Change can be good, at least that is what FC Cincinnati is hoping. After the club changed managers midseason, the team responded in a positive manner, defeating the Montreal Impact 2-1. FC Cincinnati increased their projected points total to 32 points, up from 28 last week. They are still projected 11th, but the Columbus Crew are only four points away. One team the model is starting to notice is Atlanta United. It is not the pretty soccer team of last year, but from a defensive standpoint, they are No. 2 overall. The Five Stripes have climbed their way into the second tier of teams.
Here are the current tiers:
Tier 1 – Los Angeles FC (alone again)
Tier 2 – Philadelphia, Hoston, DC United, Seattle, Toronto, New York City FC, Atlanta
Tier 3 – LA Galaxy, Dallas, Minnesota, Chicago, New York Red Bulls
Tier 4 – Montreal, Kansas City, Salt Lake, Orlando, Vancouver
Tier 5 – Columbus thru Colorado — FC Cincinnati is here
Some of the big changes this week:
FC Cincinnati with the biggest increase improving 4 pts to 32.7 pts.
New England also had a good week as well, gaining 3.9 pts.
Columbus and Dallas both had decreases in over 5.5 pts from the prior week.
Is Sporting Kansas City in trouble?
PREDICTED SCORES
Last week the formula correctly predicted six wins but missed on the remaining 11 games. This is about par for guessing — 33% — but not as well as I would have anticipated. The fact there was a large number of teams playing twice in the week contributes to the difficulties in prediction. But that should even out when the weekend games had two teams that had already played once. Note: Things the formula cannot take into consideration are injuries, weather, fatigue and international duty. It is based solely on a team’s offensive and defensive efficiency when compared to the league’s average offensive and defensive efficiency.
HERE ARE THIS WEEK’S SCORES:
I made a slight change to the predicted scoring formula. I added a recent form component, in which I look at teams’ last five games and give a 30% weight to that. This aspect helps a team that is performing better recently when compared to their season form. Their goals for and against will improve.
Running Total for Predicted Scores (started week 5 of the season):
- 36 correct – 59 incorrect (37.8% all games)
- 29 correct – 46 incorrect (38.6% removing three closest predicted games of the week)
- The three games the formula says to stay away from are Kansas City vs Vancouver, Houston vs DC United and Toronto vs DC United
QUICK HITS:
- Ten teams have double game weeks, and your fantasy team should be comprised mostly of players from these teams Atlanta, Toronto, DC United, Houston, Portland, Vancouver, Seattle, Orlando, LAFC and Dallas.
- The best offensive option is the Los Angles Galaxy, but Toronto and LAFC appear to be the best teams with two games this week.
- The best defensive options are from Atlanta and LAFC. Everyone else has either one good matchup and bad matchup. The best example of this type is Seattle.
- For more in-depth Fantasy Coverage listen to the On The Bounce podcast, produced locally here in Cincinnati.
GROWLER CUP:
For FC Cincinnati’s game versus the Montreal Impact, below are the score lines broken down by percentages. Reminder, this is based on teams playing at full strength and under ideal conditions.
TAKEAWAYS:
- Top five most likely scores in order: Orlando Win 1-0, Draw 1-1, Orlando Win 2-0, Draw 0-0, Orlando Win 2-1
- FC Cincinnati has a 23 percent chance of winning and a 27 percent chance of a draw.
- FC Cincinnati being shutout is at 41 percent, while Orlando has a 24 percent chance of being shutout.
- Orlando has the 19th-ranked offense and the 16th-ranked defense in MLS.
- FCC has the 24th-ranked offense and the 15th-ranked defense in MLS.
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