Academy Task 5: Major Division Awards and Team of the Season - Printable Version +- SSL Forum (https://forum.simulationsoccer.com) +-- Forum: Player Development (https://forum.simulationsoccer.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=5) +--- Forum: Capped Point Tasks (https://forum.simulationsoccer.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=23) +---- Forum: Articles (https://forum.simulationsoccer.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=46) +---- Thread: Academy Task 5: Major Division Awards and Team of the Season (/showthread.php?tid=5753)

Academy Task 5: Major Division Awards and Team of the Season - Rich - 2024-10-07 Hey gang! With the S16 awards just recently posted, let's take a look at some Major Division awards and Team of the Season selections. Specifically, which teams receive the most? Disclaimer: I am not much of a statistics guy and I'm not the most skilled at manipulating spreadsheets, so hopefully my numbers are accurate. Also, there are a few instances of these awards being shared between multiple players. For example, 4 players shared the Golden Eye award in S13, including two players from Sao Paulo. So while 5 awards over 16 seasons would account for 80 total awards, because of this sharing, there have actually been 91 awards in total. To begin, we'll look at Most Valuable Player, Manager of the Year, Golden Boot, Golden Eye, and Golden Glove. Then we'll take a look at Team of the Season selections and see how they compare. If you're like me, you're curious about league history. You may have popped your head into some of the award history threads and thought to yourself, "Wow, sure does look like Hollywood and Reykjavik have won a lot of awards." You would be right. Between these 5 awards, those two teams account for 40 wins. Numbers at the bottom of the post. Across these 5 awards, has a team ever swept all 5? Let's call it a soft yes. In S11 Reykjavik won all 5, however, the Golden Glove was shared between players in Reykjavik and São Paulo. It wouldn't be wrong to say yes, but I think it would be more correct to say "Yes, but..." Ok, in terms of individual awards, the most successful teams in SSL history are clearly Hollywood and Reykjavik. Does that translate to Division Championships? A quick glance at the list of Major Division Champions will tell you that appears to be the case. All 22 of Reykjavik's individual awards have been won between S10 and S16. In that time they have won 4 Division Championships. In an extremely similar fashion, all 18 of Hollywood's individual awards were won between S1 and S9. Over that period, they won 5 Division Championships, including a stretch of 4 in a row. Next, let's look at the Team of the Season. Team of the Season paints a similar picture as the awards, but we get a better look because of the larger number of spots awarded. The introduction of alternate slots in S10 allows for more players to be recognized for their contributions and allows for more even representation. Reykjavik is still well represented with 34 selections, but Tokyo is not far behind with 31, and Hollywood has the third most at 25. Tokyo stands out a little bit here with so many selections but only one Division Championship in their history. They have five Cup wins and have been around since the first season, generally finishing towards the top of the Division, which probably accounts for the large number of selections. Numbers at the bottom of the post. This all may seem fairly obvious. The best teams are likely to have the best players, of course. The next question I would ask is what makes these players and teams good. Is it player builds? Team tactics? Is it simply a matter of having more TPE? My hunch is it's a mix of all of these things, but someone with more insight into the league and the history of these teams might be able to give a better answer. I wanted to look at awards because I was hoping that while putting this together I'd come to some kind of thoughtful conclusion or reach some kind of realization about the league. I guess the closest I came to that is getting a better idea of how good Hollywood was in the past and how good Reykjavik has been recently. It feels like the league is still trying to find a good competitive balance. Hopefully we're able to find it, and we see awards spread around more evenly. Award counts by team: 22 - Reykjavik 18 - Hollywood  8 - Tokyo 7 -  Sydney 6 - Schwarzwälder 6 - Buenos Aires 6 - Cairo 5 - Inter London 5 - São Paulo 3 - Athênai FC 3 - Catalunya 2 - AC Romana Team of the Season selections by team: 34 - Reykjavik 31 - Tokyo 25 - Hollywood 20 - Catalunya 16 - Schwarzwälder 12 - Inter London 11 - Athênai FC 11 - Buenos Aires 11 - Cairo 9 - São Paulo 9 - Sydney 8 - AC Romana 1 - FC Rio 1 - Montréal