English First Division playoffs. The top seed (3rd placed finisher) has been promoted fewer times than the bottom season (6th placed finisher) since they started this method of deciding the 3rd promtion spot. I'd look at those numbers long before looking at UEFA Cup results.
Regular Season & Open Cup You can say stuff like that all you want, but there is no way americans will call the regular season champ as good as the post-season champ. The only way is to eliminate the post-season. Maybe the whole open cup thing that people have been suggesting could work somehow. It would be nice if the league gave it a look.
I didn't say it, but this is my personal approach, and it's probably not for everybody. But it allows me to accept the fact that the Twins have two World Series championships without winning a post-season away game in either of those years. Though it's only the '87 one that leaves me queasy. I'm sure you're not thrilled about '91. But personally I can let the Marlins slide this year since it was either them or the Cubs. Anyone???? [/crickets chirping]
At least '91 was the greatest Series in history not involving the Red Sox. Of course, I do have some lingering bitterness about the Metrodome, its white ceiling and its "variable" wind currents. But at least the Twins earned their way there and were viable champions. The Marlins are just Villanova in baseball uniforms. But I don't mind going without postseason away wins. If you earn home field (or win it in the AL-NL lottery), so be it.
Won't be able to. I'll be at the Chiefs game, then driving back to St. Louis. Whats planned? But still, if what we were talking about were true MLSnet.com would be plasterd with "Fire win the League" stuff. Instead they won't do that until after Nov. 23rd when the Cup is over.
And what is your point? A regular season match isn't designed to be tilted toward either team. Why should you get a chance to tie it up if trailing after 90? This has nothing to do with the playoffs. Ok I overstated the case on this point, I should have looked it up. But the 16% spread in baseball is all the more reason to call into question MLS' meager 5% advantage to the higher seed. It's fact, not opinion, that the regular season counts for very very little in MLS. We can look the other way, but it seems likely that players, coaches, and worst of all fans, will eventually learn to disregard it. Not only do they not need to win, they can even lose and likely advance. Anyway, nowhere in your reply do you address my primary point of contention, which is that the Yankees did not lose their home field advantage, they merely got into a situation where even a 100% advantage in game 7 wouldn't have saved them. Thus the Yankee situation has no bearing at all on the Quake situation.
If I remember right, the Twins got home field by virtue of it being the American League West's turn to have home field throughout the playoffs. But I'm not bitter. Really.
Worse. Villanova at least was seeded in a way that minimized their chance to win and their results have made them an anomaly. If MLS had results like the Marlins and Angels winning back to back Cups (say, for example, New England last year and the Galaxy this year), the wailing and gnashing of teeth on BS would be tremendous. (Not to mention the soccer-bashing press reporters' spin.)
Sure, but you're taking "need not score" out of context. The original point was that not only can LA advance with nothing but road LOSSES, but ALSO need not even score in their loss. Bottom line is, over 40 years, if the Quakes and LA were evenly matched each time, the second leg host would advance 21 times. That's the definition of negligible advantage.
The Twins won postseason away games, just not in the World Series. They won 2 out of 3 in Detroit in 1987 and all 3 in Toronto in 1991.
In over 10 years, the English first division using home and home playoff format to decide the 3rd promotion spot have only had the top seed get promoted 2 or 3 times. That's not even close to your 51% of the time guess here. Usually it's the team that's hot at the end of the season who just make the playoffs that goes up.
Both you and Beau brought it up, so I'll tell you why I didn't throw out the series that were decided on away goals. It's basically because having away goals is the first tiebreaker doesn't really favor either team. Both teams play 90 minutes on the road. Now, if you want to ask about series that were decided on away goals after the 30 minute non-golden-goal extra time, that's different, since the extra 30 minutes were played at the team hosting the second leg. But series decided that way are a small minority. Of the 182 two-legged series played in UEFA competitions in 2002-03, only one was decided on away goals after extra time, the first round matchup between FK Viktoria Zizkov (Czech Republic) and Glasgow Rangers in the UEFA Cup. Viktoria Zizkov hosted the first leg and won 2-0. Rangers hosted the second and won 2-0. After 180 minutes, the aggregate was level at 2-2. Away goals were level at 0-0. 30 minutes of extra time were played and both teams scored a goal. Aggregate was still level at 3-3, but Viktoria Zizkov took the advantage in away goals at 1-0, and went through. I suppose that you can make the case that the away goals tiebreaker favors the team hosting the second leg in that they know what they can allow their opponent to score in the second leg, but if you make that case, then you also have to acknowledge that away goals after extra time favors the team hosting the first leg in that it gives them 30 extra minutes to increase their away goals tally. Either way, I'm not sure that it makes a difference. Like I said, it's a quick-and-dirty study. Incidentally, since somebody asked about the Copa Libertadores (where they do not have the away goals rule or extra time after the second leg, but a penalty shootout immediately after a two-legged draw), I looked it up. In the 2003 Copa Liberatadores, there were 15 two-legged series from the second round all the way to the final: Seven were won by the team hosting the first leg. Eight were won by the team hosting the second leg. And since I know someone's going to ask, there were four penalty shootouts. Two went to the first-leg host. Two went to the second-leg host.
However, only the first round of the promotion playoffs are two-legged. The second round is a one-off match at a neutral site. Not a very good comparison.
If the 6th place finisher is the one going up, the neutral location of the final (unless Cardiff are playing) can't have been much of a factor in that the higher seed went out in the first round.
Well I never said it was true ALREADY, but it seems more and more to me like that is what MLS is working toward. They're improving every year, and now they are doing the right thing and awarding the Shield on national tv to the club in the closest home game to the win as possible. It would have been awarded after the Colorado game at home were the LA-SJ game on at the same time or earlier.
Lets not forget, the top 2 teams go up automatically. The playoffs are just for those teams who failed to gain automatic promotion. Finishing third is not really that much greater an achievement than finishing sixth. In MLS, even finishing first gains you no significant edge.
The difference between 1st and 4th is the same as the difference between finishing 3rd and 6th. It's only 3 postions better. (yes, I realize there are a couple more teams in the mix in England...it's called sarcasm as are all my posts on this topic)
In the last 15 years of what is now the English First Division, there have been 30 home-and-away semifinal matchups in the promotion playoffs, with the higher-ranked team always hosting the second leg. The results have been split 15-15 between the first-leg home team and the second-leg home team, despite the 2nd-leg home team being ostensibly the better team in every case. The tiebreaking format has not been the same throughout the years, but of the matchups decided by some form of tiebreaker, they were split 4-4.
I don't know what Noah used, but RSSSF.com is an excellent resource for soccer stats geeks everywhere.
No one's getting promoted in MLS. who cares how the 1st division does it. just as long as town go up and the yellow bellied canaries go down.
Re: Regular Season & Open Cup Hmmm, I seem to remember seeing this line of reasoning before...."Americans won't accept ties." "Americans can't understand a home and home aggregate, we need best of three." Personally, I'd like to see MLS Cup moved to a February/March time frame to be a sort of Kickoff Cup event and then crown the regular season winner as League Champs. Doesn't NASCAR do something similar to this with Daytona?