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. 

The Impact on semis

One thing that really annoys me of the NASL is the TV coverage. You have to struggle to see a low definition video through the internet in order to watch the match live. I'm really looking forward MLS era to arrive in Montreal, from their webpage you have the support of a wealthy and very well organized league that allows you to go mlssoccer.com/videos and watch the highlights in HD and really enjoy the competition. For personal reasons I could not see the Impact game saturday night and I have no comments on the away match.

There is a big difference in the current Montreal Impact vs the one saw on May 2010 and there you realize that players can change the team's attitude, we should not put all that weight only on Dos Santos. I know President Saputo is also taking credit in this change since he addressed to all team personally asking for changes. In my opinion, the faces that gave all the change needed are Ribeiro and Gerba. Of course, there are players that were doing it all right since the beginning like Billy (don't count his first 3 games), Donatelli, Pizzolitto and Jordan but a team should be inspired as a team all that was achieved since then. It is amazing how easy can Gerba score in small spaces and the energy Ribeiro put in every play.

In first quarterfinals game played in Montreal we saw a team that can create spaces with 2 or 3 touches, it was a well packed midfield but I should say Di Lorenzo has lost his capacity of outplay the opponents, we haven't seen that this season. He's been so passive that I don't even think he is one of the key players in the Impact. He was only trying to make crosses, but could not get one done right. We hope see something more promising in the semifinals.

If want to take advantage of Phillie Billy's talent, we need to use him on the right flank. He plays well the left, but we get way much better results when he plays on the right, I suggest switch him with Braz.

I must say, even when David Testo is playing at 70%, he always make a difference in the defensive midfield and I must admit we are fragile if there is not a similar player on the field, for example Simon Gatti. I just hope Donatelli and Ribeiro can offer the solid game supporting defensemen like Testo does.

Eduardo Sebrango had an outstanding performance in Montreal that night. I'm still thrilled how a 37 year old can perform like he did, too bad he could not get his goal.

To finish, Le Gall. What a skilled player, he plays with a lot of confidence. I hope he just feel he can be one of the stars of Montreal Impact like Billy did, that day he will delight the entire Saputo Stadium.

The Montreal Impact plays tonight NASL semifinals against the Carolina Railhawks and we all hope we stay focused on defense, specially on the midfield in order to protect our own net the way we did versus the Aztec.