by PART I: A Silly Place PART II: The Team
The world’s favorite season is the spring. All things seem possible in May. – Edwin Way Teale
Midwest Region – Great Lakes Division
Overall, the 2019 schedule looks fairly balanced, at least better than most years. There are no more than two consecutive home or away matches at any time, and both are pretty evenly distributed throughout the schedule.
The month of May looks manageable; the only real away trip is to FC Indiana, which should be the weakest team in the division and possibly the entire NPSL, while the toughest match – Ann Arbor – is home at Keyworth Stadium.
June is much more packed, including back-to-back two-match weekends on 6/7-6/9, and 6/14-6/16. The first of those, while it begins at home against FC Indiana, concludes with a challenging Sunday afternoon away to Grand Rapids.
The second weekend, ending with a match at Toledo, looks a little less difficult. While it’s always tough to predict how new teams will do, I’m willing to bet one with multiple high school players on its roster may struggle a bit.
By far the toughest part of the schedule comes in early July, where a Friday home match on the 5th against Grand Rapids is followed by a Sunday away day at Ann Arbor on the 7th. That weekend could very well decide the division’s playoff participants and could also have a big impact on seeding.
Predicted Order of Finish
- Grand Rapids FC
- Detroit City FC
- AFC Ann Arbor
- FC Columbus
- Michigan Stars
- Kalamazoo FC
- Toledo Villa
- FC Indiana
This one is tough to call because I think the three teams at the top are very close in terms of talent and should end up within a few points of each other.
I’m going to give the nod to Grand Rapids to continue last season’s resurgence and win the division.
I really believe City will make the playoffs, but I think a few early hiccups will prevent them from taking the top spot.
Ann Arbor is always strong, but almost two thirds of their current roster are newcomers, so I’ll pick THIS as the year for them to have a sliiiiight dropoff.
After that, I think there will be a gap between third place and the next tier of teams. Columbus fielded a quality squad in their expansion season of 2018, narrowly missing the playoffs, so I’ll pick them at the top of this group.
While I enjoy bagging on the Michigan Stars “organization,” they typically field respectable teams with some good players, so they might have an outside shot at a top three finish.
Kalamazoo is always capable of pulling off some surprising results, but they often struggle with consistency, so they feel like a #6 to me.
Expansion teams are tough to peg, but, as mentioned above, a quick glance at Toledo Villa’s roster shows multiple high schoolers. While that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s no talent on the team – those guys may not even be in line for meaningful playing time – if you’re digging that deep for players it leads me to believe you’re going to have more than a few issues.
The 2018 edition of FC Indiana was, to put it kindly, the least best team to ever compete in the same division as City.
Going further, they were probably one of the worst teams in NPSL history. Even Eau Claire/LaCrosse Aris, the gold standard of suck, had an all-time worst goal differential of -60, playing 14 matches in 2017. Last year’s FC Indiana, playing 12 matches, scored 4! times while conceding 75!! for a differential of -71!!!
I’m more confident that FC Indiana will finish last than any other prediction in this post. It takes more than one year to dig out of a hole that deep.
Playoffs and Beyond
Upon research, the playoff format is the same as last year: the top two teams from each Midwest division qualify for the regional tournament; the #1 and #2 overall seeds (determined by PPG) get first round byes; the winner of regional tournament advances to NPSL Final Four.
City has a few questions it will have to answer, but 2019 is an odd year, and I have to take the odd year magic into account. Since this may be the team’s final year in NPSL, I might as well tie up my objectivity, lock it in a closet, and go all in:
City will make it to the NPSL championship game and beat Chattanooga on penalties. We will be gracious and magnanimous in victory and never bring it up ever again.
5 Wild Guesses
(1) Shawn Lawson will score at least 10 goals in competitive matches.
(2) City will go unbeaten at home in the regular season.
(3) Bakie Goodman will win the Black Arrow Award.
(4) A new attendance record of 8500+ will be set, and the club will average 6000 for competitive matches.
(5) In addition to those already signed on for the Founders Cup, five more players on the current roster will earn pro contracts for the fall.
