There is little doubt that TFC's start to the season has put the club in a hole. With just seven points in eight games, the Reds sit 16th in a 19 team league.
How you view that depends on your perspective. Those that wrote this season off before it began are actually pleasantly surprised that TFC is doing even that well.
However, there is a subset of fans that believe that more should be expected of the club.
Regardless of perspective, few are talking about just how tough TFC's start has been. Sure, they've been at home, but they have played a schedule heavily peppered with the league's top teams.
Or have they? Is it possible that TFC's schedule is relatively the same as every other team and any attempt to paint it as being harder is just Toronto fans making excuses for another slow start.
Let's take a look at where the Reds strength of schedule stacks up league-wide.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
By looking at the average points-per-game figure of the teams that each club have played we've ranked all 19 teams strength of schedule through the first two months of the season.
Is it a perfect measure? No, of course not. No measure is. However, it is an additional factor to consider when handicapping whether a club's standing on the table is over or under stated.
If a club is low on the table, but has a high strength of schedule ranking it's more likely that they can move up the table when they start to play weaker sides. Conversely , a highly ranked team with a lower SoS ranking might be due for a correction.
The rankings:
[TABLE=width: 500]
[TR]
[TD]Team[/TD]
[TD]SoS[/TD]
[TD]SoS rank[/TD]
[TD]Actual standing[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Toronto[/TD]
[TD]1.72[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]16[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Chicago[/TD]
[TD]1.63[/TD]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]17[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Vancouver[/TD]
[TD]1.54[/TD]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD]13[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Colorado[/TD]
[TD]1.48[/TD]
[TD]4[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]San Jose[/TD]
[TD]1.48[/TD]
[TD]4[/TD]
[TD]12[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]DC United[/TD]
[TD]1.46[/TD]
[TD]6[/TD]
[TD]19[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Portland[/TD]
[TD]1.42[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Galaxy[/TD]
[TD]1.40[/TD]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD]4[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Seattle[/TD]
[TD]1.40[/TD]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD]18[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Dallas[/TD]
[TD]1.39[/TD]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Chivas[/TD]
[TD]1.38[/TD]
[TD]11[/TD]
[TD]9[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Kansas City[/TD]
[TD]1.34[/TD]
[TD]12[/TD]
[TD]6[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]New England[/TD]
[TD]1.34[/TD]
[TD]12[/TD]
[TD]15[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Montreal[/TD]
[TD]1.24[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[TD]2[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Salt Lake[/TD]
[TD]1.24[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[TD]11[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]New York[/TD]
[TD]1.19[/TD]
[TD]16[/TD]
[TD]3[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Houston[/TD]
[TD]1.17[/TD]
[TD]17[/TD]
[TD]5[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Columbus[/TD]
[TD]1.15[/TD]
[TD]18[/TD]
[TD]8[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Philly[/TD]
[TD]1.14[/TD]
[TD]19[/TD]
[TD]10[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
The most obvious weakness to this measure is that weaker teams tend to lose, which in turn pushes their SoS number higher (by virtue of the fact that they are increasing their opponents PPG number). However, that does even out as the year goes on. Looking at this list two months into the season is early, but not without some merit.
Focusing on Toronto, it's clear that, even when compared to other teams that are subjectively seen to be weaker, Toronto has had a significantly difficult schedule to start the year.
Does that mean we can expect the Reds to shoot up the table as the year goes on? Of course not, but some correction can be reasonably expected to occur.
The teams that really should be concerned are those that have a mediocre standing and low SoS ranking -- I'm looking at you Columbus and Philly. Those teams may look to be in better standing than Toronto right now, but they might not be as far ahead of the game as it looks on first glance.
Montreal's low ranking is likely evidence that a correction can be expected there as well. However, the Impact also illustrate another flaw of this measure -- a point on the table is better than a projected one.