RSL leading at home against Portland. If they win, we're gonna have a no-cascadia playoffs for the first time in a long time
General MLS Discussion
- Thread starter Shwafta
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First time ever in any season where they all were in the competition
First time Portland or Seattle won’t win the West since before NYCFC was in the league.
Caleb Porter out in Columbus. Kind of surprising, but he just doesn't seem like a good club builder. Early success seems to peterout.
In sports, you are what you did last week, and he missed the playoffs 2 years straight, so I'm not surprised he was canned.
I am surprised at how down the Crew fans seem to be on him. He did win MLS cup and that should generate some lingering goodwill.
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I feel like the east will be tougher next year. Nashville is coming back to the east/ Toronto i assume will get better and making other signings. Atlanta will do the same and will get people back from injury. Then you have philly who im sure will be consistent in being near the top. and teams like cincy and maybe even charlotte will continue to improve.
seems like columbus's version of mitrita didn't work out either:
"U22 Initiative winger Alexandru Matan is on loan at Romania's Rapid Bucuresti, who have a purchase option as part of the deal. His future will be decided later this winter."
"U22 Initiative winger Alexandru Matan is on loan at Romania's Rapid Bucuresti, who have a purchase option as part of the deal. His future will be decided later this winter."
MLS considering overhaul of playoffs: Sources
MLS is considering increasing the total number of playoff matches from the current 13 to roughly 30 next year, according to sources.
theathletic.com
....interestingMLS considering overhaul of playoffs: Sources
MLS is considering increasing the total number of playoff matches from the current 13 to roughly 30 next year, according to sources.
Expanding to 30 teams (I'm sure the 30th will be announced soon), they had to do something. But that's going to mean a lot more soccer for the top teams, especially if they're CCL-qualified and/or in the Campeones Cup.
Still, I have to admit -- I like it.
30 teams but still the same 36(?) or so games a year. you won't be playing every team in the other conference every season.
i don't like the idea of expanding playoffs to have more games. single elimination with top 7 teams qualifying is perfect, i think. higher seed gets home field advantage makes the season matter more. LEAVE IT ALONE MLS... stop trying to make more money. you're already doing that with a month long leagues cup. how is it all gonna fit if you're also expanding playoff games too!?
We've played 47 games this season, and look how many injuries we've had. Our squad had incredible depth and there were games we couldn't fill out a roster.
Now imagine teams with smaller budgets than ours playing 34 regular-season games, 4-6 leagues cup games, 3 US Open Cup games, followed by a 6-8 game postseason. Insanity. Where do we fit all these games in? How many weekday games is this league going to need in order to fill everything out?
In theory I think this postseason would be entertaining with the World Cup format, but in execution I think it will be harder until MLS loosens the roster rules.
It would mean a lot more games for the top teams because they'd be playing at least two more games in the playoffs (three group stage games rather than one playoff game), not because there would be more regular season games. And there's no bye, either.
As it is, we're on course for what, 45 games this calendar year thanks to CCL and Campeones Cup matches? Maybe 46. Under this format, we'd be looking at around 50 if we went all the way, if my math is right. So, it's a consideration from a player health perspective.
But I can see the thinking. Lots of drama -- and yes, more revenue. And more opportunities for more teams to win the Cup. Just look at MLB: Three of the four teams with over 100 wins are out of the playoffs and the Phillies are in the World Series despite barely sneaking in.
This is the key. Under the current system, it would be really, really tough to do this. Too much strain on the players, especially given the long distance travel involved in playing in the United States.
So, there would have to be a lot of changes to make this really work. Which may be pretty exciting in and of itself.
[Edit: We also have to keep in mind, with the AppleTV+ contract we're going to have a different schedule next season. Most games will be played on Saturday, with some Wednesday games. The opportunity is there to spread things out a lot more. And with MLS NEXT Pro there's now a minor league player pool, too.]
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You need some balance between the possibility of upsets and confidence that the championship club is deserving and legitimately among the top 3-4 teams in the league most of the time. Not all, but most. The NFL, NBA, and NHLdo this IMO.*
Baseball and soccer are the most inherently random of the major team sports. They can only achieve the necessary balance between rewarding quality and allowing some upset champions by limiting the number of teams who qualify. I think baseball crossed over that line. They play a ridiculous 162 games and still allow 40% of the teams to qualify. Then, - apart from the Astros beating the Yankees - pretty much everything is random. Might as well watch competitive team Pachinko.
MLS is pretty much right on the edge of making its regular season close to meaningless. Four teams with negative goal differentials made the playoffs as it is. There is no reason to expand it.
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* Hockey is weird because it is so strenuous the best teams don't go all out during the season. The NBA sees that happen also, though not as much as hockey. But come playoffs, cream rises, and the finals are almost always drawn from the clearly best small handful of teams, even if they weren't at the top of the standings.
The major difference between football, basketball and hockey on one side and baseball and soccer on the other is that the former reward effort very linearly, while soccer and baseball do not. So when a better team goes all out in the first 3 sports and plays as hard as possible, as one tends to do in the playoffs, it almost always wins. Soccer, OTOH, is famous for results not matching effort or even quality of play game to game. Baseball is the same, plus it is the only major team sport where you can say a player is trying too hard as a criticism. In soccer and baseball, effort helps, but every unit of effort only yields maybe 25% as much benefit as it does in the other 3 sports. There's only so much a better team can do to improve its chances once the game starts. It helps that you're better, but it's no guarantee. The ball either bounces your way or it doesn't.
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In hockey a hot goalie can change everything. Soccer too to a degree, but not to the level of hockey based on shots on goal. Baseball a great pitcher does the same. That’s a reason you see lower seeded/lesser overall talented teams win in those leagues a lot, it’s not just the playoff format.
I always get this response when I say what I just said. But my contention is that even accounting for pitching and goaltending, baseball and soccer are still more random. Soccer because - despite every fan's expectation that his team should finish about 70% of their shots, shots almost never go in. And whether any given shot goes in or not is pretty damn random, even accounting for the xG, the shooter, and goalkeeper.
Baseball - my goodness randomness is everywhere.
Hit the ball hard right at a defender and it's a negative play. Squib it to the right spot and it's a hit. You have a round bat striking a round ball at ~98MPH and higher and miniscule deviations of the how they impact determines results. Then you've got timing. Finish a game with 5 hits, including 1 Home Run, plus 2 walks, and you might score anywhere from 0 to 7-8 runs depending on errors, on how bunched together they are and the order they happen. Single-single-Homerun = 3 runs. Homerun, single, single = 1 run. That's all random, despite romantic notions of clutch hitting in key situations. Almost no players with long careers are good, or bad, at clutch hitting consistently. Baseball is a weirdly imbalanced sport of extraordinary skill and luck. Which is why a 162 game season has value, unless you diminish it by inserting too many slightly better-than-mediocre teams into the playoffs.
Mark's analysis is spot on.
For every sport, the outcome is affected to some degree by luck, but some much more than others. This can roughly be defined as - How often does the better team win a given game? In other words, how likely is an upset to occur?
The Big 5 team sports can basically be ranked as follows (from least to most influenced by luck): Football, Basketball, Hockey, Soccer, Baseball.
Upsets happen in football, but they are comparatively rare. The best teams in the NFL will win 85% to 90% of their games - some have gone undefeated. And this is in a league with a lot of parity.
The other extreme is baseball. It's a very random game. In a league with very little parity, the best teams win a lot less often - around 65%. Long stretches of good play and bad play are a lot more common, and you don't really have a good sense of the quality of your team until 30 or so games into the season. Unfortunately, as Mark points out, this makes playoffs incredibly random and essentially worthless. A one-month version of a penalty shootout.
Soccer is more like baseball than football, but for slightly different reasons. Lucky bounces make a big difference in both sports, but soccer is also very low scoring. This means a team can outplay its opponent, only to have the opponent put in a cheap goal and win or tie. In soccer, more than any other sport, there are constant discussions around which team played better notwithstanding the actual result.
Basketball is the opposite of soccer. The outcome of any particular trip down the floor can be greatly influenced by luck. But, there are so many of those trips, and so much scoring, that it tends to even out. You see lots of streaks during a game, but fewer upsets by game's end. There are maybe 110-120 baskets (FG+FT) in the average NBA game vs. 2-3 goals in soccer.
For every sport, the outcome is affected to some degree by luck, but some much more than others. This can roughly be defined as - How often does the better team win a given game? In other words, how likely is an upset to occur?
The Big 5 team sports can basically be ranked as follows (from least to most influenced by luck): Football, Basketball, Hockey, Soccer, Baseball.
Upsets happen in football, but they are comparatively rare. The best teams in the NFL will win 85% to 90% of their games - some have gone undefeated. And this is in a league with a lot of parity.
The other extreme is baseball. It's a very random game. In a league with very little parity, the best teams win a lot less often - around 65%. Long stretches of good play and bad play are a lot more common, and you don't really have a good sense of the quality of your team until 30 or so games into the season. Unfortunately, as Mark points out, this makes playoffs incredibly random and essentially worthless. A one-month version of a penalty shootout.
Soccer is more like baseball than football, but for slightly different reasons. Lucky bounces make a big difference in both sports, but soccer is also very low scoring. This means a team can outplay its opponent, only to have the opponent put in a cheap goal and win or tie. In soccer, more than any other sport, there are constant discussions around which team played better notwithstanding the actual result.
Basketball is the opposite of soccer. The outcome of any particular trip down the floor can be greatly influenced by luck. But, there are so many of those trips, and so much scoring, that it tends to even out. You see lots of streaks during a game, but fewer upsets by game's end. There are maybe 110-120 baskets (FG+FT) in the average NBA game vs. 2-3 goals in soccer.
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