May 20th, 2008 . 9:54 am . By: Buzz Carrick

There was some discussion among some of the learned media both before and after the LA game in regard to a perhaps poor FCD record in front of big crowds. I asked a well versed in FCD history friend of mine about it and he put together the following numbers using official MLS league games.

Crowds of 20k+ at the Cotton Bowl: 5-0-2 (.857)
Crowds of 20k+ at Pizza Hut Park: 2-2-0 (.500)

Crowds of 15k+ at CB: 17-5-5 (.722)
Crowds of 15k+ at PHP: 10-7-3 (.575)

All games < 15k at CB: 58-37-6 (.604)
All games < 15k at PHP: 13-6-6 (.640)

Now the larger than 20k sample isn’t particularly big, but we can draw a few conclusions.

- During the Cotton Bowl days, the Burn actually played better in front of big crowds (.722 vs .604), and were never beaten in front of 20k+.
- At Pizza Hut Park, FC Dallas has a worse record in front of bigger crowds than smaller crowds (.575 vs .640), and they have lost half their games in front of 20k+.

Which tells that yes, there is a disturbing tendency since moving to PHP for FCD to play worse in front of large crowds and the bigger the crowd gets the worse FCD gets. That’s the complete opposite from the Cotton Bowl where the bigger the crowd got the better FCD got.

I’m sure there could be some other factor at work like kick off time and day of the week, perhaps who the opposition was. It’s not a statistically sound analysis that eliminates other factors, but it’s still quite interesting.

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