FWIW, found the MLS predictions from last year for us
Predictions
- Charles Boehm: 9th in East
- Tom Bogert: 9th in East
- Matt Doyle: 8th in East
- David Gass: 8th in East
- Sam Jones: 7th in East
- Joe Lowery: 7th in East
- Greg Seltzer: 5th in East
- Andrew Wiebe: 10th in East
&
A heck of lot of recency bias in most of their predicts - Atlanta & NER consensus home team playoff - both out of.
^That's weird. I don’t have time to figure this out today, anybody else out there who listens to Extratime who can maybe explain what I thought I heard? Or maybe I just need some sleep…!
"There are some people who might have better technique than me, and some may be fitter than me, but the main thing is tactics. With most players, tactics are missing. You can divide tactics into insight, trust, and daring." - Johan Cruyff
First week power rankings, possibly. They released their overall power ranking yesterday and have us 10th going into the season, so fifth or sixth in the east would make sense based on that.
It seems strange to me that when asked individually, their writers average us at 12th in the east, but the site's official position is we're 10th overall.
This could be down to the fact that they're not actually journalists, so when no one's giving them the party line, on a podcast, they say "oh, Toronto sucks, 12th".
But when it's something in writing that sticks around and they may have to answer to it -- because the power ranking is also a print story on mlssoccer.com -- suddenly we're 10th.
Last edited by jloome; 02-24-2023 at 02:01 PM.
The Athletic MLS team have just published their predictions. 6 out of the 8 reporters have us 2nd or 3rd. The other 2 go with 4th and 5th in the East. Certainly seems more balanced...
Toronto 'til I die although still a Leeds fan at heart...
It appears DirectTV has waived their extra fees for MLS bar packages. They've changed the page since we chatted about it on here a few weeks ago. MLS is the ONLY package they're doing it with ...and they're offering it for $100 PER YEAR.
So basically, bars can stream MLS games for $8 a month.
Has to be because Apple owns the regional tv rights, and can therefore waive the network carry fees. DirectTV is waiving the occupancy charges, likely as a way to sign people up, before reintroducing them down the road.
The article from execs thinks we had a good offseason too. Even got a vote for best management team with this gem of a quote:
“The best owners are Toronto,” said one exec. “They have an unlimited pile of money, they don’t insert themselves into things and there’s no accountability. LAFC has accountability. The LAFC owners try to add value, in that sense they’re better. But Toronto would be the best job to have.”
El Traffico called off due to weather.
As others have said, they can't deal with thunderstorms or snow down there - stadium has no shelter.
"There are some people who might have better technique than me, and some may be fitter than me, but the main thing is tactics. With most players, tactics are missing. You can divide tactics into insight, trust, and daring." - Johan Cruyff
Roster rule changes coalesced in one twitter thread
Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/ChrisIvey865/status/1629218350726361088
************
There's something very North American in soccer fandom about specialists in other aspects of life providing expertise towards us all understanding MLS. Not sure this happens in other places & other sports.
Plus with the recent drought the ground is really dry and can't absorb water quickly, leading to a possibility of flash flooding.
Very good thing they called it off. And hopefully by rescheduling they'll have a chance at selling even more tickets. Might be able to get more than 80,000.
Earlier in the thread somebody was mentioning how the staff writers thought Insigne had bad body language. The stupid thing about their commentary is that you can tell very easily when he does kind of get annoyed about something it's at himself it's not at his teammates.
Big difference. The guy is super motivated. He will easily get double digit goals and assists this year.
Seems already rescheduled for July 4!
Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/AntoineBQ_/status/1629441679135571969
The Athletic's panel of MLS experts had all except one placing TFC in the top three in the East. (paywall)
The picture quality of the apple broadcast is very good.
Shaffleburg should have put one away in the first half. Great to see the kid earn a starting spot. The more Canadian's we have playing regularly in MLS the better.
Interesting...
Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/StatHunting/status/1629254879544786949
EDIT: For those that may want to go down a rabbit hole, click 'Read replies' for some more insightful 'stats by geek' fun...
Last edited by Mr. Inbetween; 02-26-2023 at 09:22 AM.
Even more intriguing... maybe MLS is 'Moving On Up'? I suspect would have been a record three season opening matches if El Trafico happened.
Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/MLS_PR/status/1629703844035788802
Did anyone catch that 360 show that is supposed to be covering all the games? I caught a bit of it after the Toronto game ended and I was left...pretty unimpressed by it. Hopefully it was just because it's the first week and they are fixing out the kinks and all. They had the Vancouver game on for a while, halftime hit and they didn't really cover any of the games it was mostly just a repeating image on screen. They came back after half and they were showing the game, I believe they did show a highlight from another game but then they cut to the studio of the hosts just talking and the game was playing on the screen in behind them. Then they just kind of signed off when there was still about 30 minutes left in the game and that was it? I was pretty confused with the whole thing so then I just flipped over to one of the game streams but it didn't seem like it was done all that well.
Also this is being pretty picky but the graphics just seemed so large for the score at the bottom of the screen and they were showing all the other scores of the games down the right side of the screen. Wonder if they will change this to a live standings table like EPL does since it was the first week and not everyone had played yet.
Cyle Larin's hot start in Vallodolid has made him quite popular. The local dailies wrote six different stories on him in the last three days. Apparently his nickname is the "Silent Giant." It's very Teen Beat.