Here's a 5-part proposal for MLS regular season and "playoffs": 1. Eliminate the divisions. Go to a single table. 2. Instead of traditional playoffs, MLS would arrange for a number of foreign club teams to travel to America for games against MLS clubs. Let's say MLS signs up 6 foreign teams. Top of the MLS table gets to choose which foreign team they want to play, at their home stadium. Second in the MLS table chooses next, and so on for all 6. Attendance would have to be better than that of current playoff games. 3. To make the games meaningful, and to get the best players on the field, winner gets larger percentage (75% maybe) of the purse. Sell broadcast rights overseas to generate revenue. (Wouldn't foreign fans love to watch their beloved club teams kick American/MLS butt?) 4. Have the MLS season end earlier, so that these games would occur just before foreign league play begins. Great tune-up for foreign clubs. Avoid conflicts with World Series, etc. 5. As much as possible, schedule these games on different days, so that MLS fans could watch all of them on TV. (Great opportunity to see how MLS compares with international leagues.) What do y'all think?
1. It depends. I woulkd support it only if they went with a balanced schedule which means either 22 or 33 games. If they did 22 and made the US Open Cup a little more important by having two leg home and away to boost the tota number of games. 2. God no. While attendance might be better and for lack of further explanation, do we want Manchester United kicking the crap out of the Galaxy for our playoffs? How would the champin be crowned? "Well the Wizards were 0-5 and had only a -8 goal differential." This is a really bad idea. 3. Hell no. One, Eurpean clubs would probably consider our total gate a pittance. Why risk your starting 11 for a 75% portion of a pittance. Plus, any idea that would make the MLS possibly lose money is horrible. 4. Good idea, especially for avoiding the conflicts with the NFL, CFB and baseball playoffs. Here in KC, if the Wizards were mentioned on sports last night, it was probably after all Big12 team games, the Chiefs Staurday night review, CFB on the national level a further review of Friday HS football games and probably came out in the last 5 seconds of the broadcast ina "by the way the Wizards adavanced in the MLS playoffs. Have a good night." 5. Good idea in theory, but the idea in of itself is bad. I would probably be classified as a Euro snob, but do not see this idea as one with any merit. The idea of the playoffs is to have a team win the title, not have it awarded by attrition. Now, if MLS hosted a tournament with our top 4 teams and 4 invited Euro teams, maybe that would be nice, but between schedule conflicts and do we want to shutdown the rest of the MLS for a month, it is not feasible.
I've heard some pretty crazy ideas for the play-offs but this one tops the lot. Invite foreign teams into the MLS playoffs?? What the hell for? it is a US league conteseted by US teams and should remain that way. I can't see Real Madrid, AC Milan, Manchester United etc. turning their backs on their domestic league in order to play in the MLS playoffs.
I like something like this for the middle of the Summer, when the international teams are touring anyway. MLS could set aside a couple of weekends for matches against whatever international teams we could get to participate in a 8-16 team tournament. Say: The #3 and #4 MLS teams from each division as of mid-season play against four pretty weak international teams. The four winners play the four #1 and #2 MLS teams and four "bigger" international teams. Those four winners play a semi-final and a final match. Then hope the semi's aren't full of International teams. If you could get a couple of big name international teams, I think this would be interesting, moreso than the ChampionsWorld thing anyway.
Maybe I didn't make it clear in my original post, but this system would not in any way constitute a "playoff". There would be no more playoff. The team at the top of the table at the end of the MLS season "wins" the league. What is the purpose of the current MLS playoffs anyway? To determine the best team in MLS? If so, what if New England wins this year? Would that mean New England was the best team in MLS for 2004? Not to my way of thinking. Yes, if Manchester United came over the MLS team they played would probably get routed. But who knows? Soccer is a strange sport: a hot keeper, a few lucky bounces, a few shots hit the woodwork, and voila: an upset. Wouldn't it be more interesting than seeing your club play the same team they've already played four times that season? And by the way, not all the foreign clubs would be ManU caliber. Picture the Galaxy playing a Mexican team, or the Fire playing a Polish side. Hey, it's just an idea. Came to me after I saw the attendance figures for the first round of the MLS playoffs.
If attendance for Champions World continues to drop, then having a mini-tounament between MLS and foreign teams in July will become a real possibility. I know the league has talked about it. The truth is that there's only a few European teams that can consistently fill the 60,000 seat stadiums. And even Man U didn't sell out all their games last summer. This becomes an even better deal for the MLS teams once some more SSS's are built. But having foreign teams in the MLS playoffs? Whoever is selling you the crack, he's not ripping you off, he's giving you the good stuff.
But having foreign teams in the MLS playoffs? Whoever is selling you the crack, he's not ripping you off, he's giving you the good stuff.[/QUOTE] Before making snotty remarks, you might want to actually read my original post, and my follow-up (#4), in which I carefully explain that there would be NO MLS PLAYOFFS under the proposed system.
The 3rd and 4th place finishers in WC2002 were South Korea (who had never won a World Cup match before) and Turkey (whose record isn't that great either). Does that mean that they are the 3rd and 4th best team in the world? Hell, no, but they just happened to get some good breaks, some good calls, and some good play at the right time to get to where they got. That's what makes the playoffs so entertaining... everyone has to bring their A game, and even then you're not guaranteed victory. This also gives the lower teams a shot at redemption (and one thing I know, it's that America loves underdog stories as well as stories of redemption). Should 4 out of 5 teams make the playoffs? It's debatable (my biased ass would tend to say yes right now), but so far the series have been fun to watch. If New England does manage to win it all, they may not have deserved to be in the playoffs, but once they got there, they would have earned the victory. The problem with a lot of single-table lovers (mostly Eurosnobs) is that they can't seem to grasp the concept of a second season where your past accomplishments over the past 6 months don't mean diddly. I love the playoffs for that exact reason - everyone gets a clean slate. And as much as it makes me ill to bring this up, have you noticed that the last 4 winners of the World Series has been the wild card team? According to you, they didn't deserve to be there, but they won anyway. And as far as the international teams are concerned.......... if you think they'll really give a crap about a competition like that when they try like hell to avoid the World Club Championship, you're sorely mistaken. But that's just my opinion.
Given how crappy all five ideas are, I don't think it warrants anything but deconstructive criticism. YMMV.
"That's what makes the playoffs so entertaining... everyone has to bring their A game, and even then you're not guaranteed victory. This also gives the lower teams a shot at redemption (and one thing I know, it's that America loves underdog stories as well as stories of redemption). " A good point. But if that's the way you feel, why not have all the teams in the playoffs?
It is that they play every opponent 3 times, but half the teams will have to play more home or away games..