Three wins in a row for Toronto FC? Really?
After a four-game losing streak seemed to portent a somehow-even-earlier-than-usual capitulation for the Reds, the team has now gone unbeaten in six of their past seven, with five wins in that span. That’s launched them from the league basement on April 25 to fourth-place in Major League Soccer’s Eastern Conference as of their most recent victory. They also have five games in hand on the East-leading D.C. United.
But how does this standing—six wins, five losses and one tie, for a win percentage of .542—compare to past seasons after 12 games?
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Well, turns out this is the team’s third-best standing to this point. Twice in TFC’s history (in 2008 and 2014) they’ve sat at 6-4-2 for a win-loss percentage of .583.
But neither of those teams managed to maintain or better that standing from that point on. In fact, no TFC side in franchise history has managed a higher win percentage than .577 past that point.
Here’s a visualization of every TFC season by game throughout their history (note: the league moved from a 30-game season to a 34-game season in 2011):
And for ease of viewing, here’s just the 2015 season against the team’s best-ever standing by game:
The thing that pops out from these charts is that several iterations of TFC have hovered around where the team is currently at. The real test for this team will be proving it’s not just a carbon copy of previous flashes in the pan.
The other thing is that they’ll need to keep up their form to reach rarefied air. Two more wins in a row—at home on June 20 and 24 versus New York City FC and the Montreal Impact—will get them a best-ever start by win percentage after 14 games.
Three other things I learned in collecting the data for this chart:
• In TFC’s nine seasons they’ve never once started 3–0, and they’ve only won three opening-day games.
• This current 3–0 stretch is only the team’s third such streak in its history (the other two came in 2008 and 2012).
• They’ve never won four in a row.
