...major accomplishments in other sports. With FC Dallas beginning it's attempt at this feat against the last team to have a similar opportunity in the Seattle Sounders (first two titles in the bag; some years prior to this US Open Cup was played after the MLS Cup). The Sounder failed, in part due to MLS' decision to switch to an away goals rule which only serves to further dilute the importance of regular season records in the post season. Digression aside, should FC Dallas complete this feat it will go a long way to prove to other teams that it can be done. I think that a point can be made that teams like Bruce Arena's LA Galaxy have often eschewed the US Open Cup and even the Supporters Shield with the idea that the extra effort to win these two trophies made winning MLS Cup more difficult. The added pressure, added games played with first-choice players, etc could be seen as a distraction to a team focused only on winning what MLS deems it's top prize. So, with the above in mind, could the dearth of a domestic treble winner be indicative of it's actual difficulty with respect to similar accomplishments in other sports? Or is it a rationalization by the teams in question to focus their endeavors on what is reasonably attainable ensuring a higher probability of success? Should FC Dallas win, then we might see an LA Galaxy actually try and accomplish the feat shortly after,... assuming that they actually galvanize their talent for an entire season for a change. Maybe it was never that hard to begin with... ...but that idea can easily be applied to major accomplishments in other sports. Teams in the NFL with chances at undefeated seasons have lost late season games as they opted to forego perfection, with home advantage already clinched, in order to stand a better chance of remaining healthy for the playoff run. This is more true in the NFL, but partly true for every other sport. How many potential Triple Crown winning thoroughbreds have been tripped up by horses whose owners have opted to skip the Kentucky Derby and subsequently entered the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes? No really, how many? I can remember it happening at least once, but I have no idea if it's happened all that often. So just because the MLS Treble is the only one of these things to never happen, it doesn't necessarily automatically make it harder. There's more to this than that. (2 options on the poll since there are so many choices. It might allow us to get a better diversity of opinion instead of everyone possibly picking the same thing.)
I think every MLS club would rather win the treble with about 1.7 regular season points per game than have 2 regular season points per game but not win MLS Cup. Obviously all of those are hard. From the point of view of how much praise it would get from media and fans, I think an undefeated Super Bowl winner would be first followed by an NBA champion with at least 70 regular season wins. Horse racing has two significant difference than the rest of the sports. It is not one team vs. another team and some of the outcome is determined by horses, not people. I thought about if horse racing is similar to golf in terms of them being individual sports, but one horse race has very fewer horses compared to how many golfers are in a tournament. In terms of the amount of competitors, I think horse racing would be more similar to figure skating, gymnastics, track, swimming, skiing, etc. in the Olympics.
The domestic treble is almost impossible---or at least has proven to be so in the short history of MLS. So far, no one has achieved it. NHL 130 pts + in a season is a titanic feat given how long the hockey season is-- Montreal Canadiens set the bar in the 1976-1977 season with 132 pts. Detroit Redwings had 131 pts in 1995-1996. Please keep in mind NHL hockey has been played since 1917. Perfect NFL season (including Super Bowl) is also nearly impossible. The 72 Dolphins are still legendary as the only team to have won everything. The 1934 Bears, 1942 Bears, and 2007 Patriots all had a perfect regular season only to lose in the championship game. I think there are at least 2 factors that make the domestic treble so hard--- the first factor that comes to mind is that the MLS playoffs are brutal. Sometimes a team puts so much into getting the Shield that by the time they reach the playoffs they are out of gas and get easily eliminated. The second factor is that unfortunately not too many teams put as much effort into winning the US Open Cup. The SS is an endurance run, the playoffs are a sprint, but the USOC is a different beast altogether--it is more like a relay race where the baton has to be handed off to teammates. It calls for (in my opinion) very good personnel management. Because of the way the USOC happens in the middle of the MLS season, coaches who are successful in it must be very good shufflers. They have to know exactly when to start a squad of all 2nd team guys, when to mix the 2nd team guys with a few 1st teamers, and when to play the 1st team exclusively. It is a hard skill to master.
An argument can be made that the Voyageurs Cup is not the same as the US Open Cup in length or difficulty, however kudos still have to go out to Toronto because as a team they won everything that was possible for them to win. If it was put in front of them they won it. They will forever go down in MLS in history as one of the most dominant teams in a season. Bravo Toronto!
Interesting how many votes went up for the undefeated NFL season. Alot can be said about how the Patriots win so often and how often they win the SB narrowly and yet couldn't complete the perfect season but manage to win every other year it seems. And it's alot harder to be dominant in the modern NFL than it was 20 or so years ago. Even the number of titles and the length of their longevity is fairly hard to imagine. Then again, the NFL seems to look the other way at alot of the little things that they get away with until after the fact. Man City's current run brings into question a similar argument; and I regret not including them as a possible answer. It's arguable that the EPL has more parity than it's ever had in it's 30 or so year history. But the question is, is that parity more about the EPL money being divided so evenly that it's harder for the top teams to pull away or the top teams actually regressing. If the latter is the case, then perhaps Man City is simply the first truly European Class club out of the EPL in a league that's currently overrated. However looking at how good the other EPL clubs have been competing in Europe this season, this does not seem to be the case. I'm thinking that they're front-runners for the UCL and if they manage that and complete an unbeaten run in this version of the EPL, could this be even greater than anything that I've placed on this list?
Man City isn't undefeated. Liverpool beat first place Man City and then lost to last place Swansea City. On one hand, the last three Premier Leagues have been decided by at least 7 points (more than 2 games worth), and that could happen again. On the other hand, only Man City has qualified for the last three Champions Leagues, which is a change from the Big Four of Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal, and Liverpool earlier in the 2000s.
Hence a domestic treble instead of the domestic treble (not that TO could access the USOC if they wanted). As an aside I'd say the treble (no "domestic" qualifier) would replace the Shield with the CCL, but won in the same calendar year. Wrap it up with a Club World Cup in December for a quintuple.