Our remaining games are a horror show. We play the top three teams in the East, and all of the rest of our games are vs teams currently in a playoff spot, save Orlando, who are currently tied for points with Montreal for the last place in the Eastern Conference playoffs. No more second-half letdowns, no more weak shots. Every game is a must-win now!
https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/2019-playoff-watch-r.2103083/page-10#post-38083924 https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/2019-playoff-watch-r.2103083/page-10#post-38083983
https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/2019-playoff-watch-r.2103083/page-10#post-38083924 https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/2019-playoff-watch-r.2103083/page-10#post-38083983
Well, Atlanta pulled it out. Neither team finished well. Guzan made a couple big saves. The ref + VAR couldn't find the rewind button, is my best guess, so they just said they couldn't find anything.
Understatement. Made me feel slightly better about the Quakes' inability to finish. Ramiroitis is contagious.
Max Bretos tweeted how great it would be to have an LAFC vs ATL MLS Cup final. So that media attitude tells you how the PRO calls are going to go the rest of the season
Assuming Atlanta is able to continue their current form and really break out as the clear leader in the East, then I can see why an LAFC v. Atlanta final would be enticing. I don't know if or how it will affect the officiating of the games. I still try to believe that most of the issues there are simple incompetence rather than overt game manipulation, but who knows? My only warning to those who might actually want to watch that match is be careful what you wish for. Often times the biggest hyped games end up being some of the worst to watch. The World Cup has been infamous for unwatchable soccer in its final matches. The 2010 World Cup final between the Netherlands and Spain really springs to mind as perhaps the worst soccer game ever played in terms of watchability. At least LAFC and Atlanta are scoring lots and lots of goals, but LAFC's stinginess in giving up goals means a team that can actually match them reasonably well could turn into a very boring stalemate. I won't worry too much about it until everything shakes out. There's still enough season to go that lots of things can happen, and the single game knockout stages could produce some very unexpected outcomes, which I'm all in favor of.
Reinforcement @LAGalaxy pic.twitter.com/9prKnXXrbi— Zlatan Ibrahimović (@Ibra_official) August 19, 2019
Popsicle-kit wankers. Frustrated fans sound off about declining Dynamo https://www.houstonchronicle.com/sp...d-fans-sound-off-about-declining-14361840.php
If you want a nice, steaming helping of schadenfreude - they're serving it up big time on the HouScum board: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/the-dynamo-are-a-fading-brand-in-houston.2105541/
All these expansion teams paying 100s of millions into the league makes MLS look great. We can’t forget that some of the biggest markets in the country are severely underperforming. Houston, Dallas, Chicago, New York x 2, New England. Nobody can even agree on what’s causing the problems let alone the solutions. Need a big name player? Bastion S. Didn’t help Chicago. Need a stadium in the city? That’s not helping Houston. Need a winning team? Didn’t help the Red Bulls last year. Seems like you need all of the above at the same time and consistently for years. Oh and it helps if there’s no other mega popular sports teams in your market (let alone multiple of them).
I think a couple of fans nailed it, too many games in the souls-sapping, sweltering heat and humidity.
You either face the sweltering heat of summer or the frigid wastelands of winter. You can't avoid both unless you break the season up. No schedule is going to accommodate every team perfectly, but summer is still the best time for MLS overall. The problem has been the way the league schedules games. Unpredictable days, unpredictable times, ridiculous congestion. I love watching soccer and going to the stadium, but doing it for three weeks straight to then not go four three or four weeks, or have two home games within the same week can wear down a fanbase, I think. Ultimately, a shorter season is in order, and with the number of teams the league now has, this should be possible. They already don't have a balanced schedule, so there's no reason to even try to create one. Cut it down to as few games as possible and have them play the games in as even a distribution as possible.
Funny. I was just thinking about this today in the context of the St. Louis announcement and 4 more teams join MLS to bring it to 28 teams. With 2 regional divisions that would be 14 teams in each division. How would that play? Obvious would be to play each home division team twice (balanced within the division) for 26 games. But then what? Play opposite division teams once? If so that's another 14 games for a total of 40 games. Maybe OK. Virtually all Euro clubs play 38 game seasons (20 teams fully balanced). But still lots of long distance travel. So I was thinking that we should go to 30 teams (max) in 3 regional divisions of 10 teams each. Close to the size of MLS in 1996 when it all began. That way you play balanced within division for 18 games and play everyone else (20 teams) once for a total of 38 games matching typical Euro season length. It would be of some significance to win your division table like in other leagues and not far from MLS Cup in its early days in terms of number of teams to beat. (Maybe you win your division table by ONLY counting games within your division?) But then the playoffs would be, say, the top 4 teams across each division based upon total points for all 38 games resulting in a 12 team playoff. Might feel a bit like EUFA-like competition across Euro leagues. Anyway, just musing about the future. Could be interesting...