You may be right.
And I for one am now certain evil stalks the land. There is no other explanation for the stars aligning for freaking Red Bull.
2024 Audi MLS Cup Playoffs
- Thread starter Gene
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And I for one am now certain evil stalks the land. There is no other explanation for the stars aligning for freaking Red Bull.
As someone who has torn an ACL, I’d like to know, how FFS did he play for 30 minutes after the tear?
Pure, unfiltered adrenaline
In 2021, Portland had 55 points while we had 51 points.
In 2024, Red Bulls had 47 points while LA Galaxy had 64 points.
Let's caveat that Red Bulls have 0.75 ppg without Forsberg (3W, 9L, 3D) and 1.64 ppg with Forsberg (10W, 6L, 6D). With Forsberg over the course of the season is about 56 points. (Matches above include playoff results)
So in 2021, it was a more balanced match. In 2024, I'd say LA Galaxy is favored. But with Puig out, huge question marks. Reus is also not fully fit. I don't expect him to start but play in the second half if down or a late sub if needed (a la Bale circa 2022).
Red Bulls went 4-6-7 on the road in 2024. LA Galaxy is 13-0-3 at Dignity Health Sports Park in 2024 (1 loss at home at Rose Bowl vs. LAFC). But Red Bulls have three clean sheets on the road in MLS Cup playoffs.
I thought Columbus would beat them, I thought we'd beat them, I thought Orlando would beat them, I think LA Galaxy will. But I'm not so confident.
Oh I know that the odds are stacked against them. But that sinking feeling that things are "falling into place" for your rival to win the cup... i can imagine the red bulls fans feeling this way back in 2021 when philly couldn't field 8 of their starters.
The Red Bulls would be the most undeserving MLS Cup champion in MLS history. They are not at the level of a championship team. They're just not. They play the worst version of the sport, they have nowhere near the skill of some of the teams they've beat. Congrats to them on an incredible run, but a good four-week stretch shouldn't make a mediocre team a champion. 18 of 29 playoff teams, this is what can happen -- an undeserving team can get a chance to win MLS Cup. They finished 7th in the East -- as recently as 2018, that wouldn't have been enough to even make the playoffs. Now they're one win away from winning it.
This is not sour grapes involving the Red Bulls. There are just too many playoff teams. Atlanta shouldn't have been in a position to defeat Miami. Red Bulls shouldn't have been in a position to beat Columbus. The regular season needs to mean more. This league has made the regular season mean absolutely nothing because even a 40-point season is enough for the playoffs.
RB conceded one more goal than us and scored one more goal than us, ended 3 points behind us, though we had 14 wins to their 11. Do you think if we made it to MLS cup that we'd also be just as undeserving? I would, especially having watched this team I know how incredibly undeserved it would have been if we were there.
That's not a counter to your point, of course, because I personally think it should be top 4 only from each conference and then do best of 3 for both rounds before MLS cup. (or similar, but only top 4, maybe 6 now that there are 15 teams)
What I am saying though is that a team making MLS Cup deserves to have made MLS Cup, the same way a team from the Vanarama National League could make the FA cup final, and Red Bull fought through 2nd place, 4th place, 6th place in order to get there. That's not easy and imo deserved regardless of league position they finished in.
i agree top 4 in each conf should be the playoffs. the regular season should matter. but that doesn't make money and so MLS won't change. that being said, MLS is potentially making lots of changes over the next few years so who knows what our schedule and playoffs will look like in 2027 when we open our stadium.
Red Bull arguably -- and it's a good argument -- underperformed their underlying stats during the regular. My beliefs about soccer stats are well-known by now, but for what it's worth, there it is.
I think it's unquestionably true they're light years better with Forsberg in the XI. Still ugly football. But much, much better.
I'm a ditto on fewer playoff teams, though. Six per conference would be fine; that's more than a third of the league.
Isn't home field more determinative in soccer than any other sport? Does someone have the stat?
That's hardly meaning "absolutely nothing." Most years the home teams win the majority. This year was an aberration and the top team still came out of the west.
I wouldn't complain about reducing the playoff field, but nor am I too broken up about how it played out this year (or in 2021).
I don't have it ready, but I'm certain that over the last decade or so MLS home field advantage is meaningfully higher than other top soccer leagues.
It's hard to compare HFA between soccer, which allows regular season ties, and sports that agree with Ted Lasso. You can drop ties from soccer results and just compare W-L, but the existence of draws significantly skews game state objectives, especially for weaker teams and away teams.
LA Galaxy hasn’t lost at home this year?
Oh for fucks sake it really is lining up for RBNJ isn’t it?
Oh for fucks sake it really is lining up for RBNJ isn’t it?
Yes, had we won MLS Cup it would have been just as undeserving as Red Bulls. We are nowhere near one of the best teams in MLS. I believe a league's champion should be one of the best teams. I like top-6 because having 12 of 29 teams makes it hard enough to get in that you've accomplished something by making the playoffs. Having the top-3 teams in the East all lose in the first round is probably a fluky thing, but soccer can be a fluky sport and you're inviting it by giving this many teams a chance.
Agreed that MLS is way over the edge in keeping balance between regular season importance and playoff participation. Then there is the related balance between the need to have a champion who is legitimately at the top of the league against the love of upsets and underdog stories. There is no formula to it, and I think there is no real consensus to it, but I'm pretty sure most fans have some sense that the balance can get out of whack. I think I tend to favor fewer major upsets than most, at least in terms of who wins the big prize. Early round upsets are fun. But I think any league championship should be won by one of its top 4 teams (in any given year) about 85-90% of the time or the prize is too random and cheapened, and the single best team should win about 40% at least. And best means usually but not always, the best regular season record.
With 62% playoff participation, MLS is bonkers, especially in a sport where the divergence between in-game dominance and results is probably second to no other major team sport. Yet the MLS has maintained reasonable respectability because every cup winner in the last 10-15 years has finished 1-4 in its conference, and I think only two 4th place teams won in that period (NYC being one). Part of that is the MLS home field advantage giving a boost to the better teams, and part is luck. But even 1-4 in conference can mean a team that finished 8th on the consolidated table (or lower with conference imbalance) and that should not happen so regularly IMO.
With 62% playoff participation, MLS is bonkers, especially in a sport where the divergence between in-game dominance and results is probably second to no other major team sport. Yet the MLS has maintained reasonable respectability because every cup winner in the last 10-15 years has finished 1-4 in its conference, and I think only two 4th place teams won in that period (NYC being one). Part of that is the MLS home field advantage giving a boost to the better teams, and part is luck. But even 1-4 in conference can mean a team that finished 8th on the consolidated table (or lower with conference imbalance) and that should not happen so regularly IMO.
I've often wondered if we wouldn't be better off having a ceremony at the end of the regular season for the winners of the Supporters Shield as the champions of the regular season. Then we could treat the postseason as a tournament for the MLS Cup.
The shield winners could get a little shield icon over their crest and the cup winners a little cup instead of a star. Both "championship" teams would get championship bonus money.
Then the next season, they could open the campaign by playing each other in the first game before the rest of the slate. Kind of a bragging rights thing.
The top eight teams in each conference could go into the postseason tourney, set up with group play broken up into four four-team groups. Top two in each group go into the quarterfinals.
(I would prefer just the top four teams in each conference go into group at the end of the regular season and then the top two in each group emerge to play each other for the right to play in the Cup game, but I don't see MLS leaving money on the table.)
*Puig appears to have torn his ACL. That's a huge loss for LA Galaxy.
Riqui Puig se rompe el cruzado
Se confirman los peores pronósticos con el centrocampista que se proclamó campeón de la conferencia oeste con LA Galaxywww.sport.es
I've never seen an American sports league expand its playoffs, then contract them years later (2020 weirdness excluded). We're stuck with this system, and I'm sure MLS will find away to expand the playoffs even further at some point down the line.
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