A computer program I wrote uses the MLS standings information from the MLS website to compute a playoff magic numbers matrix and display it as a web page. The matrix is regenerated every time you visit the page. No wombats or other animals are harmed in the generation of the matrices.
When you access the Magic Numbers main page, a Python CGI script on my website is triggered. This script first downloads the MLS Regular Season Statistics page from the MLS website. The script scans through the HTML for that page until it finds the Playoff Table. The script then splits the HTML into sections for each team and extracts the number of wins, losses, and ties for each team.
The scanning and extraction of information is performed using regular expressions. If you aren't using regular expressions in your daily rituals, you should be. Get with the program. My program is dependent on the HTML for the MLS website (at least, the playoff table) being encoded with predictable patterns that my program can use to automatically navigate through the information.
The magic number is the maximum number of points the other team can end the season with minus the current number of points for the first team. The script then uses the Win-Loss-Tie info to calculate all the magic numbers. Negative magic numbers are meaningless, so they are replaced with a '-'. The script then formats the info up relatively nicely into a table and returns it to your web browser as an HTML document.
If you would like a copy of the code, send me an email at robert AT wombatnation DOT com. Obviously, you will need to replace the AT and the DOT appropriately, unless you are a spam robot and I hope you aren't smart enough to figure this out.