Just curious. For the record I hate the current format. Out of the options on my poll I'd choose single game at neutral venue, 2 game aggregate or best of 3 as infinitely better than what we have now. Discuss ...
Time will tell I guess. If after a few years it's proven that the away team is winning close to 50% of the finals I'll put away my skepticism. But if it ends up being 80-90% for the home team, for me it really takes away from the unpredictability of what a final should be. After a grueling season and a testing playoff I just don't see how 1 team can deserve absolute 100% home field advantage based on 1 point in a table that measures 2 nearly independent conferences. I think when you see a final you really want to see the 2 best in the competition go head to head with no head starts or handicaps. A 1 game home field advantage in best of 7 is one thing ... absolute 100% home field advantage is another. I'm trying to think of another final in another sport where one team has absolute home field advantage ... especially when the deciding factor is not exactly earned by the same metric.
The only major sport I can think of that its guaranteed to happen in is the Pac-12 championship football game.
So far, we had 4 years worth of Final for a start, the outcome to date is 3 Home Wins (97 DC, 11 LA, 12 LA) vs 1 Away Victory (02 LA), for a 75%:25% ratio. (The Final in 97 & 02 were coincidental home grounds for 1 of the Finalists though.) http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MLS_Cup_finals IMHO, 75:25% isn't too bad. A win by home team this season will bring it up to 80:20, otherwise, it will fall to 67:33.
In my world, the MLS Cup Final is ALWAYS held at StubHub. So I picked single game neutral venue. But, I am also fine with the way it is.
I thought this was BigSoccer, where the higher seeded team NOT having a big enough advantage was the complaint du jour? So apparently, we need a playoff format that gives the better regular season team an overwhelming advantage during the playoff, but doesn't give them ANY advantage in the ultimate match. I don't understand you people sometimes.
What is this overwhelming advantage in the playoffs? As far as I know the only advantage is playing a lower seed and having the deciding game at home. An advantage certainly, but not overwhelming ... in fact some would argue that it's almost no advantage at all ... which is perfectly fine IMO For the record I'm not one that is too concerned about giving the regular season more meaning in the playoffs. In my book the playoffs is a new beginning. I'm OK with a slight advantage but in a knockout game I think the decision has to be made based on the merits of what happens on that day ...
75/25 or 80/20 is pretty bad IMO. 60/40 maybe not so much. What other major single game sports final put such a massive handicap against one of the contestants?
That's my point. People complain all the time that higher-seeded teams don't get enough advantage, and now we've got someone complaining that in the most important match of the year, the higher-seeded team should have no advantage.
It would be MLS itself, the 1-legged Conference FINALs held between 2003-11. To date, IIRC, the Winning Ratio for that is about 60:40, not quite a significant advantage despite the set-up. When sample size grows, things do tend to normalize themselves...
I think MLS needs to decide whether to be like the other American sports or like the other playoff type soccer competitions. Right now, MLS is somewhere in between. To adopt the American sports model: Adopt a best of series to align more with NHL/NBA or adopt the one game system like the NFL. To adopt the soccer competition model: Adopt a group stage format/knock out round format of the World Cup and Champions League. But don't do this wild card business of American sports for one round and then the 180 minutes over two rounds like soccer competitions. Its all schizo. The best thing about the NHL and the NBA is the playoffs are long enough to allow the casual observer to check in and get interested. To actually become invested in a team. To see the ups and downs. To have a season within a season. The NFL already has the luxury of having people being engaged because the season is so short. But MLS needs people to buy in and check it out for a month like the NCAA basketball tournament. Right now, it feels like the MLS playoffs are too short and complex for Joe Six Pack to really hop on and enjoy a nice fun emotional ride. It feels like they bounce around a little bit.
"I can't wait for accurate information before I'm upset over something MLS does," said the majority of YBTD posters I've disagreed with.
I'm fine with the top remaining seed having the final at their home stadium. A neutral venue would also be fine with me...even preferable, but not necessary. What I am not fine with is this farce of two legged playoff rounds. Either go with single elimination games, or go to a best of three (allowing for ties). Why on earth does the number one team gain zero advantage for their "superior" season when (theoretically) matched against 5th seeded teams? The only times a higher seed has any advantage is the "wild card" game between the 4th and 5th seed, and in the final. It's this sort of mickey mouse garbage that keeps me from truly getting behind this league (that and the lack of team in Detroit...but that's another subject). And thing is, they're not even doing the two-legged system correctly (with away goals). On that note, I would be more than fine if they left the playoffs as they are, with the exception of a change to single elimination and/or a three game series. The reasons European competitions utilize a two-legged system are in no way even relevant in MLS.
Basically agree. I slightly prefer MLS Cup at top seed versus neutral, but either is fine. But the two-legged playoff rounds have got to go.
The 1930, 1934, 1950, 1958, 1966, 1974, 1978, 1998, and more than likely 2014 World Cups championship matches? As far as I know, that home field advantage wasn't earned by any sporting metric.
But they aren't guaranteed home field advantage. There were numerous MLS Cups before the current format that a team had home field advantage because they were picked to host, but that wasn't guaranteed as part of the format. Currently every MLS Cup some team will have a home field advantage. The only other setup like that in a major one-off championship game that I'm aware of is the Pac-12 football championship.
I don't wanna go "this is how they do it in Europe" on ya...but in Europe, a single GOAL over 38 matches can decide the whole championship. I, personally, slightly favor a one game match at a neutral site over a one game match at the higher seed...but the reason for that isn't the one you cite. In an East vs. West set up, there's a very good chance that one team will have a de facto home field advantage for absolutely no reason at all when it's at a neutral site. For example, if the final is to be held at NYRB, then if any of the East Coast teams make it, they'll have many more fans than the Sounders or Quakes or Gals, because their fans won't have to get on a plane to make it to the match. They can just ride the Acela. Unless your idea is to have it in Toronto every year, because, well, you know.
I do agree that MLS needs to get out of thin in between place that it's in. I'm somewhat a Eurosnob when it comes to most MLS structure issues, but not when it comes to playoffs. The way I see it playoffs are an American thing. If you're going to do playoffs at least do it right and do it in a way that's been proven to appeal to fans. A best of 3 (first to 4/first to 5 ... whatever you want to call it) is the natural way to go forward. Each game has finality. Each game is worth what it's worth. This idea of tabulating individual goals over a two legged series is not a concept that is ever likely to appeal to fans here. But to the original point of this thread I can pretty much live with a single final game if need be. The word "final" has an inherent singularity to it that sort of implies finality. Whatever. One game final is fine, just not with absolute home field advantage based on standings on two tables from two different conferences that are almost completely independent from each other.