perfect format for a 24 team league for the playoffs would be single elimination tournament with the top 8 teams with first round byes. If you're going to have such a meaningless setup as the MLS playoffs, you might as well make it a completely different tournament. This way everyone has a chance and you aren't trying to be a contrived US playoff format.
of all the playoff idea's i've heard I like Grant Wahl's best. MLS Cup Group A NY Red Bulls Sporting KC New England Houston Group B Portland Timbers RSL LA Galaxy Seattle Sounders Home and Away in with top two going to the Semi-Finals So Portland and RSL go through and Sporting KC and Houston go through Semi-Final is RSL vs Houston and SKC vs Portland held at ground of team with best regular season record Final held at team with best regular season record. Someone will ask, what if a team loses their first two group games? What incentive do they have to try in the last two? That could give some teams an advantage by playing sides that have nothing to play for. Well, one way to protect against that is to have prize money for the top 3 spots in each group but not the 4th. But I don't think its that big of a deal. Teams have pride and are never going to lay down just because they don't have a chance to advance.
A group stage makes a lot of sense for a stand-alone tournament, especially when the teams involved have not necessarily played each other to get there. It makes no sense for a playoff that is intended to determine a champion at the end of a season in which all of the teams have already played each other at least once. In other words, the regular season is the MLS equivalent of a group stage; the playoffs are the knockout rounds.
playoffs in general don't make sense when deciding the season champion in soccer. By the group stage MLS Cup is something that would be fun to watch.
It makes perfect sense when a league has too many teams to play a complete double round-robin--especially when even teams within the same conference play different schedules, as is currently the case. Again, think of the season as the group stage and the playoffs as the knockout rounds.
your criticism of Wahl's idea is that, "It makes no sense for a playoff that is intended to determine a champion at the end of a season in which all of the teams have already played each other at least once." Well that same criticism can be applied to the current MLS playoffs and all the playoffs suggested in this thread.
So, you as a soccer traditionalist don't like it. And anyone who's been on the same continent as a real playoff doesn't like it. Wahl's idea is good for...who again?
One last time: The regular season is the group stage, and the playoffs are the knockout rounds. The latter are necessary to determine a proper champion because the former is not a complete double round-robin.
uh huh. Create the problem (unbalanced schedule) then propose what you say is a necessity in order to find the real champion(a way out of the problem). And once again, your criticism of Wahl's MLS Cup plan could just as well be applied to the current MLS Cup format. You said that a group play format wouldn't jive with a regular season where each team plays every other team at least once. Well that's happening now. And no, the regular season is not a group stage even if you want to play make believe and think it is.
The problem isn't unbalanced schedule; the problem is travel distance. May I, again, remind you that the Premier League is played in a country the size of Louisiana. What is the largest area that is encompassed by a double-round robin? Really, I don't know. But I'm largely sure that it's nothing like the pentagon made of vertices Vancouver/LA/Orlando/Boston/Toronto.
The unbalanced schedule is not a "problem" at all; it is simply a reality now that the league is too large--both geographically and in terms of the number of teams--for a double round-robin. Of course, MLS has had the latter only two years out of 19 (counting next year), so clearly that was never a high priority of anyone involved. Huh? My criticism of Wahl's playoff proposal is aimed entirely at the fact that it includes a post-season group stage, even though each team already plays every other team at least once during the season (twice for conference rivals). The current MLS Cup format does not include a group stage. Therefore, my criticism does not apply to the current MLS Cup format. It is the equivalent of a group stage--the process by which the participants in the knockout phase are determined. Hence there is no need for a group stage as part of the post-season. Bottom line, we are not going to convince each other.
Russia, but only due to 1-2 teams, most of the teams in the league are grouped relatively close together. Maybe Brazil is next? Though with its split season its not a true round-robin. Not sure how the Chinese League is set up.
When we get to 24, I would accept 16 teams to the playoff if it were single game knockouts (4 rounds at highest seed) My other option is the best 8 and home/away (including the final) at highest seed right to the final. I find these much better than wild cards or other crazy formats. Once again, need to limit the playoffs to accommodate FIFA dates, CCL dates and USOC dates and frankly, the players are worn out near the end of the season- look like many injured players have missed the current playoffs.
MLS should just go to 32 teams with 16 in west and 16 in the eastern conference. And separate the leagues like MLB was prior to inter-league play. That's 30 regular season games which is plenty and it cuts down on travel and there will be better away support at games. Then post-season games when its LA vs NYFC or Seattle Vs Chicago would be really interesting and fun to watch.
I would. Why not? Do you think "Hoosiers" would have been a better movie if it was about a big school with a huge budget being coached by a respected veteran? Or if they'd lost in the first round and the rest of the movie was just Gene Hackman drinking in a bar? Were you rooting for Man City in last year's FA Cup final because a Wigan win would be "improper"? If you want to watch a foregone conclusion, go watch the Scottish Premier League. Most sports fans like upsets. They're fun.
Well the problem is the regular season would be meaningless if all a team had to do to make the playoffs is finish top 16.
From 1986 to 1994, the World Cup had 24 teams in it, 16 of which made the first knockout round. Did that make the group stage "meaningless"?
It made it less meaningful, and the novelty of a once every four years world cup insured people would still watch the 2 weeks of group play. A 6 month mls season is something else.
Wait wait wait -- that's EXACTLY what you're doing!! The 16th best team IN A REGULAR SEASON wins the championship by winning the post-season TOURNAMENT. Why is one forgiveable and the other ridiculous? I didn't hear anyone complain when the Los Angeles Kings won the Stanley Cup with the 13th best record in a 30-team league in 2012, or when the Philadelphia Flyers made the Stanley Cup Final in 2009 with the 18th best record in a 30-team league where only 16 teams qualify for the playoffs. I don't remember anyone whining when the Houston Rockets won the title in '95, after finishing with the 10th best record in a 27-team league. Say what you want about their regular seasons being too long, or uninteresting, but no one ever calls their regular seasons "meaningless." It's only EuroSnobs on BigSoccer who whine about "lack of meaning."
Plenty of NBA and NHL fans hate that half the teams make the playoffs. Plenty of MLB fans hate that the playoffs expanded from 4 to 8 to 10 teams over the last 20 years. Plenty of NFL fans hate that Roger is making a money grab by adding teams to the NFL playoffs as soon as next season. The system you're in favor is worse than even the NHL and NBA in that we'll over half the teams would be in. It's not just mls fans that hate diminishing the regular season, it's most sports fans, the additional playoff rounds were added over the last 25 years to all these sports for one main reason, money, specifically TV revenue for the added playoff games.
No, no. I take in an awful lot of sports programming. I can't remember the last time I heard ANYBODY complain about the number of playoff teams in basketball or hockey. I'm afraid I just don't believe you on this. In fact, just the opposite. In the hockey examples I listed earlier, people used those as examples of what makes the playoffs great.
I'm sure you can find people out there who don't like the current format of the NHL playoffs. You can also found people out there who like to dress up like giant stuffed animals and have sex. Probably the same people, actually.