Winning on the road

With the Sounders about to head off to their first road game in franchise history, I thought I would take a look at how past expansion teams have fared on the road. The statistics are... ghastly, really.

San Jose, 2008. 2-8-5. 11 points.
Toronto FC, 2007. 1-10-4. 7 points.
Real Salt Lake, 2005. 0-14-2. 2 points (!).
Chivas USA, 2005. 1-11-4. 7 points.

Those are some truly horrible numbers. But in reality, in MLS it's very difficult to win games on the road no matter how new or old your team is. Last year, no team won more than 6 games on the road. Three accomplished that feat, and those three were the best Eastern Conference teams - Columbus, New England, and Chicago. The average number of games won on the road last year was 3.35. Out of 15 total games!

Clearly success on the road will not come easily, and the Sounders shouldn't expect their success thus far to carry over to Toronto on Saturday, in one of the most hostile environments in the league. Anything other than a loss would be a huge surprise to me. So temper your expectations for the upcoming match.

Of course, if they *do* manage to win somehow, then we could be in for a special season indeed.