WPS is full of statistics

By: Melissa | July 22nd, 2009

My guess is they make the interns collect all that data. Not only does the WPS site have league stats, they also break it down with individual team stats. Now the WPS fancorner has daily updates of possible playoff scenarios stats. On Wednesday, the playoff run continues and LA Sol has another chance to clinch the regular season title. St Louis could either tie or lose to Sky Blue or LA could tie or lose to FCGP – because LA only needs one effin point to get this. It’s almost poetic. Poetic in the sense that the Sol’s W-League affiliate and defending title champions, Pali Blues, just lost their bid for the USL season title (and the winner was the former Sky Blue FC now – ahem – Hudson Valley Quickstrike Lady Blues). Pali doesn’t get their automatic bye to the finals this time around and we’ll find out shortly if the Sol has to hang in there for just a little bit longer. (And just because I’m on the tangent, I totally saw that post at The Original Winger about the Tony Danza Army and all I gotta say about that is, the next time I’m in LA during the W-League season, I want to join up with that crew!)

Now, after watching the atrocious offensive play from STL during their Saturday game against Washington, I’d guess this week is in the bag for LA already except Lori Chalupny is back from National Team training camp and training with STL. Lori Chaloopa… who just so happens to be the second highest goal scorer for STL (thank you stats page) and who strangely enough has become the offensive spark for this team. And Sky Blue after their amazing fire-the-coach-and-start-winning-shit late season run, are barely hanging on to their lead over Washington. So by the time they meet the Freedom on Aug 8th, that game could be a post season deal-breaker. WPS has the break-down (thanks again to the stats collector person whoever you are)

While all games are key at this time in the season, looming on the horizon is a potential one-game elimination match on August 8th to get into the playoffs between current 4th-place Sky Blue FC and fifth-place Washington Freedom, who are currently 2 points back from a playoff spot. Washington has a 6-5 goals edge on the season series with a win and a tie, so if the two teams come in tied on points, then Washington would only need a tie to earn the head-to-head tiebreak, while Sky Blue FC would need a victory. If Washington comes into the game behind by 1, 2 or 3 points in the standings, Washington would still take the season series with a victory against Sky Blue FC and would also edge them for a playoff berth thanks to the head-to-head tiebreak.

I just checked and it looks like this upcoming match is not available on tv or online which is (drumroll please) poetic and kind of sums up the inagural WPS season in a, err, metaphorical type nutshell.