USSF D2 Pro League Playoff Seedings Becoming Clearer
Edited 2:00 pm to clear up several errors concerning tie breaker situations.
The playoff picture is getting clearer in the USSF D2 Pro League with one final round of games remaining.
This past weekend’s results:
| Fri, September 24, 2010 | |||||||
| GAME# | Time | Home | Away | Location | |||
| 268 | 7:30 pm | Tampa Bay Rowdies | 1:3 | *NSC Minnesota Stars | Steinbrenner | ||
| 269 | 7:30 pm | *Vancouver Whitecaps FC | 0:1 | *Montreal Impact | Swangard | ||
| Sat, September 25, 2010 | |||||||
| GAME# | Time | Home | Away | Location | |||
| 273 | 4:00 pm | Miami FC Blues | 1:0 | *+Rochester Rhinos | Fort Lauderdale | ||
| 271 | 4:30 pm | Crystal Palace Baltimore | 1:3 | *Portland Timbers | Paul Angelo Russo | ||
| 272 | 7:00 pm | *Carolina RailHawks | 2:1 | *Puerto Rico Islanders | WakeMed Park | ||
| 270 | 7:30 pm | *+Austin Aztex | 4:2 | AC St. Louis | House Park | ||
xx
Minnesota, whose goal differential (GD) was -19 at one point in the season, have done a remarkable job of dropping that to -4. However, the Stars regular season is over after their 4th consecutive win on Friday evening, raising their point total to 40. Montreal also sit at 40 pts. and still have a home game against the Aztex next weekend. The Impact have a +4 GD. Montreal and Minnesota have split the series. It would take an improbable 9-0 win by Austin to change Minnesota’s 7th place fate.
Puerto Rico, who sit in the 8th and final playoff position with 36 points, could have tied the Stars with a win and a draw in their final 2 games. Two wins for the Islanders would have pushed Minnesota to the final spot. But the Carolina RailHawks, who are in a battle for first place in the NASL conference, defeated Puerto Rico 2-1 at WakeMed on Saturday evening. With that result Montreal will finish in 6th, Minnesota 7th and Puerto Rico 8th no matter the outcome of next week’s games.
The Aztex helped their cause with a win over AC St. Louis on Friday night. Austin is the only team with 2-games remaining to be played. Friday they will take on the Railhawks at WakeMed then travel to Montreal for a Sunday game against the Impact. Austin currently sit atop the USL Conference with 53 pts. and Rochester’s is at 51 pts. If Rochester loses or ties this weekend the Aztex will take the title. If the Rhinos win and Austin picks loses one game and picks up a draw in the other, the title will belong to Rochester who defeated the Aztex in their first game this season and tied them in their second meeting.
Carolina’s win over the Islanders propelled them into a tie with Vancouver with one game remaining for each team. Both teams sit atop the NASL Conference standings with 44 pts. Each team is remarkably even. They both have a +10 GD and have played each other to draws twice this season. Goals scored is the next tie breaker and Carolina leads that stat with 41 to Vancouver’s 30, leaving the RailHawks at the top for now.
Looking ahead to next weekend, the Carolina RailHawks are hosting the Austin Aztex who are battling for first place in the USL Conference, and the Vancouver Whitecaps take on the Portland Timbers at Swangard. The Timbers are perhaps the hottest team in the league over the last 8 weeks with a 6-0-2 record. With a Portland win and a Rochester loss, the Timbers could still conceivably end the season tied with Rochester. Both teams sit at 48 points and the season series is split. But Rochester sits with a +13 GD while the Timbers have a +11.
The Rhinos take on AC St. Louis at A-B Park. Rochester have been in a season-ending slump losing 3 of their last 4 games. They will hope that playing St. Louis who have also lost the last 3 of 4 games will jump start them for the playoffs.
If the playoffs were to start today the first round match ups would look like this:
Austin Aztex (1) v Puerto Rico Islanders (8)
Vancouver or Carolina (Top team opposite conference (2)) v Minnesota Stars (7)
Rochester Rhinos (3) v Montreal Impact (6)
Vancouver or Carolina (4) v Portland Timbers (5)
All eyes will be on the Carolina v Austin and Vancouver v Portland matches next weekend.
Remaining games next weekend
| Fri, October 1, 2010 | |||||||
| GAME# | Time | Home | Away | Location | |||
| 274 | 7:00 pm | *Carolina RailHawks | vs | *+Austin Aztex | WakeMed Park | ||
| 275 | 7:30 pm | Tampa Bay Rowdies | vs | Crystal Palace Baltimore | Steinbrenner | ||
| Sat, October 2, 2010 | |||||||
| GAME# | Time | Home | Away | Location | |||
| 278 | 4:00 pm | *Vancouver Whitecaps FC | vs | *Portland Timbers | Swangard | ||
| 276 | 7:10 pm | AC St. Louis | vs | *+Rochester Rhinos | A-B Soccer Park | ||
| 277 | 7:30 pm | Miami FC Blues | vs | *Puerto Rico Islanders | Lockhart | ||
| Sun, October 3, 2010 | |||||||
| GAME# | Time | Home | Away | Location | |||
| 279 | 2:00 pm | *Montreal Impact | vs | *+Austin Aztex | Stade Saputo | ||
xxx
USSF D-2 Pro League 2010
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In a tiebreaker situation, it will come down to:
1)- Head to head
2)- Goal differential
3)- Goals scored
4)- The preceding criteria then applies to only games played on the road by each team
5)- If still tied, the preceding criteria applies only to home games
6)- Coin Toss
Comments are closed.
Brian,
Have you ever figured out what the + by the Aztex name is in the standings? The asterisk was supposed to be clinching a playoff spot, but I’ve never known what the + was for…
My assumption has been that it’s the team that gets to choose — the 1-4 teams. Aztex are guaranteed finishing top 4, and will get to chose whether to host first or second.
Not sure how the Aztex look to have clinched 1st, as they have two games left against Carolina (who want to win) and Montreal (who would like to win, and an insane goalscoring revival by Gerba), while Rochester has St. Louis. It’s not hard to imagine two Aztex losses and a Rochester win, especially since the Aztex have suddenly gone cold on the road.
…not that Rochester’s that hot either. But still, the Aztex are far short of clinching.
ERic, you are correct. I just checked with Philip Faniola from US Soccer and he said at one point there was a key in the standings explaining that the “+” symbol designated the top 4-spots but it must have accidently been removed during a site update.
Thanks Chase for asking the question. I’ve wondered the same thing for a while now but just never asked.
Question…I thought goal differential did not count as the first tie breaker (for points) in the league? If two teams are tied, then the first tie breaker is their head to head results.
@matthew — true. Brian didn’t state it quite right in the text, but he does say “Each team is remarkably even. They both have a +10 GD and have played each other to draws twice this season.” So for Vancouver and Carolina, since they’ve tied each other twice, it goes to goals scored, right?
I think the only problem is that Brian should’ve put that sentence the other way around — “Have drawn twice and have a +10 GD.”
Not sure if there’s another place in the above article that’s confusing. I’m just going from memory and scanning it quickly.
Matthew you were correct. I had a number of things wrong here that I went back and edited. I also missed that Austin had 2 games to play this coming weekend. Austin has a tough task in front of them.
Thanks, Brian, and no worries on the mistakes. Personally, I’m the last one to throw darts at an author. I just wanted to make sure that I understood the tiebreaker rules, as I’ve been messaging them to folks through our site, podcast and conversations. I especially appreciate the clarification on the additional tiebreakers. Keep up the great work.
Still not quite accurate:
“If the Rhinos win and Austin picks up a win and draw the title will belong to Rochester …”
Need to delete that ‘win’ from the Austin part of that phrase. Rochester wins and Austin gets a draw and loss, then Rochester wins on head-to-head.
Man, it’s fun keeping it all straight, ain’t it?
Arghhh! Numbers are not my strong point – needless to say.
Since contrary to the many pre-season predictions of “maybe not winning one game” or “lucky to do better than last year”, the Stars ended up winning 11 games (last year 7) and ended up with 40 points (last year 27), I have a bigger question……..for those truly in tune with D2 soccer, how would you compare the overall player and team quality of the 2010 season with past seasons? Many familiar names have come and gone, but is that good or bad? All personal, subjective feelings aside, I’m wondering what the true hard core fans have to say and comment.
That sir is an EXCELLENT stat and one I wished I had come up with myself. Response to the second part coming after I cook dinner for the family.
Personally, overall I think this years Stars played much better than the previous last two years Thunder teams. The biggest problem is they have missed a sort of “star” who has led the way by his dynamics on the field or goal scoring ability or charisma. I think we are starting to see that through Devin Del do and Simone Bracelello but these things take time and there has been such an influx of players over the last 4 years that there’s been no stability. But overall, I would say that field play has been much better this year.
@ BQ – Perhaps missing the ‘star’ has been the positive difference. Sometimes a team plays better when they don’t have a star among them. I don’t know, but I felt this way the whole season. From the many years I’ve watched Manny coach, I actually think he does better that way.
@ Tom – thanks for starting this type of discussion. I like it.
BTW, Alex at the NSC Stars website laid this whole thing out a lot better than I did by running it down team by team.
http://is.gd/fxDeO