USL League One Ratings: Week 10 (First Publication)

As of the time that I began typing this post, the 2021 USL League One season is more than 20% complete, with 38 of 168 regular season games in the books. And I don’t mean simply metaphorical books, but Excel workbooks as well. That’s right, it’s time for amateur statisticians (me) to pretend they know what they’re talking about as they publish team ratings. I’ve been sharing the ratings internally amongst the WGaH media empire early in the season, and some members believed early on that these ratings had a little spice, so I’m curious to see if they believe they’ve mellowed out some.

If you didn’t read my introductory article to how I’m calculating ratings this season or need a refresher, feel free to go back to this article to learn more. I will talk briefly about how we got to these ratings, but without further ado let’s take a look (ratings as of matches played through 06.06.2021):

Rank	Team (W-D-L)	Rating
1	Union Omaha (4-2-1)	2.251
2	Greenville Triumph (4-1-0)	1.919
3	Forward Madison (3-2-1)	1.125
4	Chattanooga Red Wolves (3-1-1)	1.030
5	Richmond Kickers (3-1-3)	0.626
6	Toronto FC II (1-3-1)	0.306
7	FC Tucson (2-2-2)	-0.111
8	North Texas SC (2-1-3)	-0.131
9	Fort Lauderdale CF (4-1-5)	-0.419
10	New England Revolution II (2-1-3)	-0.833
11	South Georgia Tormenta (2-0-6)	-1.417
12	North Carolina FC (0-1-4)	-1.666

So here are a couple of broad takeaways at first glance:

• Union Omaha being ahead of Greenville Triumph by a moderately healthy margin, even with a loss
• There is a rather wide disparity between teams that are either .500 or just one game below .500

The first one is fairly simple to explain away: Union Omaha just finished a very successful road trip. Points on the road matter. For example, Union Omaha’s 2-0 win at Fort Lauderdale was worth twice as much as North Texas’ 4-2 home win versus them two weekends before. So not only are we accumulating points on the road, but we also don’t have as many ho-hum results at home to water down those results. In fact, here are the three most impressive results so far this season:

Date	Match	Rating
04.17.2021	New England 0-3 Richmond	5.177 (Richmond)
05.07.2021	Fort Lauderdale 0-2 Omaha	4.209 (Omaha)
06.06.2021	Madison 1-2 Omaha	4.133 (Omaha)

But even with more positive results, Union Omaha could still cede the top spot to Greenville (now that they’re actually playing again). We have some home games coming up, and those games will balance out the strength of schedule we’ve played so far. Union Omaha’s current strength of schedule played is 0.522, which is quite impressive given we are responsible for a portion of that record of 1-2-4 (1). For example, you have to go all the way down to New England in 10th place in the ratings to find a team that has played a more difficult schedule so far this season.

As for the disparity between similar teams in the middle, it usually can boil down to just one game. See above with Richmond Kickers, who currently have the highest rated game so far this season. However, without a great performance this upcoming weekend against Madison their rating will suffer. Not just because of the potential for a loss, but also because Richmond is playing their eighth match. Remember, once a team has played eight matches their best and worst results are removed from their calculation, as those matches are being considered outliers. So, removing their best and worst game will likely hurt Richmond’s rating, probably more so than it would most other teams. Let’s compare them to Union Omaha for example, who are also about to play their eighth game this weekend:

Team	Date	Best/Worst	Result	Value
Richmond	04.17.2021	Best	New England 0-3 Richmond	5.177
Richmond	05.02.2021	Worst	Fort Lauderdale 2-1 Richmond	-1.953
Omaha	05.07.2021	Best	Fort Lauderdale 0-2 Omaha	4.209
Omaha	05.26.2021	Worst	Madison 2-1 Omaha	-1.189

So Richmond may only be dropping a slightly higher net value than Omaha, but they do so with a lot less buffer to play with. I’ll try to not simply throw the rest of the individual match values at you, but here are both team’s 2nd best and 2nd worst results at the moment, both of which are likely to remain part of how their overall rating is calculated next week:

Team	Date	Best/Worst	Result	Value
Richmond	06.05.2021	2nd best	Richmond 3-2 New England	1.480
Richmond	05.29.2021	2nd worst	Chattanooga 2-1 Richmond	-1.190
Omaha	06.06.2021	2nd best	Madison 1-2 Omaha	4.133
Omaha	06.02.2021	2nd worst	Toronto 1-1 Omaha	1.721

The difference in each team’s net value from the above matches is quite stark. That’s why losing this upcoming weekend, even though it’s on the road against a strong opponent like Madison, could cause Richmond to shift considerably in the order that teams are rated.

I will post updates to these ratings each week through the rest of the season. I’m not sure how much any of us will get out of looking ahead to the weekend slate with ratings in mind and, frankly, I’m just happy to be here talking about numbers with other number nerds, but let’s do it (Note: in the event this is published on 06.10.2021 or later, I will not consider the TFC II v. Tormenta match on 06.09.2021):

Date	Home	Away	Quick Synopsis
06.12.2021	Union Omaha (2.251)	New England Revolution II (-0.833)	This is Union Omaha’s eighth game, so their outlier matches will be removed after this match. Anything less than a two goal victory at home will marginally help their rating at best, or possibly even lower it.
06.12.2021	Forward Madison (1.125)	Richmond Kickers (0.626)	As mentioned before, Richmond are probably more affected by this match than Madison.
06.12.2021	FC Tucson (-0.111)	Chattanooga Red Wolves (1.030)	The fact this match is simply being played helps both, they currently have the lowest and third lowest strength of schedule in the league.
06.13.2021	North Texas SC (-0.131)	Greenville Triumph (1.919)	This is the kind of match that has one-sided potential. North Texas probably doesn’t suffer much with a loss, but both teams can gain considerably with a win since the match is in Arlington.
06.13.2021	South Georgia Tormenta (-1.417)	Toronto FC II (0.306)	The same can probably be said of both matches they’ll play this week, but results instead of draws will shape Toronto’s rating considerably given they’ve only played five matches.

Thanks for reading, everyone. I look forward to sharing these updates with you from now until the cup is lifted!

Footnotes:

(1) So if you calculate our strength of schedule the way I’m calculating it (which is counting each match individually, therefore Madison counts twice, for example), you get a winning percentage of 0.522. But since we’ve played those teams that means, naturally, our results against them are included. And since our record is 4-2-1, that means those teams combined records, when you don’t include our results, would actually be even better.

Raw data for Tormenta, Fort Lauderdale, Revs 2, Greenville, Toronto, and Madison (twice):
Their overall combined records: 19-10-17 (.522)
Their combined records when you remove our results: 17-8-12 (.568)

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