The 2008 MLS trade deadline has passed. There will be no more trades until after the MLS Cup.

Current Draft Order Before Trades

1 SEA 2 LA 3 TOR 4 SJ 5 DC 6 KC 7 DAL 8 COL 9 RSL 10 NY 11 CHI 12 CHV 13 NE 14 HOU 15 CLB
Order is determined as follows: Seattle receives the #1 pick automatically as an expansion team. Click to continue reading...

Momentum. The MLS playoff situation is 2008 is tight, with many teams bunched together. One (or more) of the teams in the pack will inevitably put together a few wins to end the season, and they'll be referred to by the fans and media as the hot team, the one no one wants to play. But does that have any affect on the ultimate outcome of a team's season? Click to continue reading...

There have been plenty of articles over the years about the best Superdraft steals in MLS history. I'm sure everyone knows by now that Jeff Parke was the last pick of the 2004 draft, or that Jonathan Bornstein was a 4th rounder. Steve Davis gave us his top ten back in January at Soccernet in a nice piece. Click to continue reading...

Chicago Fire and Colorado Rapids fans certainly knew the story heading into yesterday's match. On paper it seemed like a match the away team should have been favored in, given the records of the two teams. But both sets of fans knew that the Rapids have dominated the Fire in Colorado for years, and the streak is now at 10 games without a win for Chicago in the Rocky Mountain state. Click to continue reading...

My Superdraft 2009 preview post has been blatantly ripped off by WVhooligan and its author, Drew Epperley. I also discovered did the exact same thing one month ago when I previously updated it, and also last year for my 2008 preview. And it turns out that I'm not the only site he's been ripping off. Just look:


Climbing the Ladder 9/9 - 2009 MLS Superdraft Order & Picks:

Order is determined as follows: #1-7 go to non-playoff teams, #8-11 go to quarterfinalists, #12-13 go to semifinalists, and #14-15 go to the runner up and winner of MLS Cup 2008.

Click to continue reading...

Must read article of the year at Forbes.com. It's great to see them finally doing this with MLS, as they've been doing it for other sports for years. Based on last year's data, 3 teams made a profit (LA, TOR, DAL). Overall, not counting San Jose, the league lost $20 million with $166 million in revenue. Click to continue reading...

1) Toronto FC had to make several emergency call ups this weekend due to their missing internationals. The whole debate about MLS playing during World Cup qualifying is one with an easy answer; it's just a matter of when the changes will happen, not if. John Carver and Mo Johnston can't expect a change to be made mid-season, which would be unprecedented in MLS history. Click to continue reading...

Yes, we'll all know who ultimately ends up qualifying for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. At that time and many years into the future, it will be easy to look at the qualifying standings to see how things turned out. However, one thing that can't easily be determined from a simple glance at the standings is exactly when each team fell out of contention. Click to continue reading...

EDIT: 9/8/2008: Rick Titus' emergency loan resulted in him becoming the 5th oldest player in MLS history, and 6th oldest when taking into account all competitions. Oscar Pareja falls off. because of that. Titus is also the oldest TFC player ever, knocking off Danny Dichio. Meanwhile, Lima moves up a spot on the first list to 22nd. Click to continue reading...

The full list of each team's most valuable player award from 1996-2007. Each Major League Soccer team gives out its own set of team awards at the end of each season, usually announced at the last home regular season game. Not to be confused with the leaguewide awards.

Sometimes the news articles state that the winner's fellow players voted him MVP, but I've read about the media voting as well. Click to continue reading...

The most important qualifier for each region during the next week:


AFC: 9/6 - Saudi Arabia vs Iran

Three teams in Group 2 are expected to compete for the two automatic bids; they are these two and South Korea. Iran struggled a bit during the last round, waiting until the final matchday to advance. Click to continue reading...

Never too early for this. Here's a list of picks that have been traded already. Unfortunately, many of them are conditional and the conditions have not been made public, which makes it really hard to follow.

Trade/Pick Movement List

Round 1

N/A

Round 2

DAL has CLB's pick (2008 picks)

Round 3

DAL has CLB's pick (2008 picks)

Round 4

CLB has CHI's pick (Herron)

Conditional Picks

CHI has CHV's pick (Curtin)
CHV has TOR's pick (Guevara)
DAL has TOR's pick (Ibrahim)
LA has RSL's pick (Mathis)
NY has RSL's pick (Kovalenko)
RSL has CHV's pick (Talley)

Ibrahim pick is a 1st rounder if he plays 10 games in 2009, otherwise it's a 2nd rounder. Click to continue reading...

The reserve division stats on MLSnet are incomplete for both 2005 and 2007; the pdf's for those seasons only go up to a certain point in the season. The former is only missing the final four games, but the latter is missing a huge chunk of the season, so I had to go through each match report and add up things by hand. Click to continue reading...

There are only 9 games left for each team in the regular season. Since each team (finally) has the same number of games played, it makes it easy to compare the schedules for all 14 teams. Going by the total number of points, here is the remaining strength of schedule for each team:

1 New York 279 2 Columbus 278 3 Los Angeles 275 4 Colorado 263 5 DC United 259 5 Kansas City 259 7 Chicago 257 7 Dallas 257 7 Toronto 257 10 New England 256 11 Chivas USA 251 12 San Jose 250 13 Real Salt Lake 243 14 Houston 234
New York, Columbus, and Los Angeles face the toughest schedules, while Houston has the easiest followed by RSL. Click to continue reading...

Previous Updates

#1 4/14 68 players remaining #2 5/18 40 players remaining #3 6/8 25 players remaining
OTFATT is short for "On the field, all the time." In this post and subsequent updates throughout the season, I'll be keeping track of which MLS players have played every minute of every game (regular season only). Click to continue reading...