The biweekly Canadian Soccer News power rankings (I.e. the current TSR rankings) update below the jump:
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Before we get into the numbers, a reminder of what TSR -- total shot ratio -- is.
TSR is a complicated way to express a basic thing. Specifically, it's an expression of what percentage of a game's shots a team generates. This matters, because the more shots a team generates the more goals they score. That's not a debatable fact. And, to add to that, the more goals a team scores the more wins they get.
Again, not controversial.
So, teams with a high TSR value typically, OVER THE LONG RUN, do better than teams that have a low rating.
If you're interested in seeing how well TSR correlates to points in a table you can read some great work on the subject (using the Premier League) here: http://pena.lt/y/2013/04/02/understa...o-in-football/
Before we go on a word on outliers.
They exist. They exist in every statistical evaluation, everywhere. Generally they exist because of a little thing sports fans hate to acknowledge: luck. Luck, OVER THE LONG RUN, typically runs out. When that happens no one knows, which is why the magic of sport really isn't ruined by numbers. They don't matter once the games start.
There are some odd outliers so far in the MLS season. One of the reasons we are tracking TSR from the start to the end of the year is to try and understand those outlying numbers more. If a team with a poor TSR continues to do well all year (SPOILER ALERT -- RSL) then something else is going on beyond dumb luck (if it's the latter it will almost certainly correct over 34 games).
(Week 7 ranking in brackets)
1. Kansas City .652 (1)
2. Los Angeles .620 (2)
3. Philly .536 (11)
4. Vancouver .521 (14)
5. Houston .520 (8)
6. Chicago .519 (3)
7. Colorado .510 (4)
8. Seattle .508 (15)
9. Columbus .487 (9)
10. Toronto .486 (13)
11. New York .483 (12)
12. Montreal .482 (5)
13. Chivas .480 (7)
14. Portland .477 (10)
15. New England .460 (16)
16. DC United .460 (17)
17. San Jose .446 (6)
18. Dallas .444 (18)
19. Salt Lake .434 (19)
Once again Salt Lake confounds. Keeping matters...
Also, things are beginning to even out as teams even up away versus home fixtures and just plain have played more.
Are these numbers predictive yet? Well, we probably will see some more moves in next few weeks, but we are close to the 1/3 mark. By the next update you can safely speculate in your favourite betting company futures market.