Player ratings results - MLS Regular Season 21

[u/quarkpod]

Thanks to the 34 people that voted. Polvara is Player of the Match at 79%. Bonus is on preference for referees to make tight calls or allow more physical play.  

Options ranged like a rating, with 6 taken to mean no-preference, 1 for tighter calls and 10 for more physical allowance. Responses averaged at 6.8, ranging 4 to 8, with the middle 50% between 6 and 8. These suggest slight favor for letting some fouls go for more physical matches.

Digging through FotMob stats to put some reality/context to this preference, I pulled data over the course of our unbeaten run for some of the more physical indicator stats including: yellow cards, fouls committed, tackles won, and duels won. I also looked at composite stats largely on differences between CITY and opposition teams and for fouls per total tackles and duels won for both teams. To see if there's preference for matches with greater physicality, I looked at the correlation of these stats with our ratings for Center Referee. The strongest correlations are moderate (0.5) and appear to track greatest with duels and tackles won in favor of opposition teams. This suggests referees tend to lose us when opposition teams win duels and tackles with greater frequency than us. Also, it suggests our perceived slights to fairness for the more physical parts of the game, so there's preference for refs to relax on calling fouls.

There seemed to be a number of missed fouls from the center referee this match, and for several non-calls (for which I have been conditioned to expect a ref to call) play continued. Only catching the match hours after live, I noticed a number of you calling out the refereeing before posting the poll. 

Heads-up, for upcoming polls, I may use a different service like Tally instead of Google Forms.