Team Performance over the Past 10 Seasons

[By-Tor]

Club Performance over the Past 10 Seasons

In this article, we will explore team performance over the past decade, specifically analyzing standing point percentages. Point percentages give a better look at team performance than point totals or finishing position, especially since the amount of matches per season changed with the recent expansion. This factor also makes it easier to chart and graph, since it is a relative variable. 

To begin, let's look at team performance by season over the past ten seasons* (*including this season so far that is not yet concluded):

And also, before we get into too much discussion, here is that same information displayed in a table format:

Two things immediately stand out to me: 

First, Uniao Sao Paulo was really bad there for a while. They benefitted a ton from the change in divisions to a major/minor league formatting. To only have 3 points in the standings over three seasons is absolutely abysmal. They are bottom feeders in the chart and are bursting bright red in the formatted table. 

The second thing that pops out to me is the dominance of Reykjavik United and Schwarzwalder FV. I was originally going to title this article "Parity? Never Heard of Her." but decided against it. The utter dominance of these two clubs over 6+ seasons essentially blocked any other franchise from even coming close to sniffing a Cup win. Reykjavik has been in the top two every season for the past 9 years, and is in danger of falling out of that distinction this year if they don't start winning some more. Schwarzwalder has really come back down to earth and needs to get their act together. When I first thought that there was a lack of parity, I really think instead now that these elongated windows of success just align well with peak player TPE windows and excellent roster building. There is obviously room to move up and down the standings, the best example of that being Sao Paulo. 

Both new expansion teams are looking to improve this season over last season, even though they are lower in the overall standings. 

The real underperformer we see here (or the Minnesota as we say in SHL) is CF Catalunya. The club has only broken 0.500 once (8 seasons ago) and are perennially struggling at the bottom of the league table. 

A promising club is Hollywood FC, who has seen more or less consistent growth over the past 10 seasons to find themselves at the top of the table this season. 

Two very interesting teams to me are Tokyo and Buenos Aires. Both teams are about as average or mid as you can be - never being near the bottom of the standings, but also never being near the top. 

Cumulatively, the past ten seasons looked like this if you average everything together:

A big gap between the top two and the rest of the field as stated earlier. A lot of parity in the middle as teams clog up the 0.400 ranges, with a few bottom feeders.

I hope you enjoyed reading, Cheers!

[Zoone16]

Love the article. But use team colours for those graphs xD

[By-Tor]

Love the article. But use team colours for those graphs xD

On it. U right

[FuriousChicken]

Want to quickly add that the dominance of Reykjavik/Schwarzwälder kept other teams from league wins, Reykjavik's cup dominance has caused a lot of different teams to be cup winners in those 10 seasons xD

Also was curious, the numbers are those average points or? (for the rest, I love these kind of articles).

[By-Tor]

Want to quickly add that the dominance of Reykjavik/Schwarzwälder kept other teams from league wins, Reykjavik's cup dominance has caused a lot of different teams to be cup winners in those 10 seasons xD

Also was curious, the numbers are those average points or? (for the rest, I love these kind of articles).

Average point percentages. For example, 14 games x 3 points = 42 possible points. Standings points divided by that number.

[Beavie]

"or the Minnesota as we say in SHL" BRO! THEY ARE CATCHING STRAYS IN ANOTHER LEAGUE!

But as a new-ish user, I do see it is interesting to see how some teams are able to stay on top and stay on top for a long time. I think the regression rules may play a role into how teams have been able to keep on top for so long, but this is also a league with 20 full seasons under its belt, if a window is even more than 5 seasons, then you have a window for a quarter of the league's entire history. I do think it is something which likely will come with time, seeing what balance of parity the league wants. Saying all this, I still have to point out that in the end, Reykjavik United and Schwarzwalder FV have been ran very well and they have been near the top consistently due to that. Then again: We in Shanghai did just BEAT SFV, so the Dragons are now the new number two team!

Wait, that's not how it works? Shit. But at least we can see there is possibility for movement. USP has had a big jump and Hollywood has had such a good consistent rise over the course of several seasons. With SFV slipping a bit, I think there is a chance that more teams will find themselves crawling for space up the league table. Expansion also may be a big curve ball for a lot of orgs too with some of them being forced to either start a rebuild sooner or teams rebuilding be forced to decide between a more ready prospect vs a younger one who may have more time left with them.

[Hero19]

I mean this is simply excellent work and the level of effort you've put into this shines through clearly. I'm a sucker for numbers and you've clearly extrapolated some key stats.

Media Grade 5/5