loading of the home schedule.

I expect TFC mgmt is aware of this and realise it not only affects team performence, it also has a significant financial implication.

How many walk ups are there to buy tickets on a cold rainy day or evening in March / April compared to a nice summer day?

I have no idea why so much of the home schedule was compacted into March and April, but it should DEFINITELY NOT happen again.

[David_Oliveira]

I just wished that teams in the mls played even games. TFC has 3 games on most. Can't the MLS just release a schedule for friday, saturday and sunday? I mean it works just about every other league even if they threw in a wednesday game here and there it wouldn't be that bad

[PAOK17]

When we first got a team one of the first things that turned my dad away from taking the league seriously was how it was possible to have as many as 5 games in a row played on the road or away. In the Greek league for example, the most consecutive home/away games is limited to 2!!! There is no need for TFC to be playing 5 home games in a row.

This isn't the NBA or NHL where you can play as many as 4 games in a week and so to reduce travel costs you bunch up away games relatively close to each other as "road trips". In most cases the teams fly back and forth anyway.

[rocker]

I have read that in other leagues in North America, the schedule is carefully designed so that it has a fairly even distribution of home/away games and equality in terms of road trips.

One thing that probably fucked it all up this year was Kansas City opening a new stadium. They let KC put all its home games in the new stadium, playing so many road games to start the season. I understand the financial reason for that, but it means that some other teams must be playing a lot at home in the early season. Rather than balance that out among as many teams as possible, it seems 3-4 teams, particularly TFC, got the shaft and were forced to take on a greater load of home games at that time. Home games are great, but I think congested home schedules also mean you're less rested when you should have the greatest advantage. And then going on the road and playing games on 2-3 days rest is a recipe for disaster. And there's no "penalty" for KC -- they were still given an average number of days off between games.

The other thing is that not all MLS teams have to deal with cup games. TFC will always have to deal with NCC games in the early season... always. American teams may or may not be involved to the degree TFC is (playing 4 games at that time of the season).

My thought originally was that maybe the schedule was designed under the assumption that they might have CCL group games late in the season, so it's better to have a lighter summer/fall schedule. But we now have an 11 day break and the CCL games aren't every single week anyways.