2009 USL-1 “Normalized” Standings – Week #1

By: BoriQa | April 27th, 2009

What would the USL standings look like if the USL had a “normal” schedule like the European leagues, and most other leagues around the world?

Each team in the league would play a single game per week, with two games against each other team (home and away) in the season.

But since the USL has 11 teams, an odd number of teams, it’s impossible for each team to play only one game every single week.

Currently, teams actually play 3 games against each other team in the season (alternating between 2 home games & 1 away with 1 home & 2 aways against each opponent every other season) for a total of 30 games per season. Sometimes particular teams play 1 or 2 games a week, or none at all.

So what’s a “normalized” standing? The concept was suggested by my friend Yeivo sometime back…

It is a pretty simple concept. There are 30 “normal” weeks in a season. The 1st “normal” week of the season is completed after each team has played their first game of the season, and it only includes the teams’ first game. The 2nd “normal” week of the season is completed after each team has played their 2nd game of the season, and it only includes the teams’ first two games, and so on.

Every regular week teams still playing to complete a particular “normal” week (i.e. 2nd) may be playing with teams that are already on their future “normal” weeks (i.e. 3rd or 4th)

This past weekend when the Porland Timbers played their first game of the season, the 1st “normal” week was completed, as every team had already played at least one game. Some other teams have already played 4 games, but the 4th “normal” week of the season won’t be completed until every team has played 4 games.

This is the 3rd week of the regular season, yet only one “normal” week is completed. “Normal” weeks do not run at the same pace as regular weeks do. Sometimes during a regular week 1, 2 or no “normal” weeks will complete.

Therefore “normal” week standings will not usually match regular season weekly stadings, except at the end of the 30th week/game. By then the “normal” weeks will have caught up with the regular season weeks, and the end result for the both standing formats will be the same.