MLS Playoffs and the progressively non-existent home field advantage

Shouldn't Seattle have to beat LA outright to advance too? It just seemed like you were suggesting LA had to do more than Seattle.

 

Yes, but lets be clear. Seattle did have to do more than LA to advance.

LA simply had to tie Seattle to advance, Seattle had to win outright.

That is a joke. I didn't even watch last night because I had a strong feeling Seattle was gonna 'lose' 2-2 and that is exactly what happened. How the hell do you 'lose' 2-2?

That is NOT competition, that is a mockery of competition.

 

It's not a mockery in any way. It's a specific set of rules. It's not specific to MLS at all. It's not made up or contrived. Personally, I don't like the away goals rule. Its not a mockery though. The rules were well laid out beforehand.
LA played it extremely well in terms of getting what they needed to both at home on the road.
I think it doesn't help determine the best team and I think it devalues the regular season. I don't like those aspects of it, but I can see why MLS chose it even if I don't agree to it.
LA had less to do because they kept Seattle off the scoreboard in LA.

 

The current playoff system is broken. What's the point of getting a higher seed? With home and home and away goals, the lower seed has all the advantages. They get to run it up at home in the first game then poach a single away goal on the road off a counterattack because the higher seed must go balls out to make up the deficit from the first leg.

That's exactly what happened in both the NY-DC and the LA-SEA series. It's total garbage. Why should a lower seed be rewarded for losing 2-1 on the road? It even worse than under the old plain aggregate goals system when the lower seed runs up the score at home then bunkers at the higher seed's field. And that was pretty bad. It's how Houston made the final in 2012 despite sleeping through the regular season.

@youngorst used the correct wording when he called it a "mockery." It's a mockery of American-style seeded playoffs. One of the fundamental elements of American-style seeded playoffs is that the lower seed has to win on the road in order to advance. Under the current system, they only have to tie 0-0 at home then tie 1-1 on the road. It's an utter joke.

I'm in favor of American-style playoffs. They're a fun and legitimate way to crown a champion (not necessarily determine the "best" team but crowning a champion is good enough). However, what we have now doesn't crown a legitimate champion. How can Seattle tie two series and be eliminated? Why is LA in the final yet Dallas is at home when they both tied their final playoff series? Why are #1 seeds DC United and Seattle at home when they both played to a 1-1 series tie and won at home as a higher seed? Why did higher seeds United, as well as Seattle, need to do more than just win at home? In every other American playoff system, the higher seed advances if they simply win at home.

 

Unless Seattle won 1-0. Then it would have forced a tiebreaker.

Seattle was int his position because LA outplayed them in the first leg. Let's not pretend it was completely arbitrary.

 

Away goals is just made up garbage for viewership and to counter bunkering (which last time I checked is still playing the game). The FCD-SEA series was garbage and same with the LA- SEA series. I have yet to hear any good arguments how any tied series should be decided by more "important" goals. Because obviously 1-1 can translate into 2-1? As much as people hate penalties they are a necessary evil. You can't obviously have unlimited extra time like hockey playoffs. Penalty shootouts are a fair and reasonable way to deciding ties. You aren't giving any made up mathematical advantage to a team.

As far as the MLS playoff format, I would take away the away legs for top seeds. Make it knockout style like the NFL. Why do teams who did worse in the season get a home game in just a 2 game series? Talk about such an advantage for a team who did well in the season. I just hope they don't keep expanding the amount of teams who get into the playoffs.

 

But it is arbitrary, the away goal tiebreaker is arbitrary.

Why aren't home goals the tiebreaker? This would give the edge of the higher seed which is how it should be.
Why doesn't the higher seed simply advance in the case of a tie? Again gives the higher seed an edge how it should be.
Why doesn't it go to extra time? Again gives the higher seed an edge how it should be.
Why doesn't it go to shoot out after extra time? No edge to either team

Nope, MLS picked an arbitrary tiebreaker (tiebreakers are by definition arbitrary) that gives the edge to the road team which in a 'seeded' playoff event. Its ridiculous, MLS might be patting themselves on the back for getting Donavon into the final but as both semifinals showed, the advantage goes to the lower seeded team when the arbitrary tiebreaker is away goals. Brilliant idea MLS, simply brilliant.

 

We understand the rules as they exist today. We are arguing that they give the lower seed an advantage due to an arbitrary tiebreaker. If the point of the regular season is to figure out which teams have home field advantage to get to the final rather than on the road, this format fails miserably. As currently constructed, the MLS playoffs are more like a self-contained unseeded cup competition rather a continuation of the regular season like in every other American style playoff.

I like playoffs. I want to see teams that did better in the regular season have some sort of home field advantage just like in every other pro sport.

 

I do think it's a problem when Sea, the higher seed and the team who should have an advantage after being the better team throughout the regular season, ties LAG 2-2 on aggregate yet goes home the loser.

I personally despise the away goals rule. Yes some other leagues use it too but I also despise it elsewhere. For me, it was quite a turnoff last night.

When it comes down to it, the higher seed in Sea had no advantage over LAG. I don't consider having the 2nd leg at home much of an advantage when a 2-2 tie ends up going to the lower seed because away goals are deemed more important. IMO, a goal is a ****ing goal, just like a touchdown is a touchdown and a basket is a basket in basketball.

And I don't get what the away goal rule is supposed to accomplish. Not having it would have made the game more exciting yesterday as both teams would have had to push for the winner, and that comes after what we've seen in most of the playoff 1st legs which is cautious, bunkering soccer to protect against the stupid away goal rule. That NE/Col series was over for all intent and purposes after the first leg. I think it's just as stupid btw for Sea to advance past FCD on a 1-1 aggregate tie. Go to extra time, then PK's.

As for the argument LA outplayed Sea in the 1st leg, well LA won 1-0. In the 2nd leg, Sea outplayed LA and won 2-1. Unless my math is off and I should go confront my grade school teacher, that's a 2-2 tie. That the tie is broken and the lower seed is given the advantage in this case is just unbelievable to me. IMO, LAG did not beat Sea, it was a tie which was never decided and has killed my interest in MLS Cup. My only dwindling interest is the hope NE smashes LA due to LA getting to the Cup by not having to beat Sea.

Some probably disagree. Oh well. Sea didn't beat FCD and LAG didn't beat Sea, which makes the Western Conf playoffs a sad competition.

I agree. I like playoffs as I'm American and like American style playoffs in our sports structure. What makes little sense to me is MLS attempting to partly copy American style playoffs, but then adding the Euro element. I thought most here don't like how Europe does things. So why the **** is the league copying away goals?

Also, now with 12/20 teams getting into the playoffs next year, the regular season is inching towards not meaning a damn thing. That a team next year can be crap for most of the season, sneak into the 11th/12th spot, not win a single playoff game and still get to the Cup is utterly ridiculous in this man's opinion.

 

Still can't think of any other tournament where teams are seeded based on performance and then the tournament rules take away all advantages to earning a higher seed. You might as well not seed teams based on regular season performance. Just have a made-for-TV draw like the UEFA Champions League knockout rounds.

 

Away goals giveth excitement, and away goals taketh away excitement.

Think about NYRB-DC...when NYRB got their goal, the tie was over.

It's a profoundly stupid rule in this circumstance. I mean, the US standard is best of 7. HFA means something in 1/7 of the series. In MLS, if there's extra time after match 2, guess what? A team gets 30 extra home minutes out of 210.

Away goals as a tiebreaker takes away from that.

 

It sort of is, in MLS. One of the key goals of it is to even out a matchup between two unseeded teams, like in the Champions League or in WCQ playoffs.

MLS playoffs are seeded. In fact, the league and its broadcast partners make seeding a top story in the last month.

 

Another thing about that away goals rule, it just rewarded Bruce Arena's calculated cynicism. He sat his stars for the season-ending home and home with Seattle. He said that he didn't care about the seeding because the current format gives no reward for a higher seed. That's fine and I understand him making that calculation given the rules that were handed down to him by the league.

However, does the league want to promote such cynicism? The league was promoting the heck out of the Supporters' Shield and a supposed home field advantage. Bruce Arena, through his team, just showed that whoever decided on the away goals rule rewards cynicism and punishes a team that tries to win the Supporters' Shield by offering no advantage in the playoffs.

I get that the league promotes its TV product just because and it can and should use any legitimate means necessary to improve its TV ratings. However, isn't this outcome where their Supporters' Shield hype is shown to be just empty hype counterproductive to persuading fans to care about a future Supporters' Shield race?

 

Finally, what do you all think of this idea for a playoff format? I just mixed the old best of three with the current home and home system and added one element of the Mexican system.

We need a system that forces the lower seed to get a win on the road like in a best of series, not a 2-1 loss or a 1-1 tie. As it is now, two lower seeds have advanced without winning on the road. Since two games is the sweet spot business-wise, how about first to four points, overtime if both teams have one or three points, then a tie goes to the higher seed after overtime?

 

That would get kinda messy, I think. What if the first leg is won by Team A 1-0, and the second leg is like 4-0 in favor of Team B? Then we go to extra-time and Team A gets a goal. They win the series after losing 4-1, and 4-2 on aggregate? Treating extra-time as a separate game just won't work. The teams have just played a 90 minute match. Things happened in that 90 minute match that will have a carry-over effect into extra-time, whether it's substitutions, cards, or even something intangible like momentum.

 

What's the simplest and most logical format to me is going to a pure best of 3 and the only way there isn't a 3rd game is if one team wins both of the first two. Flat out wins both. Goals are goals. Aggregate/away goals mean nothing. You either win, lose or draw.

Two draws, we see a 3rd game. Either team wins one and draws the other, we see a 3rd game. Either team wins one and loses one, we see a 3rd game. Basically the same premise we see across the American playoff landscape and no one is advancing without winning a game.

In that 3rd game, the higher seed hosts. There's your advantage. The higher seed hosts both the 2nd and 3rd games. 3rd game goes to extra time, then PK's if needed. That'll actually reward regular season play which MLS seems intent on flushing down the toilet as soon as the playoffs kick off. It's almost like the regular season never happened.

As for not having enough time for 3 game playoff rounds, well I'd say a big part of that is having so many damn teams in the playoffs. We don't need play-in games and over half the league making the playoffs. I'd go 8 out of 20 next year. Two possible 3 game series in each conference, then the single game Cup. Can be done. Would be more exciting IMO and generally far easier to casual fans to understand. We'd have the 8 best teams going at it and wouldn't have so much mediocrity in the playoffs which waters it down. And I generally like the idea of game 3's, much like game 7's in the NBA as by that point the teams hate each other. Tends to bring out the best in players. Game 7's are where heroes are made. There were no heroes last night. Just a tie which went to the lower seed.

 

It's not a matter of too many teams in the playoffs. It's that there's no certainty of schedule. Game 3's would be on an "if necessary" basis, meaning it would be on short notice, likely on a weeknight. TV networks don't want that. Teams don't want that, with the short rest after Game 2. The league wouldn't want it for the hassle, and attendance would suffer.

I like the idea of a 3-game series, though not exactly as you've proposed it. I think first-to-four is much better than first-to-five. But logistically it just wouldn't be the best solution.

 

I picked up a stat in another thread that only 4 of the 48 two leg series in MLS history have been decided by PKs. So what's the problem away goals rule is supposed to fix? In one season there have already been 2 series decided by away goals rather than goal differential. How can that possibly be an improvement over the previous system, in which 44 of 48 series had a winner decided by goals during play?

 

My response to that would be that a win is a win is a win and it doesn't matter if it's 1-0 or 78-0. Each game is scored as its own game.

I'm just trying to get the ball rolling on brainstorming a system that has two games AND gives the higher seed some sort of advantage. For the reasons already mentioned, we can't really have best of three since it's a scheduling nightmare for the TV stations. That scheduling nightmare is part of the reason why most of the MLB, NHL, and NBA games are on cable rather than broadcast. (another part is that the cable networks bid higher on the rights)

As we brainstorm, so far we seem to have the following criteria:

1) Two games, home and home for TV networks
2) gives higher seeds some sort of advantage but that isn't too great
3) prevents higher seed from losing the whole series in a first leg that got away
4) decides the series on the field

Are there more criteria? For starters, it would be better to just get rid of away goals.

 

Its what the do in the Champions League? Isn't that all MLS is trying to do? Copy everything done in Europe?

 

It makes all 180 minutes matter, and makes every team, home and away, try to score in every situation. I promise that from the stands at Gillette, we were on edge when the aggregate was 2-2 and we were up on away goals. I promise that the men on the field felt the same way. I'm sure any LA fan would say the same thing.

Something about even the Academic possibility of a team lifting a trophy without ever putting a ball in the back of the net simply doesn't sit well with me.

All sport is arbitrary. Let's not pretend that there is some objective truth to be found in putting balls across lines, but between posts, but only if the ball is received while the player is no closer to the line than two players wearing different colored shirts than he is.

 

Any system that eliminates Seattle is OK with me.

 

I like the away-goals in the UEFA Champions League but not in the MLS play-offs; there important differences between the two. I've not heard that the Champs League is considering changing.

MLS -teams do not have a local or home game between the two legs. Champions League they do.
MLS teams have met earlier in the season. CL teams have not.
MLS teams meet every year. CL teams have often not met for years.
MLS teams have common opponents. CL teams do not.

The list goes on. Much of this is why teams had a bunker and defense approach when traveling abroad to play outside of their country, the away goals rule countered that. In fact, gone away goals rule has helped create low scoring legs when two teams from the same country meet. But in MLS, none of these factors apply, so, better to let the home team try to destroy the other guy.