It's Time

So this is what you meant
When you said that you were spent
And now it's time to build from the bottom of the pit
Right to the top
Don't hold back

-Imagine Dragons

At the risk of sounding hyperbolic tonight's match may be the most important match so far of the Crew's season.  I read a lot of Sports Club Stats.  All of the winning percentage stats contained herein are directly from this website.  It's a website that does all of the hard math that I don't have the patience for and spits out probabilities that show whether teams will or will not make the post season.  It's a website that's on my weekly reading list during the season, and if you are looking for a real snapshot of how the club is doing, it should be on yours as well.

Here's what we know as of this point.  Before this weekend's matches started the Crew had a 24.1% chance of making the playoffs.  I'll break down the east in a bit here, but at first glance that is a stark number.  Our current magic number is 30 points.  Due to Columbus' games in hand we still have some opportunity to guide ourselves in to the playoffs without any help from outside sources.  59 points will do it.  It doesn't lock up a specific seed (although the odds heavily favor not participating in the play-in match between 4th and 5th if Columbus finishes with 55 points or more), but it gets us in.

So far, this weekend's results haven't been kind to us.  Kansas City defeating Toronto dropped us another 0.4%.  Montreal's win over San Jose dropped us 0.5% and Chicago hurt us the most by beating New England dropping us 2.3%.

This puts the current chance of the Crew making the playoffs at roughly 20.9%.  Is there any question why this match is important?

As I'm writing this the Union are up on Untied by a score of 1-0 if a Union win holds that reverses our fortunes by 2.9% in the positive column.  Also tonight's Red Bull v Timbers match could help us as well.  If the Timbers win our chances increase by 2.1%.

As you may have guessed the biggest impact in our playoff chances is not results achieved by other teams, but instead our own results.  The entire point to this, and my reasoning for the importance of tonight's match, is that a win over Houston will increase our playoff chances by 16%.  A draw, this late in the season, barely moves the needle.  Compare that to our fixture against abysmal Toronto midweek.  Yes, it's important to pick up points, but as Toronto is all but mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, it has nowhere near the importance of tonight's match.  A win against Toronto will only increase our chance of making the playoffs 5.8% and drawing Toronto actually would decrease our chance of making the playoffs.

What's the point of all this, you might ask.  Well, lets take a look at the magic numbers for the east.

	Club	Current Points	Total Points Needed to Lock Playoff Spot	Magic Number
1	Sporting	46	59	13
2	Red Bull	41	59	18*
3	F*re	41	59	18
4	Dynamo	40	59	19*
5	L'Impact	36	N/A	N/A
6	United	36	59	23
7	Crew	29	59	30
8	Union	26	57	31
9	Revs	23	56	33**
10	TFC	20	N/A	N/A

*There is a potential for NYRB and Houston to lock a playoff spot with only 58 points, but NYRB would have to finish 4-5-1 and Houston would have to finish 4-6-0.  This would reduce their magic numbers by 1 however since there are other records which would cause them to not lock their playoff spots I have set their magic numbers to the lowest possible point total where the way you get there does not factor.

** The Revs MUST win out the remainder of their schedule to accomplish this.

Currently two teams in the east can not make the playoffs based on just winning.  Montreal, due to the fact they've played so many more matches than the other teams in the division (27) and Toronto, due to their horrible start this year.

The schedule both helps and hurts the Crew going in to the home stretch.  The Crew play one more Western Conference team (Chivas) which can help to gain points, but will do nothing to hinder a conference opponent.  There are six matches against teams that are currently above the Crew in the standings.  The remaining six matches are against teams ranked lower.  The fact that there are only three teams lower in the standings than Columbus and they get to play them the same amount of times as the six teams ranked higher is nothing but helpful.  If you add to that the fact that Montreal has a lower PPG than Columbus that actually throws another match in to the "Teams We Play that are Worse Than Us" category.

What is my point here?  I'm a data nerd... and this game is damn important.  This match is the lynchpin for the remainder of the Crew season and could help ultimately determine if the club makes the playoffs or not.  Losing this match would drop the team's chances to make the playoffs in to the teens.  Hoping for three full points tonight.  Lets see what happens at 9.

The path to heaven runs through miles of clouded hell
Right to the top
Don't look back