I was looking though my nasl history book and most of the years I could figure out what the playoff format was except for 1981 does one here know what it was that year
As best as I can tell, 15 teams made the playoffs based on overall league ranking. The top team (Cosmos) got a bye to the quarterfinals. The series were best-of-3, with overtime and shootouts ensuring that every game had a winner. The final was a neutral-site single game, Soccer Bowl '81 in Toronto, won by Chicago over the Cosmos in a shooutout after a scoreless match.
The third game was a mini game (I think two 15 or 20 minute halfs) played right after the second game. Here's a good site for NASL standings and playoff game scores. http://www.sover.net/~spectrum/ Here's an example for the '80 season. http://www.sover.net/~spectrum/year/1980.html For this year it looked like they had a 1st round of 16 teams followed conference semi finals, confernece finals and then the championship. It doesn't look like there were any byes for the first round. I'm guessing that they formatt may have changed a few times.
1st Round: (1) New York (first round bye) (2)Chicago defeated Seattle(15) 3-2, 0-2, 3-2 (14)Tampa Bay defeated Vancouver(3) 4-1, 1-0 (4) San Diego defeated Portland(11*) 1-2, 5-1, 2-0 (11*) Jacksonville defeated Atlanta(8) 3-2, 2-1 (5)Minnesota defeated Tulsa (7)3-1, 1-0 (11*)Montreal defeated Los Angeles(6) 5-3, 2-3, 2-1 (OT) (10) Ft. Lauderdale defeated Calgary(9) 3-1, 2-0 Quarterfinals: Chicago defeated Montreal 2-3, 4-2, 4-2 Ft. Lauderdale defeated Minnesota 3-1, 3-0 New York defeated Tampa Bay 6-3, 2-3(SO), 2-0 San Diego defeated Jacksonville 1-2(OT), 2-1, 3-1 Semi-finals: New York defeated Ft. lauderdale 4-3, 4-1 Chicago defeated San Diego 1-2, 2-1, 1-0 SOCCER BOWL-’81: Chicago defeated New York 1-0 (SO) Here is the results of the playoffs with the overall ranking beside each team does any one have any idea how the pair were decided
Looks to me that they ranked the division champs 1-5, the 2nd place teams 6-10, and threw in 5 wildcards in the 11-15 slots. So the seeds were: Division Champions 1. New York (200 pts) 2. Chicago (195 pts) 3. Vancouver (186 pts) 4. San Diego (173 pts) 5. Atlanta (151 pts) Division Runner-ups 6. Minnesota (163 pts) 7. Los Angeles (160 pts) 8. Calgary (151 pts) 9. Ft Lauderdale (144 pts) 10. Montreal (141 pts) Wildcards 11. Tulsa (154 pts) 12. Jacksonville (141 pts) 13. Portland (141 pts) 14. Tampa Bay (139) 15. Seattle (137 pts) So using the 2v15, 3v14, 4v13, 5v12, 6v11, 7v10, 8v9 pairing format you get the schedule used that season. Looks like the seeds were reshuffled in later rounds, sort of like how the NHL does it right now. Not sure if this is what you were looking for, but it was a nice little distraction for my brain to try and figure it out.
Soccer Bowl 1978 NY Cosmos vs Tampa Bay Rowdies David Robb the "hero of the playoffs" GK Jack Brand & Wrener Roth
Soccer Bowl 77. Pele's last NASL match with the NY Cosmos vs. Seattle Sounders in Portland's Civic Stadium. Here is Bobby Smith & Mike England in a dual.
Your seeds don't match the seeds from ranul's post, though. For example, Minnesota had the 5th seed according to ranul's post, not Atlanta. Also, the matchups didn't all follow the 2v15, 3v14, etc pattern. If they had, Calgary should have played Atlanta, and Ft. Lauderdale should have played Tulsa.