Yep. I know not everyone agrees, but I prefer it the new way. From wikipedia: "For the United States, three spots are allocated through the Major League Soccer (MLS) regular season and playoffs; the fourth spot is allocated to the winner of its domestic cup competition, the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup. The MLS Cup winner and the Supporters' Shield winner (if U.S.-based) are placed in Pot A; the other regular season conference winner (if U.S.-based) and the U.S. Open Cup winner are placed in Pot B."
Here you go: http://www.concacaf.com/article/con...fication-process-to-concacaf-champions-league RSL were the unfortunate casualties for this.
If a Canadian team gets one of the spots or an American team gets 2 spots the berth goes to the next team in MLS standings. It doesn't specifically mention what happens if a Canadian team wins the MLS Cup & the Supporters Shield.
Extreme Scenario (not entirely impossible, considering something similar did happen during NASL era in 1976, 79, 83-84): http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Soccer_League_(1968–84) Vancouver win the West Toronto win the East & SS Montreal win the MLS Cup Since all 3 are not eligible for CCL thru MLS, the next best U.S. teams in SS Standings (maybe #4-7 if Canadian Teams occupy the Top-3) would qualify. The question is: Which of these U.S. Teams will be in Pot A and Pot B? Bonus Info: Montreal and Vancouver have occupied the Top-2 spots in SS Standings thru Week #2 of MLS 2013: http://aragon.ws/soccerdb/league/table.php?stageId=1547&matches=0&rounds=1&roundCount=2
Updated for your viewing pleasure. MLS Standings(9/01/14) East GP Pts W L D GR DCU 26 46 14 8 4 8 SKC 26 42 12 8 6 8 West GP Pts W L D GR SEA 25 48 15 7 3 9 LAG 25 46 13 5 7 9 RSL 26 43 11 5 10 8 DAL 26 42 12 8 6 8 Schedules DC- @VC,@NY,@CHI,PHI,SKC,@HOU,CHI,@MTL SKC-@NE,@NY,@CHV,NE,@DC,CHI,@PHI, NY SEA-@CHV,RSL,@NY,@DAL,CHV,@COL,VC,@LA,LA LA-COL,@MTL,@SJ,DAL,NY,TOR,@DAL,SEA,@SEA RSL-DAL,@SEA,COL,@VC,@CHV,SJ,@POR,CHV DAL-@RSL,VC,@LA,SEA,@VC,LA,@COL,POR Last week's results Home Away LAG 4 DC 1 SKC 1 HOU 3 SEA 1 COL 0 CHI 1 DAL 0 SJ 1 RSL 1 DC 2 NY 0 CHV 0 LAG 3
"Projected Finishes of 2014 Regular Season, base on the Most Recent Meetings", through the games on 2014-08-31: DCU are still projected to finish 2nd in the East (4th Overall), behind Seattle, LAG & SKC, but the gaps are much smaller now than before.
Don't give up on SKC. A couple bad games doesn't automatically mean they're a bad team. How much longer are they without a regular goalie?
I would be. They had a blip last August, too. They were 2-3 in MLS and it coincided with CCL matches, very similar to this year. I won't write them off yet, but I will say they look soft in the back and that has been a strength of their team.
At the time of the injury (early July), Kronberg was expected to miss two months, so he should be back relatively soon. The problem, though, is that the goalkeeper isn't the source for their current woes. The whole team has been off for the last few weeks, and they will be going up some decent teams looking to secure a playoff spot. The prediction that SKC will go 4-2-2 just seems a bit much (as does DC going 2-3-3 for the remainder of the season).
He's not the source, but Kempin hasn't been very good. I imagine a veteran presence would make fewer mistakes happen in the back and even paper over a few of them with great saves. Hamid has done that for us quite a few times this year.
Much of these poor projections were due to the record-breakingly disastrous 2013 season, as well as the poor start to 2014 season, hence may not be entirely relevant by now... However, the SS-winning DCU team of 2006 did win just 2 out of their last 13 games (esp. after a blazing start of 13W-1L-5T in the first 20): http://aragon.ws/soccerdb/league/table.php?stageId=144&matches=0&rounds=2&roundCount=13 Hence, however unlikely it is, never say never...
Official Website on the SoS, Projected Points & Odds for 2014 Supporters' Shield: "Commentary: Handicapping the Supporters' Shield race with two months to go" http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/artic...icapping-supporters-shield-race-two-months-go Edited/formatted/sorted with improved readability, for your reading pleasure please...
Another equally interesting article on the Top-6 for 2014, written on Aug-19 (about 2 weeks ago): "Looking at the Supporters’ Shield Race" http://total-mls.com/2014-articles/looking-at-the-supporters-shield-race.html The writer foreseen LAG would feature among the Top-6, even though they were just a point ahead of Vancouver after the heavy 1-4 loss to CLB on Aug-16, and fell as far as 8 points behind SKC back then. 2 Predictions were crafted, for the Likely Winners of 2014 Supporters' Shield: (Again, edited/formatted/sorted for readability, for your reading pleasure...)
Both LA and Seattle seem to be pushing the bar up, each with at least 1 game in hand on the rest of our teams in focus, while DC is doing well to keep within arm's reach. NE has been making some noise, but we'll only begin tracking them or anyone else breaking the 40-pt barrier the next 2 weeks. After that, we'll reset the bar for who's got a shot.
Winning the SS should be quite a tall order as of now (6.8% thru Sep-6): http://www.sportsclubstats.com/USA/MLS.html However, winning the East is much more likely (91% thru Sep-6), with DCU needing just 1 more win to reach the 50-pt zone. http://www.sportsclubstats.com/USA/MLS/East.html
Framing that possible achievement in the light of last year's epic all-time low MLS results, Ben ought to be a shoo-in for Manager/Coach of the Year.
DC just needs to keep grinding out results but I do worry with Rolfe out for a month. Keep in mind that LA and Seattle play each other twice in the last two matches of the year for them. Regardless what a huge difference a year makes.