MLS Road Form Pointer
We wrote around a year ago the importance of home advantage, and how it isn't always quite the same across different leagues. You might recall, the MLS came out on top by a mile for the league where home advantage counts for more than any other top league.
Just 23% of matches were won by the away side in the five year sample of MLS matches we looked at - compared to 29% in La Liga and Serie A and 30% in the Premier League and Bundesliga. It was the only league out of over 20 we analysed which saw the away team collect fewer than 1pt per match on average.
So with this in mind, the start that Los Angeles FC have made to this season has to be taken seriously. The fact they have started with six consecutive road games has probably disguised their success to some extent, but four wins from those fixtures represents something special.
From 17 road fixtures last season, only two Western Conference sides managed more than that last season, while only five in the whole of MLS bettered it. The nature of those resutls have been pretty good as well - 1-0 at Seattle, 5-1 winners at Real Salt Lake, and then getting five again at Montreal yesterday in a 5-3 win. Things might have been even better had it not been for Zlatan Ibrahovic leading a recovering from 3-0 down to eventually see Galaxy win their Los Angeles derby 4-3.
Having opened at 33/1, Los Angeles FC have surely proved themselves a better proposition than they were in early March, and 20/1 looks an e/w steal at this point with BetWay.
1pt e/w Los Angeles FC to win the MLS Cup at 20/1 (n.b the MLS is resolved in a similar way to American Football and other US Conference Sports, with Champions determined following Play-Offs and an end of season Championship Final)