I definitely like this thought. I'm not certain its the best option as I honestly just haven't considered many other options. But it definitely does a good job at keeping it somewhat compact and giving a good reward for finishing high in the table.
MLS playoffs format changes
- Thread starter Taurus
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The only drawback is the potential for dead rubber games in Round 3 of the Group Stage. However, two 0-2-0 teams will only meet about 5-10% of the time, or once every 3-5 years. In those instances, you could cancel the game.
There is also the case where one team is playing for something while the other team is eliminated. I can see some people taking issue with this, but it actually doesn't bother me that much. Playing spoiler still draws interest, and this issue happens every year in the World Cup, yet it receives zero complaints in practice.
I'm also warming up to single-elimination. While 2-leg matchups are probably a bit more common worldwide (with the World Cup a major exception), the drama inherent in a single elimination match caters really well to the American audience who wants their drama jacked up to 11. You can win the argument that PKs are unfair, but there is no doubt that the 10-15 PK process is extremely dramatic.
There are some leagues that toy with something like this, though I'm not sure if any go to both a group stage and then follow it with knock out rounds.
Here's the summary from Wikipedia (standard disclaimers apply, though this squares with my memory) as to how Belgium works. They put the top 6 teams in a round robin. Rather than rewarding placement during the regular season with home-away imbalance, they start each team with 50% of the points they got during the regular season so the top teams get an advantage, but perhaps not an insurmountable advantage. It would be interesting to back test to see how the results of the Championship Playoff compared to the result of the Regular season. I love the excitement of playoffs, but hate the lack of correlation in MLS between regular season performance and playoff outcomes, particularly since MLS Cup is considered the ultimate prize.
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Regular season[edit]
Each of the 16 competitors in the Pro League hosts every other team once in the regular season, for a total of 30 matches between July and March. A win earns three points and a draw earns one point. Teams are ranked by total points, then by total wins and finally by goal difference, number of scored goals, number of away goals and number of away wins. If teams are still level, a test-match is played in two legs to determine the final order in the standings. A playoff phase is then played from March to May.
Championship Playoff[edit]
The point system in the championship playoff is the same as during the regular season, except that each team starts with half of the points they won in the regular season, rounded up to the nearest integer. The points gained by rounding are deducted in the case of a tie.
The top 6 teams from the regular season enter the championship playoff, with the first-placed team winning the championship of Belgium. Each team plays their opponents twice, and the teams are ranked by points, points from rounding, wins, etc. as in the regular season.
I think there is actually a rational argument for single elimination producing a better result in MLS if the goal is to have playoff excitement but reward teams that had a good regular season. Home field advantage in so huge in MLS that it feels like the better regular season team should actually win more single elimination matchups (assuming it gets the home match) than a two-legged tie. That being said, the last two years it was the road team than won MLS cup, so what do I know?
While it's a pretty interesting system, I don't think it'll work for MLS. Belgium's Championship Playoff lasts over 2 months, which would require the shortening of the MLS regular season. I don't think that'll happen.
I agree. This version probably requires pro-rel because you need to shorten the regular season and, without relegation, the teams playing in the lower group during the playoff phase are spending weeks/months playing for nothing. I just thought it was an interesting model when I stumbled upon it a while back.
No way that game gets cancelled. What team administration anywhere is going to pass up the ticket, merchandising and hospitality income of even a single game just because the match has become a dead rubber? Not least if they only know it's not deciding anything a week or less before the match - there's too much logistics going into planning a game ahead of time to pull the plug with only a few days to go.
We already have a group stage for the World Cup too, it's called the Hex.
I don't get your point. I consider the regular season and the playoffs to basically be separate competitions. Regular season determines the best team over the course of the entire year, plus playoff qualifiers. Playoffs determine the best* team at the conclusion of the season. Each team wins a major trophy.
*With a margin of error due to sample size
Some competitions even have multiple group stages within them, such as past World Cup formats. So I don't really understand the criticism.
I'm for anything that gets rid of the two-game series format. I'm not a fan. I know it's a soccer staple and I know why it exists but I find it unsatisfying. I especially hate results where the team that wins the last game loses. You can have a team, at home, win 2-1 and their season is over and the entire stadium is dejected. It's one of the few soccer things I think I'll never embrace. I know the score isn't really 2-1, it's an aggregate and it's one single competition played days apart in two stadia but it just feels very wrong. I hate it even more when the team that is home in the first game wins that game, then scores first and early on the road. You can be 10 minutes into the game and the score is 1-0 but it's really 3-0 with an away goal advantage and it is basically over unless the home team scores 4 times without conceding. It happened a lot in the playoffs last year and just kills the drama.
I also favor the 1 game knockout. Would be great if they also instituted the "golden goal" I really thought that was exciting as a fan.
And lowers the chances of a PK shootout by allowing the other team to re-tie it up. I'm in favor of Golden Goals.
It is interesting. And I was thinking about mentioning it. I was waiting to fully formulate my thoughts on the following.
I think you'd want to pair it with another tier for the other teams, where they play for something like x% of each team's allocation money, being awarded the home match/extra home match the following year against anyone they top in the PO rounds, or draft status, or some combination of those, or something else entirely that's better than what I've brainstormed so far.
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Couldn't agree with you more. This is exactly how I feel, as well, and exactly what I said in the fan survey they circulated on the playoff format a while back. I'd prefer a 1 game or a 3 game series (anything other than the 2 game aggregate), and 3 games won't happen because it's just too long.
And 1 game is better because the biggest need is to shorten the playoffs and have them end earlier. Soccer is not meant to be played in later November/December, and especially not for the most important and (hopefully) most watched games of the season. You can't showcase the league when the MLS Cup game is often played in sub-freezing temperatures.
You want to shorten the season, and here I am thinking we need to make sure more teams play longer.
Well, it's not actually that I care about the length. It's that I would rather deal with the occasional inclement weather game than have MLS be even more askew of the rest of the world. Playing through international breaks is much more troublesome, imo.
We could at least get on a schedule that closer reflects LigaMX. Or take a Christmas break, like many other teams. Do 4-6 weeks off around Christmas/January in the middle of the season, then end the season around now or a bit earlier. 6-8 weeks off and then restart.
If applied to 2016, this format would have generated us this postseason schedule:
v LA Galaxy
v Real Salt Lake
v New England
Or, if we lost our final regular season game and finished third, we would have played:
@ Colorado
v Portland
v Philadelphia
This is compared to our actual postseason schedule of:
BYE
@ Toronto
v Toronto
Which looks quite boring and weak in comparison.
I don't disagree with you that it's better for the development of players and quality of the league to be playing longer... My big thing is that the most important game(s) of the year shouldn't be played in the worst weather of the year. Perhaps start the season earlier... better to have bad weather during preseason and at the start of the season. And I suppose when the league expands further, you can schedule so most teams in the warmer climates host earlier games during late winter / early spring.
Not sure about starting the season earlier. You may have forgotten how miserable those 25° games in March and April were. And how few people were actually there in the stadium.
Right. Of course, but that's better than playing the conference championships and MLS Cup in 25 degree weather. And like I said, hopefully with more teams in the league, teams further south can host the first week or two. Or keep the regular season the same length and shorten the playoffs by just going single game rounds.
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