I dunno but a 34 game season without no international breaks is going to be taxing on the players even before the USOC and the European Powerhouse Exhibition Games. The playoffs are going to take this well over 40 games for some teams ....
I called it on twitter two months ago. I replied to a Wahl tweet and copied Garber on it that the league has never said no to money and it isn't about to start now. Why do they (and by they I mean sports leagues/organizations) feel the need to cheapen everything that once had value? It would jeopardize my STH status as well. I simply can't believe that the league would play in January/February. Madness. They would almost have to schedule the northern clubs to do an extended southern road trip, except that there are only, what, 4 current clubs that play in a mild winter climate? They already play 8 months, I say start the season the Saturday before Lent and end it the Saturday before Thanksgiving. I think that's about as far as we can bend. That's 14 weeks off, you really can't go any later or you risk winter weather postponing playoff games, which would be a logistical nightmare. That leaves some flexibility with the FIFA calendar without playing too many weekday games, but you're still going to have probably 3-5 genuinely chilly games here. Still and all, probably no worse for attendance than weekday games.
Eh, I don't know. The is still an American sports league, and playoffs are what we do here. Until the CONCACAF CL becomes more prestigious (and that may not happen for a long, long time), playoffs are the best cookie we have to offer. It will be less annoying once Team 20 materializes. Hey, it could be worse. I remember following the KC Blades in the old IHL. It was a 17 team league for a couple of seasons in the early 90s. They played a entire regular season to eliminate ONE team from the playoffs.
Thanks Mike. I didn't realize that about the TFC tickets. That's actually kind of funny then. Of course, I'm sure the FO will just say it was due to the teams that were playing. I have a thought. Let's just include everyone in the playoffs and do it WC style with groups and then a knockout stage. Everyone gets to play. We should also give everyone a trophy!
I hope we don't get All-Star or MLS Cup tickets lumped into our package when the time comes. I'm not saying I would not want to go but I would like the choice.
You win the league? You go to the final. It will be at home. There every MLS Cup is sold out now in an event that should be good TV. If someone raps up the season early because they are dominant, MLS will get good lead time to set everything up. 4 other teams make the playoffs. They play each other just like they do now. First rounds would be Wed Sat or at least as close to both in one week as possible. The only downside I see is the top seed having to go 2-3 weeks without a game. Still that would be a big advantage for the final.
Good idea. Expanding definately not a good one. Wouldn't mind it being limited to 6 teams. Division winners with a 1st round bye. Top 2 in both divisions advance, then the next 2 based on points.
http://soccer.fanhouse.com/2010/10/27/the-mls-playoffs-are-broken-fanhouse-has-the-fix/ this would be pretty good!
Some trades going on today now that the roster freeze is done. Brian Carroll to Philly for a pick and allocation money. Jeremy Hall to Portland for a draft pick (and probably their word that they won't select a NY player).
I like more playoffs over less almost universally. 6 a conference ala NFL makes more sense than 5. But even one more is better for 2 groups of fans, players, owners, coaches, and separately PPV buyers. More teams also negates some effect of a star missing large chunks but being back for October. From the things that will never happen dept.: All 10 in 3-game 1st round series, 10 v 1, 9 v 2, etc. 2 lowest ranked series winners to a Sat. 1-off at #4. Winner at #1 for a Semi the next Sat. night. MLS Cup at higher ranked Finalist Sun. All of the above rewards fans, season performance, and dominance in the playoffs with rest time...as it should be. Ft5 on the R1 games would be best as well, non-neutral soccer requires it. Not a fan of winter soccer. Stadium could be a mile away, cold, wet, and windy isn't exactly choice.
Also, bocu neg press on adding two teams as now 55.5% get in. The league high is 80%. 67% has been common. 50% this year. Odds are this league will not stop at 18 teams, or 20, or maybe even 30. MLS might become a 32-team conglomo like NFL. As such, playoffs are now absolutely necessary as full double round robins are impossible from now on. With, say, 28 teams, 8 is way too few, as is 10. 14 teams in offers a bye for Conference Champs only. The money is in playoffs and nothing else creates rivalry faster and only time does it better.
One more, rather odd trade at least at first glance, Colorado traded Julian Baudet and Danny Earls to Seattle for Peter Vagenas.
I think it will be a long, long time before this league goes over 24 teams. I would prefer them stop at 20 for a few years and stabilize everything and strengthen what is there. Get everyone into an SSS, get all the youth programs running at full efficiency, build an army of quality sponsors, and other things. Once all those things are running in high gear, then slowly increase the league to maybe 24 teams and cut it off.
Lets see, would they play him in front of Mastroeni, or are they maybe preparing to plug him in to replace Mastroeni? If the latter, wow, that's an interesting and abrupt change of direction there.
Actually one of the comments from a Rapids fan made sense. Those two take international spots. They traded those 2 leaving them with Lopez and Smith meaning they only had to protect 1 international and had 2 open protection spots to use.
According to Ives, Moreno doesnt plan on retiring: "A player who I kept seeing all weekend was none other than Jaime Moreno, who was the subject of a rather interesting story I heard. The D.C. United legend is wrapping up his career with D.C. and MLS planned on honoring him at halftime of the MLS Cup Final. At least until Moreno made it clear that he didn't plan on retiring, which apparently surprised some league officials and promptly led to him being removed from a halftime ceremony honoring retiring MLS standouts. What's next for Moreno? It's clear he still wants to play and he joins Guillermo Barros Schelotto and Juan Pablo Angel on the list of skilled but aging players being shown the door by the clubs they served so well." This blog post is worth a read, lots of good tidbits: http://www.soccerbyives.net/soccer_by_ives/2010/11/a-look-back-at-the-2010-mls-cup-weekend.html#more
Not MLS, but AC St. Louis is no more. http://www.insidemnsoccer.com/2010/11/23/ac-st-louis-players-told-team-is-done/
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/soccerinsider/2010/11/memo_to_mls_jaime_moreno_has_n.html#more This is humorous, Moreno isn't on the expansion draft list even though he says he hasn't retired.
Only if it guarantees us a few more PK's next season. I have a general question I've been wondering for a bit. With all the DP's coming in being more focused on offense (Marquez I suppose could be an exception), how do you think the defenses have fared? I'm sure Mike or someone has the stats on this to back it up. Are defenses keeping up with the increased offensive talent? If not, when do you think big money will be paid to bring in defenders? I'm guessing there isn't much to go on yet since the numbers of DPs per team has only recently increased. Just thinking out loud.