NASL 2015 playoffs

Your dates are incorrect, here's the schedule :

#1 New York Cosmos vs. #4 Fort Lauderdale Strikers
Saturday, November 7 | 2 p.m. ET
MCU Park | Brooklyn, New York
Broadcasts: ONEWorldSports.com (International), ONE World Sports (National - U.S.), ESPN3 (National - U.S.), NASL.com (National - Canada), SFL-TV (Local - Fort Lauderdale)

#2 Ottawa Fury FC vs. #3 Minnesota United FC
Sunday, November 8 | 3 p.m. ET
TD Place | Ottawa, Ontario
Broadcasts: ESPN3 (National - U.S.), NASL.com (National - Canada), Rogers TV (Local - Ottawa), KSTC45-TV (Local - Minneapolis/St. Paul)

The Championship Final
Saturday, November 14 or Sunday, November 15 | Time TBD
Location TBD
Broadcasts: ONE World Sports (National - U.S.), ESPN3 (National - U.S.), NASL.com (National - Canada), Local TV TBD

 

THE PAST IS THE PAST
Gio discounts Cosmos' regular-season domination over Strikers, last year's semifinal exit

http://www.bigapplesoccer.com/teams/cosmos2.php?article_id=43154

"We don't care what happened in the past," he said. "We know that this is a new game. We know that they are excited they made the playoffs. They are eager to make it to the final as they did last year. For us, it’s just a very important match. Our players know it's a difficult team that we're going to play against. So we're not looking at records, we're not looking at the past. We're looking at this game specifically, what we need to do."

 

When Pele decided to hang up the boots on his historic career, the New York Cosmos players and staff rallied around the world superstar, hoping to send off the Brazilian great with a championship.

Today, the modern-era Cosmos are on a similar mission.

http://www.empireofsoccer.com/cosmos-soccer-senna-42146/

 

Budding rivalry set to explode as Fury set to host Loons

http://www.ottawasun.com/2015/11/06/budding-rivalry-set-to-explode-as-fury-set-to-host-loons

There is history between the sides already, with Fury having played its first-ever home game against the Loons in 2014 with Ottawa ultimately losing a tightly-contested battle 2-1. Fury would go on to lose the club's two remaining meetings with Minnesota during Ottawa's expansion season, both by one-goal margins.

Ticket sales continue to rise for Sunday's match, with more than 6,000 sold as of Friday morning and the organization expecting somewhere in the neighbourhood of 7,000 to be purchased.

 

Raúl's Game-Winner Sends Cosmos To The Championship Final

http://www.nasl.com/news/2015/11/07/rauls-game-winner-sends-cosmos-to-the-championship-final

It was only fitting that Raúl, the Spanish star and veteran of Real Madrid and Spain’s national team who along with Senna will retire after the NASL season, should score the eventual game-winner on a patented left-footed shot that kissed off the post and into the back of the net.


“We had a lot of chances before I scored,” Raúl said. “I scored one goal more and this team is playing for the final.
“The second half was much better for us. This goal was one very good combination for the whole team.”

Raul played great in the 2-1 win for the Cosmos, Cellerino also had his best game since coming to NY.

 

From the Fury's twitter account :

BREAKING: With over 7850 tickets sold for Sunday's Semifinal Fury FC will set the NASL postseason attendance record

 

I was at the game and I'm a Cosmos fan but I wouldn't hesitate for a moment to say that PC was the best player on the field.

The first half was fairly even. FtL defended well as the Cosmos held the ball. I wish I could say the Cosmos tested them more but they didn't. PC's goal was nicely created by Freitas, Cellerino's was fortunate.

The second half Senna took over in the middle of the field and think was man of the match for it. FtL didn't really threaten and Cosmos were more likely to score another. Raul's goal was nice, as was a few plays he made on the wing; Cellerino did a very good job holding the ball and he definitely deserved a penalty when took a boot to the chest [ala De Jong].

 

Great crowd for Otttawa today, over 9000.

 

As a Hofstra fan, just putting this out there, any Cosmos fans planning on attending (especially driving) since the game will be at Hofstra, you might want to get there earlier than normal since things might be hectic. There will be an extra influx of fans and tv/camera crews, since the Hofstra men's soccer team is hosting their conference tournament, and the championship game is also the 15th. I'm not sure how it will affect the Cosmos game, if any, since the HU game starts at 2:30, but that post-game stuff should be going on probably simultaneously with Cosmos pre game, so there will be extra traffic and people around campus. Both events can probably be heard at the same time, since the soccer stadium is right across from Shuart Stadium where the Cosmos game is.

 

Although I am not happy with the outcome I am pleased that the Strikers, by far the weakest team in the final 4, got to play this game at all and actually played a pretty good game. A 1-2 loss to the #1 team in the league's overall standings is not an embarrassing result. Hopefully the Strikers FO will now concentrate on acquiring or retaining players and coaches for the January tournament and use that as the starting point for the team to have an even better season in 2016. Hopefully TPTB see it that way, too.

 

Ottawa Fury heading to New York for Sunday's NASL final
As many as 400 fans from Ottawa expected at Hofstra University for league championship game

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottaw...to-new-york-for-sunday-s-nasl-final-1.3316097

"It's different if you go to New York, play against them and the three games you played against them you lost then maybe in the mental side there's no way we could do that," said Dos Santos.


"But we played New York three times this year: we lost 1-0, we tied 0-0 and we won 4-1 so it says we can beat them. It also says they only lost against us in their house, so we have to repeat something big that we did... it's not always easy to do but it's very psosible."

 

No favourites, dogs in NASL Championship

http://www.ottawasun.com/2015/11/13/no-favourites-dogs-in-nasl-championship

Home field advantage can be a factor, unless you're playing a team that is rolling into town with an NASL-record road unbeaten streak that stretches 12 games. Fury also dismantled the Cosmos 4-1 the last time the two sides met in New York, though Dos Santos has stressed the importance of not reading too much into that result.


"It was a different context," Dos Santos said of that win. "It was a midweek game, you have to forget that one. (Sunday) is a final with a team that has a lot to give and a lot to prove and we know we have to be disciplined."

Bottom line is, as far the regular season stats go, the Soccer Bowl-deciding game couldn't feature two more evenly-matched teams: New York won the spring season, while Fury won the fall campaign.

 

A postseason record crowd of 10,166 tonight

 

http://www.nasl.com/news/2015/11/15/nasl-split-season-proved-its-worth-in-2015

We can debate now whether the format "Proved Its Worth"

It basically was a straight 30-game season.

The only possible difference would be if the winner of either half would have finished third overall, so in a full-season format, would have not hosted a SF.

The last line of the article even says, "We were always focused on looking at the schedule as 30 games and to finish in top four."

If you just used a 30-game season, a team would have able to travel to one of the "outposts" and play two matches in one trip, instead of two trips.

 

is this logo from the 1970's?

 

The split season is what it is; nothing special, nothing terrible. It does have the benefit of allowing an expansion team to join for the second half of season [PR]; I guess that's something.

It might be better to think of the split seasons as tournaments or competitions; whatever you call it; 4 teams play for the championship at the end of the year. It works.

 

Here a video of Trafford's stomp on Szetela ...

 

That stopm was on Guenzati, and It looks about right. That guy lost his mind for a sec, one of the few calls the reff got right.