MLS Playoffs and the progressively non-existent home field advantage

Discussion in 'MLS: Commissioner - You be The Don' started by Unak78, Oct 29, 2014.

  1. Unak78

    Unak78 BigSoccer Supporter

    Dec 17, 2007
    PSG & Enyimba FC
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Nigeria
    #176 Unak78, Dec 4, 2014
    Last edited: Dec 4, 2014
    Yeah, it's was a story that gained some momentum around September at the start of this year's competition, but had been talked about prevoiously. UEFA is or was considering it's removal from both the UCL and the UEL. The only major publication poll that I've seen showed that the idea of removing away goals has alot of support. Managers are more divided on the issue with Arsene Wenger among the first to be outspoken in wanting to see it abolished. Sir Alex Ferguson was more guarded with his own opinion. Now who knows what Platini supports since Sepp Blatter came out against the rule; everyone knows that those two cannot allow themselves to be seen agreeing on anything. Besides, Platini has been seen as holding the line on this rule for years, but I don't see this issue going away. I doubt Platini wants to be seen as being tone-deaf, which is probably why the press releases came out about the deliberation. In the end this year they only changed the seeding system, but the issue is still out there so who knows what will happen in this offseason or the next.

    http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/sep/04/uefa-champions-league-seedings
    http://indianexpress.com/article/sports/football/coaches-mull-changes-to-away-goals-rule/
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...t-agree-away-goals-rule-stay-modern-game.html
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...-Wenger-wants-Uefa-to-end-away-goal-rule.html
    http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...d-be-abolished-from-the-uefa-champions-league
     
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  2. NGV

    NGV Member+

    Sep 14, 1999
    #177 NGV, Dec 8, 2014
    Last edited: Dec 8, 2014
    Well, in that case you can just think of the two-leg series as a single game with two 90-minute halves. In fact, that's really more accurate and logical than viewing it as two games - the idea that each leg represents a separate "game" is completely artificial and meaningless. I'd actually get rid of that pointless fiction entirely, and just record an aggregate score (you could still keep track of which goals were scored away as a tiebreaker).

    To give a boost to the higher-seeded team in MLS playoffs I would not apply the away goal tiebreaker until after extra time. In the event of any level score after 180, the higher seeded team should get the additional half-hour to try to unlevel it on their home turf.
     
  3. Cavan9

    Cavan9 Member

    Nov 16, 2011
    Silver Spring, MD
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    If that's the case, then why do both games get two different sets of officials? Further, if a team gets red card in the first leg, why does it not have to play a player down in the second leg? Why do the teams get three substitutions in each game rather than six that can be used at any time in either game (such as not subbing at all in the first game then making six subs in the second)? Why are teams allowed to make lineup changes before to start the second leg without it counting against their available substitutions?

    How much sense does it make for a team to have to start a game two goals down when they lost the first game 2-0? Why do we have a system that cares about the difference between a 1-0 win/loss and a 2-0 win loss much less a 2-0 win/loss and a 3-1 win/loss?
     
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  4. Jewelz510

    Jewelz510 Member+

    Feb 19, 2011
    Bay Area
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    F*ckin Europeans.
     
  5. Unak78

    Unak78 BigSoccer Supporter

    Dec 17, 2007
    PSG & Enyimba FC
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Nigeria
    #180 Unak78, Dec 9, 2014
    Last edited: Dec 9, 2014
    The aftermath of the “Away-Goal Rule” in MLS Playoffs
    SportsDayDFW
    http://soccerblog.dallasnews.com/20...tion-of-the-away-goal-rule-mls-playoffs.html/

    Amazingly enough, one of the biggest marks against the away goals in MLS is that it was a solution without a problem. In fact it exacerbated one of the only repeatedly recognized problems in MLS' playoffs, regular season importance. It's so frustrating when MLS seems to be so obstinate on this issue.

    Mind you, this is a Dallas paper writing this. Mind you, Dallas lost to Seattle by away goals, but he was arguing in favor of higher seed advantages and Dallas wasn't the higher seed in that matchup. So if someone in Dallas recognizes this as a glaring problem why is MLS so clueless?
     
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  6. Unak78

    Unak78 BigSoccer Supporter

    Dec 17, 2007
    PSG & Enyimba FC
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Nigeria
    #181 Unak78, Dec 9, 2014
    Last edited: Dec 9, 2014
    And I have to say that some of the comments after that article pissed me off. As if "soccer IQ" is tied to liking away goals in a PLAYOFF! There is no merit to that conclusion at all unless you can point to a league in the world that uses this system of home and away goals to decide a league champions.

    Where does it happen? Belgium? No, they use a group stage weighted in favor of regular season seedings.

    Mexico? No, they decide the tie-breaker directly on the regular season rankings.

    A-League? They use single elimination.

    So everyone, whether they use playoffs or not, seems to get it but MLS. That's the real reality in the sport. The regular season apparently doesn't need to be shit-canned in order to be in line with soccer. That's a fallacy that some people apparently want to feed sportswriters in this country because they don't know enough about what actually goes on around the world in this sport to know better. It doesn't have to be this way and it's rather easily proven. These people think it makes them look knowledgeable to support appropriating rules from the Champions League as if it's some sort of inherent threshold of soccer's sporting knowledge? Personally, I think it makes them and MLS look like they can't tell the difference between a Confederation and League championship.

    So where is the rationale for saying that because he's against the playoffs that he somehow knows nothing about football? Huh? I don't get this. There is nothing in football that even remotely intimates that this is something that is more appropriate for football. So why can't we come up with a playoff system that makes sense for our league? Why are we so enamored with "following football" when that really means following the Champions League which has nothing to do with the type of competition that we are forming here? It makes sense to tell CONCACAF to emulate the UEFA CL. Not this! It makes sense to tell the USSF to make the Open Cup emulate other Open Cups. Not this! Why is this so hard to understand? If you like the rule for whatever reason, that's another argument that apparently is well entrenched among MLS supporters but don't make this about "being in line with the sport" because it is not that.

    And the only reason why I'm coming on in this manner is because the manner of... conceit elicited in those comments warranted it. Especially since their argument is so easily debunked. The idea that opposing away goals is in some way a sign of a lack of soccer knowledge is so far from the truth that it's laughable. It only makes me wonder whether they're actually this deluded or if they're intentionally playing on the lack of understanding of the true nature of what Champions League actually is among the general casual soccer watching public by stating this as fact. They are basically trying to convince the less knowledgeable public that MLS' playoffs are the US equivalent of the UEFA CL and that Europe does indeed have a European league and a playoffs after a regular season and that all of those EPL games are really just well-disguised divisions within this fictional league. This also confuses the idea of what CONCACAF CL, a competition which is already struggling for support, truly is and what it's real place in our soccer culture is since this idea relies on CCL to simply not exist. The ramifications of this type of misinformation are enormous.

    I can imagine the conversations "hey son, what is this CCL? I thought the MLS Playoffs was our Champions League and I thought the Champions League was Europe's version of our playoffs? Why is there another competition that's almost exactly like our playoffs. Is this a rival league? Hey did those four teams leave the MLS. (because he would say the MLS)" "Uh, it's a bit more complicated than that, dad."
     
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  7. CoconutMonkey

    CoconutMonkey Member

    Aug 3, 2010
    Japan
    Club:
    Chicago
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Ok then. How about thinking of it as a two match series in which the first tie breaker is goal differential and then away goals?
     
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  8. Unak78

    Unak78 BigSoccer Supporter

    Dec 17, 2007
    PSG & Enyimba FC
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Nigeria
    Effect of Away Goals on 2nd Legs of MLS Conference Semifinals
    http://www.stathunting.com/2014/11/03/effect-ofaway-goals-on-2nd-legs-of-mls-conference-semifinals/

     
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  9. newtex

    newtex Member+

    May 25, 2005
    Houston
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    This is incorrect. LigaMX now uses away goals and then the regular season seeding. They added away goals in 2012.

    https://soccertranslated.wordpress.com/2014/12/01/liga-mx-unusual-playoff-rules/

    And in the Mexican Final, even though it is a two-legged series, they don't use either.

     
  10. BHTC Mike

    BHTC Mike Member+

    Apr 12, 2006
    Burlington, ON
    Club:
    Toronto FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Canada
    Pretty much exactly what I was suggesting was possible over in the N&A thread. At least the format isn't creating a disadvantage for the higher seed!

    The unfortunate part is that this shows that MLS's chosen format isn't intrinsically unfair. It's the extrinsic relationship to the regular season that it fails on.

    Back when MLS Cup was an 8-team tournament I used to conceive of the lack of advantage for higher seeds -- though this was at least in the days of single-elim conference finals -- as creating a second test, for a "second" title. Rather than MLS Cup being the "league title" it was co-ordinate with the Supporter's Shield and the test of a great team was winning both.

    But now that the league has moved to heavily unbalanced conference schedules, the rationale for looking at the league that way has evaporated. MLS needs a sensible playoff system to crown its champion that balances the rewards within a conference with the lack of interaction between the conferences. Their system does exactly the opposite. It's depressing.
     
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  11. Unak78

    Unak78 BigSoccer Supporter

    Dec 17, 2007
    PSG & Enyimba FC
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Nigeria
    #186 Unak78, Dec 10, 2014
    Last edited: Dec 10, 2014
    Regular Season Success Means Less With 2015 Playoff Changes
    http://www.dynamotheory.com/2014/12/2/7247691/regular-season-success-means-less-with-2015-playoff-changes-mls-playoffs


    These articles seem to be getting fewer and fewer every year. MLS' strategy has been, ignore the questions when they're asked and just wait until the people clamoring for rewarding the higher seeds get tired and just fall in line. And that is not how you pacify people who are fans of your league,... by ignoring them and pretending that their concerns don't exist.

    MLS playoffs: League looking at ways to reward regular-season excellence
    http://www.sportingnews.com/soccer/...g-at-ways-to-reward-regular-season-excellence


    Back in 2012, this statement was released by the league. You even had Ian Darke who comes from a place without playoffs apparently understand that a system that mimics Champions League isn't one that represents the regular season well. Apparently he's not fooled. And so two years after MLS promised to look into this, what have they done? Introduce away goals. That's it. Apparently away goals was somehow their solution,... or maybe they just said fvck it let's add a gimmick so everyone will forget about it.





    MLS' go-to crutch. The problem is that it's not about that. It's about lending legitimacy to upsets when they do happen. Not about how common they are. Force teams to earn back that advantage that they gave up during the regular season or face rendering the regular season meaningless.

    This irrational fear (because I don't think that making a proper playoff setup is going to kill parity.) LA has managed 3 championships with a fvcked up playoffs. Dynasties will always exist no matter how much you try to negate advantages so why not do it properly and get the same result? It's not about the result, it's about the system. I would like to see if LA could have overcome a true advantage in Seattle. It would make their accomplishment easier to appreciate. Much like it was when the Rockets had to overcome home advantage in 4 series' to win their second NBA title.

    And what has changed since Ian Darke said that? What has changed since MLS stated that they would look into it?

     
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  12. CoconutMonkey

    CoconutMonkey Member

    Aug 3, 2010
    Japan
    Club:
    Chicago
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The Playing for 90 article is scatterbrained and ignorant of history (MLS should "experiment" with a best of 3 series?). And the ASN piece is simply factually wrong about the Mexican League's tiebreakers (i.e. league points are the second tie-breaker, not the first).

    Not liking away goals is one thing, but you can make a strong enough argument to ditch the rule without linking to hack articles like these.
     
  13. the5timechamp

    the5timechamp Member+

    Nov 3, 2012
    So what is wrong with just creating a table (Instead of brackets) with the top 4 teams (4 in each conference) and having the higher seeds get home field over the lower seeds? Each team play one another once.
    Hell you can do that 4 seed vs 5 seed one-off to give the 4 seed a home game.

    Winners of each table meet in finals...or top 2 advance to get another game out of it?

    Is that just not enough games to cash in on?
     
  14. Achowat

    Achowat Member+

    Mar 21, 2011
    Revere, MA
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Also it's, like, weird. Part of the reason we have playoffs is to catch sports fans who may not necessarily be soccer fans and get them to care (y'know, like all the people who only care about College Basketball this time of year).

    Those people will never, never understand "Yeah, as long as San Jose doesn't win by 3 clear goals, we make the final"
     
  15. the5timechamp

    the5timechamp Member+

    Nov 3, 2012
    Weird is fair I suppose, but as far as needing to explain the setup...eh.

    It cant be any more complex than how people tried to figure out the old BCS ranking system.
    Hell the NFL year round coverage is likely already discussing playoff seedings based on that stupid combine.

    1 or 2 half time explanations to explain the table would suffice..,we just need something clearly defined and with continuity...at the rate we are going at some point going to MLS Cup will come down to a game of horseshoes fought between each teams' DPs
     
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  16. CoconutMonkey

    CoconutMonkey Member

    Aug 3, 2010
    Japan
    Club:
    Chicago
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    It seems like you're describing a group stage. I'm not against the idea, nor do I think it's too foreign. It's just that I think MLS is better off going straight to a knockout for now.

    If/when the league hits 30+ teams with 16-team playoff, a group stage will start looking like an interesting option.
     
  17. joebarnin

    joebarnin Member

    May 3, 2003
    Santa Cruz, CA
    I still don’t understand why there is resistance to a single-game knockout system, for all rounds. Same match ups as the current system, just get rid of home-and-away.

    It definitely gives an advantage to regular season performance. Here is the path to get to the MLS Cup (assumes all other higher-seeds win each round):

    #6 seed: win road games against 3, 1, and 2
    #5: win road games against 4, 1, and 2
    #4: win home against 5, road against 1 and 2
    #3: win home against 6, road against 1 and 2
    #2: win home against 3, road against 1
    #1: win home against 3 and 2

    Progressively easier, based on seeds. Rewards regular season performance.

    Who gets home games? With one-game knock out, the 1-4 seeds all get at least one. Under the current system, it’s the same thing: 1-4 get at least one game (2-6 seeds may get additional games, big whoop).

    Number of playoff games? This system has 11. Current system: 17. Last year: 15. Is MLS really going to go broke because of 6 fewer playoff games? Plus, I suspect attendance and rating would improve, when every game is a knockout game.

    Single game knockouts are simple, fair, and exciting. With the current system you can have a team advancing to the MLS cup with a stirring 2-0 loss (because they won the first game 3-0).

    Really, you've currently got a system that dilutes regular season success, and dilutes the drama of a knockout playoff, all to get some of the #2-6 seeds an extra playoff game.
     
  18. youngorst

    youngorst Member

    Jun 26, 2014
    Bend, Oregon

    I support straight knockout 100% but I do understand the desire to have more games (MLS is a gate driven sport) so some of us have tried to come up with compromises based on that. Aggregate is simply silly. I don't care if its used in other soccer events around the world it makes absolutely no sense in a seeded event like the MLS playoffs and is made even worse with the away goal rule.

    MLS needs to choose between single game knockout, best of series, or group stage.
     
  19. joebarnin

    joebarnin Member

    May 3, 2003
    Santa Cruz, CA
    If more games is desired, I could deal with best-of-3/first-to-5, because there still is a home-field advantage for the higher seed. 2-game aggregate is just a poor compromise - worst of both worlds.
     
  20. youngorst

    youngorst Member

    Jun 26, 2014
    Bend, Oregon
    Agreed although I like the idea of a group stage personally. Get to see a variety of teams instead of the same team 2-3 times plus unlike some I actually think the uniqueness of such a system would actually be a strong selling point.
     
  21. EvanJ

    EvanJ Member+

    Manchester United
    United States
    Mar 30, 2004
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    This proposal has clubs playing no more than 6 playoff games and starts with 12 playoff clubs like MLS will have in 2015:

    Round 1: 3 vs. 6 and 4 vs. 5 in each conference in one game at the better club

    Round 2: A group stage with the better seed hosting each game. Each conference would have a group of four with three games per club like in the World Cup.

    Round 3 (MLS Semifinals): Eastern Conference 1 vs. Western Conference 2 and Eastern Conference 2 vs. Western Conference 1 each played in one game at the better club. At this point the 1 and 2 refer to group stage position, not seed from the regular season

    Round 4 (MLS Cup): Semifinal winners

    This would let MLS Cup be between any combination of conferences. I think if a group of four only advanced one club, there would be meaningless playoff games, so I made the group stage advance two clubs and have a reward for finishing first over finishing second.
     
  22. Achowat

    Achowat Member+

    Mar 21, 2011
    Revere, MA
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    When the Revs were in the MLS Cup Final, countless people in Boston and Providence watched the game who had never watched a Revs game before, and would definitely not watch the game if it weren't a Final. Those people, who the League depends on to bump viewership during the tail ends of the playoffs, don't tune in to hear the half-time explanation that "The Red Bulls need to beat San Jose by at least two more goals than Columbus beats Houston, assuming that RSL loses to LAG".

    They don't even tune in.
     
  23. nlsanand

    nlsanand Member+

    May 31, 2007
    Toronto
    Club:
    Toronto FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Canada
    I agree with this logic in terms of the unfriendliness of a group stage playoff. Not sure it can be applied to aggregate in general which is fairly intuitive without the away goals rule.
     
  24. EvanJ

    EvanJ Member+

    Manchester United
    United States
    Mar 30, 2004
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #200 EvanJ, Mar 26, 2015
    Last edited: Mar 26, 2015
    I understand your point, but if a person refuses to watch any competition that could have goal differential tiebreakers, simulatenously games where the score (not just outcome) of one affects another, and aggregate goal series, that person couldn't watch the Group Stage of the World Cup, Euro, Confederations Cup, Gold Cup etc. and couldn't watch the Round of 16, Quarterfinals, or Semifinals of the UEFA Champions League. There are some concepts that people need to understand to watch a variety of competitions. It doesn't take calculus to know that if both legs were won by the home club, one 2-1 and one 3-1, the club that won 3-1 scored more aggregate goals. If the MLS Playoffs were the only competition that used aggregate goals and an away goals tiebreaker then I might feel differently.

    Edit: Your statement starting with "The Red Bulls" may not be more complicated than some final week battles to make the playoffs of the most populat league in the country, the NFL. In MLS tiebreakers to make the playoffs, the conferences are not subdivided. In the NFL, ties with two teams in one division and one team in another division are broken in the division first. Let's say those three teams are competing for two wild card playoff places. Whoever lost the tiebreaker within the division would miss the playoffs even if that team had beaten the tied team in the other division head-to-head. Then the two tied teams that made the playoffs would use tiebreakers for seeding.
     

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