2020 Schedule Thread
- Thread starter mgarbowski
- Start date
Sale for the derby - $75 for two tickets + gloves - today only!
...We don't even know _when_ the game is...
...We don't even know _when_ the game is...
MLS 2020 conference alignment: Inter Miami in East, Nashville in West | MLSSoccer.com
2020 conference alignment: Where Inter Miami, Nashville will play
www.mlssoccer.com
"Just 89 days remain until the 2020 MLS regular season officially kicks off, with two new expansion teams joining the league for an all-time high 26 clubs competing to reach 2020 MLS Cup.
Inter Miami CF and Nashville SC will be in separate conferences for their debut season after the conference alignment was confirmed by the league for next year. Inter Miami join the East, while Nashville SC will compete in the West, ensuring both conferences will feature 13 clubs.
Each club will continue to play a 34-game regular season with 17 home matches and 17 away matches. Every team will play their 12 intra-conference opponents twice – once home and once away for a total of 24 matches – with the other 10 regular-season matches coming against the opposite conference. Those inter-conference opponents will be revealed with the full 2020 schedule release."
So we no longer play everyone in the West -- just 10 out of 13 teams. That's going to create more imbalance to strength of schedule.
MLS 2020 conference alignment: Inter Miami in East, Nashville in West | MLSSoccer.com
2020 conference alignment: Where Inter Miami, Nashville will play
"Just 89 days remain until the 2020 MLS regular season officially kicks off, with two new expansion teams joining the league for an all-time high 26 clubs competing to reach 2020 MLS Cup.
Inter Miami CF and Nashville SC will be in separate conferences for their debut season after the conference alignment was confirmed by the league for next year. Inter Miami join the East, while Nashville SC will compete in the West, ensuring both conferences will feature 13 clubs.
Each club will continue to play a 34-game regular season with 17 home matches and 17 away matches. Every team will play their 12 intra-conference opponents twice – once home and once away for a total of 24 matches – with the other 10 regular-season matches coming against the opposite conference. Those inter-conference opponents will be revealed with the full 2020 schedule release."
noooooooooo.....potential trip to nashville could be dead before it even started.
cancel supporters shield
Wow, this is not what I expected! I thought they would hang onto everyone playing everyone rather then 2x per each conference opponent.
That has long term ramifications on the schedule as it grows. At one extreme, a 32-team league in 2 conferences plays only 4 interconference games each year. That seems like a lot of missed opportunities for marquee cross-country matchups. I wonder how far they take it in this direction until they split out into four divisions. Maybe all the way to 30 teams at this structure (6 interconference games) then switching to 4 groups of 8 at 32 teams?
i fucking hate the idea of divisions for MLS. i always thought play everyone once ( altering home and away year after year) and the remaining games for "rivalry" games it wont be perfect but better than divisions at least to me.
Interesting stuff.
I would expect Nashville to flip back to the East in 2021 when Austin joins, and stay there when Sacramento and St. Louis join the following year. That would have 13 in the West and 14 in the East in 2021 and then 15 West and 14 East in 2022.
Of course, the league could further subdivide in either of those years too.
Chicago frankly makes a lot more sense in the West than Nashville, but I assume the league did not want them to flip away from their traditional home for only one year.
I would expect Nashville to flip back to the East in 2021 when Austin joins, and stay there when Sacramento and St. Louis join the following year. That would have 13 in the West and 14 in the East in 2021 and then 15 West and 14 East in 2022.
Of course, the league could further subdivide in either of those years too.
Chicago frankly makes a lot more sense in the West than Nashville, but I assume the league did not want them to flip away from their traditional home for only one year.
Extrapolating on a suggestion from Reddit, how would you feel if they expanded to 32, then cut the season down to 30 games, playing twice against each conference opponent?
*However*, they then add a group stage to the Leagues Cup where one Eastern team, one Western team, and one Mexican team create 3-team groups playing each other twice. There's your other four games and your interleague play.
The major downside is obviously the limited interleague play, as about a third of teams will only face one other MLS opponent from the other conference. But the best teams will continue to advance in the Leagues Cup and will play up to six.
I'll guess unlikely, but intriguing nonetheless.
the issue with that is that not every team will be in the leagues cup ( some CCL others in neither). so i dont think it evens it out. Plus keep in mind the US open cup, i dont think there is a need to extend the leagues cup to more games ( honestly its not needed from the start but thats another issue). plus i dont like mixing tournaments because the league cup wins wont count towards a regular season point anyway.
I’m guessing we’ll end up playing all the tough big market teams every year anyway.
this blows and supporter's shield is the meaningless now. CCL and MLS cup please.
Yeah, I wonder how they'll decide who. It seems kinda dumb that they get to decide who we play every year.
It's partly a by-product of adding new teams almost every year, so they never have to say what the rules are. When they finally settle on (presumably) 32 teams they need to set up a system like the NFL has so every year you can know who everyone plays according to established rules that make sense.
I feel like I'm probably in the minority in not thinking this is a big deal. Yeah, this waters down Supporter's Shield, but that was already known to not be the top objective. So it's still important, but MLS Cup is still the most important, and seeding within your own conference is a huge factor to that. The one thing about that, with an unbalanced schedule, is I think I'd like seeding for the playoffs to be based on "Conference Points" instead of total points. It'd really suck if NYCFC finished 2nd in the East by a point because we had to play LAFC while Atlanta got to play Colorado.
I would imagine divisions are in the future for MLS, but not until there are more teams actually playing.
I would imagine divisions are in the future for MLS, but not until there are more teams actually playing.
How is the "M" in the Miami logo not a guy bending over and mooning?
