New MLS Playoff Format: Adds More Teams, Undermines Need For Conferences
By Ty Duffy
Here is the format.
Wild Card: The top three teams in each conference make the playoffs with a bye. The next four best teams, irrespective of conference, are seeded 1-4. They play one-off matches, higher seed at home. The two winners join an eight-team playoff.
Conference Semifinals: The round of eight proceeds as before. Teams are seeded in each conference 1-4. Matches are two legs home and home. Aggregate winner advances.
Conference Finals: The conference finals are a one-off match, with the higher seed at home.
MLS Cup Final: One-off, neutral site.
The new playoff helps the regular season be compelling. There’s a tangible benefit to finishing first, to finishing in the top three in the conference and to making the playoffs versus not making it. MLS doesn’t have relegation to generate interest at the bottom, but this format should reduce meaningless matches.
What it doesn’t do is properly award a champion. One-off playoff matches work in basketball and football. There’s enough scoring where luck is negated. Generally, the team that plays better wins. Soccer is different. A better team could dominate a match, have six shots hit the bar and lose on a random deflection from a corner kick. A team can get lucky once or twice and win the championship. Winning the Supporters Shield, the award for best regular season record, remains more impressive than winning MLS Cup.
One change that could help is making the “Conference Finals” two legs. It doesn’t make sense competitively to diminish the seeding advantage from in the first round with a home and home, but then make that advantage decisive in the second round. Forcing teams to play two home and home rounds would be fair and it would better ensure it’s truly the two best teams playing for the title.
MLS also should adhere strictly to the conferences, or abandon them entirely. Last year, six Western Conference teams made the playoffs. San Jose and Colorado, members of the Western Conference, played off for the “Eastern Conference” championship. That was asinine. The new format blocks that situation, by granting conferences a guaranteed third team, but even having one team playing to win a conference it’s not a member of is confusing and stupid.
The current setup would be like the Red Sox finishing second in the Wild Card race, but replacing the NL Wild Card because they had a better record. The Red Sox would then enter the NL playoffs, play to be “National League Champion” and possibly play the Yankees in the World Series. Why bother to have separate leagues? Make the conferences firm and meaningful, or move to a single-table and a straight-forward, seeded playoff.
[Photo via Getty]