MLS and the playoffs structure

MLS has always been a controversial league, a football league built differently and therefore target of polemic opinions. People still remember it as the one with countdown clock and games decided in
shootouts instead of penalty kicks. Nowadays, after several changes in the league operations, it is still criticised for the salary cap on the teams, player ownership by the league, no promotion / relegation,
non-aligned FIFA calendar and Playoffs format to decided the champion. 

The way professional sports are designed in North America has made the people to give little importance to regular season performance and all the importance to the playoff elimination style at the end of the
season. This is where the MLS cup playoffs are criticised when compared with Europe, where the team with most points earned all year long wins the league.

The most recent Playoff format was designed to give the Supporter's Shield winner home field advantage in every series to make its way easy to the MLS cup final compared with the last seed qualified so the
league. As an example you can see how it turned out for LA Galaxy so far, beating the Red Bulls with the 2nd leg and decisive game at home and beating the single elimination match up against Real Salt Lake at
home too to advance to the MLS Cup Final.

Another addition to the new format is the wild card playoff game which gathers the last 4 qualified teams (of the 10 playoff teams in total) to play single elimination game and make their way to the conference semifinals. So the 7th team receive at home the 10th team and the 8th team receive at home the 9th team. This has been
also created polemic conversations around how the league is encouraging mediocre performances throughout the season awarding so many playoffs spots.

In my opinion playoffs are an exciting way to end a long season. Playing elimination match-ups leads teams and players to rise their competition level generating more memorable  sports moments. I’ve been
following Italian and Spanish leagues since I was 10 years old and very few seasons have had exciting endings and when that happens it depend on other’s team performance to win the league. One of the most
exciting league endings was the 2006-2007 La Liga last match day of the season where  Barcelona had to beat Gimnastic and wait if Real Madrid tied or lost its game against Mallorca to win the league, and
again, it was exciting but in  this situation teams like Mallorca or Gimanstic has nothing to win or lose and there is when corruption plays an important role, specially when a powerful and wealthy team
like Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus or AC Milan are involved. When you have playoffs you avoid many of this situations and competition is more direct.

About the wild card games I also think are the right way to go on this league, I totally bought Commissioner Don’s Garber idea when he explained that the fan base needs to be created in order to grow the sports popularity in North America. It is exciting for fans to have playoffs expectations at the end of the season and the
opposite of this is the Major League Baseball where 8 teams out of 30 reach the playoffs and you can see a team in July knowing they have no chance to participate in October’s playoffs. It is the case of the
Toronto Blue Jays since they are in ultra competitive American League East division (Yankees and Red Sox) they have almost 2 decades without a playoff game and therefore a hard way to maintain their fan base
motivated. Whereas In leagues like NBA and NHL, 53% (16 out of 30) of the teams reach a playoff spot. The ratio in MLS is 55% (10/18), as explained, I really don’t have any problem with it.

The only problem I really see with the MLS Cup Playoffs current structure is the fact it is divided by conferences (east and west) but the calendar is balanced so you play 2 games with each team. In my
opinion is either one or the other, but you can’t have a balanced schedule and have playoffs fixture divided by conferences making unfair matchups like Seattle (2nd best record overall) vs Real Salt Lake (3rd best record overall) eliminating themselves in early rounds and Sporting Kansas City (5th best record overall but first in the
east) treated like 2nd best team in the league arriving easily to the eastern conference finals. This makes absolutely no sense to me and has to change soon. Last update from Don Garber last week announced the calendar will be unbalanced and therefore conferences will make more sense. 

MLS cup final, what went wrong?

I understand people are dissapointed about the overall satisfaction of the MLS CUP Final, there are many things to blame but I feel people are counting too many.
 For those who missed the action, Colorado Rapids won in overtime 2-1 to FC Dallas with an own goal. 

Don Garber and the Rapids with the MLS CUP

It is unfair to blame the two teams for not playing a nice and entertaining game. I don't remember blaming FIFA and World Cup organization of 1990 for the boring and phisical game played between Germany and Argentina that ended 1-0 with a Penalty kick goal in regulation time. We have the same case between Milan and Juventus in UEFA Champions league 2003 final, both teams played a boring scoreless battle which led them to Penalty kicks. And we can name an endless of examples where teams was just too worried about losing the game that fogot to play football. But this is the sport's nature and true fans of the game should not worry about that.

Casey, player of the game, fought every battle.

Other topic is being used to blame the lack of success of MLS CUP final is the North American nature to believe in the playoffs as an exciting way to end a season. Evidently, mostly europeans are using this argument to criticize the lack of tradition of US Soccer whereas in Europe the ligue winner is the actual champion and on the other hand MLS league winner or  "Supporters Shield" is just a team that gets a place in the underrated Concacaf Champions League. 

Remember 2 of the most important events in world soccer have a playoff format, being the UEFA Champions League and the FIFA World Cup.
 
My opinion, I grew up in a european soccer environment where you can witness a team winning the league 6 weeks before the season ends (boring), but I am also a big fan of north american professional sports like NBA, NHL and MLB and it looks pretty normal to me when the leader of the regular season doesn't have what it takes to win a playoff series and doesn't reach the finals. I like playoff environment and postseason madness from the fan point of view and I see nothing wrong in having MLS CUP playoffs at the end of the season.

What I think really went wrong sunday night was raising the expectations of the event so high and think neutral fans in Toronto would fill the stands at 3 degrees Celsius on a late Sunday night. 

Veteran Pablo Mastroeni finally had his cup.

A low profile pro league like the MLS cannot expect having a decent TV rating when NFL Sunday Night Football is on the other channel. That being said, league has to adapt to its TV rating rivals and schedule the MLS CUP final accordingly. 

Regarding the host city, this is not the all star game or the super bowl as I said in my previous post, each team needs start feeling the finals as a home battle and 2 leg series is ideally the better way to enjoy this show.

MLS CUP final in Toronto - Lets give a great closure to this exciting season.

With a forecast of 4° C and a little rain on Sunday afternoon the BMO field has the greatest challenge in its short history, to gather a decent crowd for such an event.

I don't agree in planning the MLS CUP final in a different host venue like the NFL does with Super Bowl or the UEFA with the Champions League final.

The league is not ready yet to such situation, you need to gain more popularity, fans, expectations, etc. Even if the match would've it been LA Galaxy against NY Red Bulls it might have been a little different but I still think the competition needs more maturity in order to make the fans travel several thousands of kilometers to watch their team play the final with pre-winter weather. Not even in "Copa Libertadores" we have a single host venue, over there they play two-legged series to win the most prestigious club competition in Latin America.

I really like the fact the best soccer in the league is conquering a media quota, players like the MLS 2010 MVP Colombian David Ferreira or like Omar Cummings need to gain more recognizing and be more tied to the MLS image, since they are the players that are actually making this league a better one. On the other hand, designated players like Beckham, Henry and Ljungberg creates expectations, sell shirts, bring experience but not necessarily raise the level of the game.

I really invite all soccer fans, eurosnobs or not to enjoy the MLS CUP 2010 between Colorado Rapids and FC Dallas. These are the teams that generated the best soccer (and the Real Salt Lake of course) and the most exciting games throughout the season.

On the FC Dallas side, a player like Ferreira is all craft and guile, the authentic 10 of the MLS is always a pleasure to watch. Only Argentinian Javier Morales could show such control of the attacking design in the league. The Colombian, leader in game-winning assists, has very good company with Marvin Chavez and Brek Shea on the flanks looking very much like Seattle Sounders scheme. Also, the best goalie in 2010, Kevin Hartman has just demonstrated he can win games by himself like in the West finals game against LA Galaxy with an outstanding performance, so he is inspired a so the entire team.

The Rapids with the best attacking duo in MLS (Connor, Cummings) are a team you can really fear when close to the penalty area. Also, the captain and spiritual leader Pablo Mastroeni, who 12 years a go made his debut to play the midfield next to Carlos "El pibe" Valderrama in Miami Fusion, knows this is his great chance to win the MLS CUP specially when turning 35 years old.

Lets close this chapter in an appropriate fashion and prepare yourselves for the best soccer in North America.

Colorado Rapids in MLS CUP final

Attacking power was released last night by the Rapids and the best offensive duo in MLS, Conor Casey and Omar Cummings, did nothing but harm although one unlikely goal by right back Kimura (only japanese in MLS!) was enough to make the difference. Great night by Jon Busch and SJ's defense which always kept the hope on for the Quakes saving and stopping all attempts created by this full feared couple of forwards until minute 94.

Rapids midfield was able to stop Wondo from generating occasions and Johnson was a not as free as he found himself against the Red bulls. The MLS scoring leader, Chris Wondolowski, only had 1 shot on goal all night.

I liked the gest of Pablo Mastroeni when he received the "Eastern Conference Champions" cup and instead of raising it alone as the captain he went down to the floor and make it all team raise it. What a team player he is, I really like his attitude and leadership.

On the other hand, Don Garber has to change this format for next year urgently, either change the name of the title or the fixture format, but it is kind of odd watching a Western Conference team winning the Eastern Conference title. It just does not look right and might damage MLS image in the future.

At this stage of the playoffs I would like to see LA Galaxy's defense against this Rapids attacking duo, It's gonna be exciting, but we still missing tonight's game at 9:00 PM ET to decide the other team in the MLS CUP 2010.

Beckham inspired - Galaxy in the MLS west finals

Galaxy dominated the Sounders for 80 min and was enough, Donovan's team started the match with a great attitude in winning the home game from the beginning. This, undoubtedly, was the key of LA success last night.

The great defense continued, Gonzales was beaten only once and it was the Zakuani goal at the end of the game. Kovalenko destroyed all the game in front of him and David Beckham played one of his best games in MLS.

I remember newspapers writing all kind of comments about Beckham when he just signed in 2007, half of the opinions were negative stating David was not Ronaldinho and the spice boy won't draw the attention of the fans in the game itself only off the field.

Of course David's style is not to outplay by dribbling his opponents, it is more different than that. Tonight we could see what MLS was signing in 2007. An inspired man that can run the pitch the 90 minutes both in defense and offense (has anyone seen Ronaldinho doing that?) and just giving the right passes all game long. This is what we enjoyed specially in the 1st half with all the dangerous crosses that, with a better placed forward, could have ended in 4 or 5 goals in 25min and every cross he did created high emotions expressed in excitement screams and therefore a great ambiance.

We hope David continue as inspired as last night and watch a great match against Ferreira's team, FC Dallas.

And that is the story, without New York, Real Salt Lake and Columbus, the big favorite now in the playoffs is the LA Galaxy which raises big expectations to the MLS Cup in Toronto on Nov 21st.

Will LA keep defensive pace? Sounders vs Galaxy - 2nd Leg.

What an expectation for tonight's game! How about all the excitement we have seen in the other 3 playoffs games? Amazing how, in all cases, we had to wait until minute 90 plus aggregate (or penalty kicks) to have a little rest. Well, Seattle and Los Angeles should promise even more tonight at 9:00 PM ET.

I think Seattle plays the most exciting football lately, maybe because all the inspiration they have with 30,000 or more excited fans in every game at Qwest Field. They even showed it in the 1st leg game last week, but Galaxy played remarkable defense when it was all inspiration from Ricketts passing by Omar Gonzalez to Kovalenko. Even with this great defense Sounders tried all the way attempting offensive squares and making long passes to the speedy Nyassi and Zakuani and really showed it. That is why I think Seattle is going to keep trying tonight and the Galaxy had to show an outstanding defensive performance once again to stop them.

On the Galaxy side we saw David Beckham included in most of the plays but they were lacking of a guy that could strike it in the net although the highlight reel self created by Edson Buddle saved LA that night. Juninho needs to win the battle against Alonso in order to contribute to the offense and Donovan would have to show more in attack specially if Sounders manage to score early.

The Home Depot Center also will play an important role tonight, this famous player number 12 that every team needs might pace the great green offense down and be vital to push the Galaxy to the West Finals against Dallas.