First of all, this system actually attempts to avoid a 4-0 result in a match. If you have a game which gets out of hand under the old system, the losing club could say: "The hell with it, we've only lost a game. We'll win the next one. Let's not kill ourselves out there. It doesn't matter how much we lose by." Well, under the new format, they'll have to play hard the whole way. Otherwise, they're throwing the entire series away. It's a way to get everybody to go all out for 90 minutes (or 180 minutes, if you simply view the two-match aggregate as, basically, a single match). As far as "soft yellow cards" goes, I'm sure the officials will not be running around handing out yellows just for the sake of it. They realize how important the matches are. Besides, "soft" fouls can be called and mess up any playoff format. This one is no more susceptible to that than any other.
It doesn't fully negate home field advantage. Without away goals, it is a bit better, but the team playing the second leg at home still has an advantage. And away goals isn't that idiotic anyway. Matteo, there will only be overtime in the second leg of the home-and-home, 30 mins, golden goal followed by pens if necessary. http://mlsnet.com/content/02/mls1120format.html
There's no advantage to playing the first game or the second game at home. In the two-legged meetings in the UEFA Cup and UEFA Champions League over the past two years, the team that hosted the first leg won the series almost exactly 50% of the time. The team that hosted the second leg won the series almost exactly 50% of the time. MLS has gone from a system where there was a very real and very apparent home-field advantage for the higher seeded teams to one where the home-field advantage is marginal at best.
There's no advantage to hosting the second game that's been proven empirically. The perception that there is one is pretty much an old wives' tale that there is one. This is the only real advantage for the higher seeded team -- up to thirty extra minutes at home. Only if you're seeded higher than the other conference finalist. And in any case, that's a real home-field advantage. You get to host one more game than the other conference finalist. A very marginal advantage. MLS should've just done straight knockout for both rounds. As it is now, the #1 and #2 seeds in each conference only get a very marginal advantage, compared to what they got in previous seasons.
In the playoffs, will the 10-minute MLS overtime be added on to all of the games? It would be quite strange to have a 10-minute sudden death overtime go scoreless only to have it followed by another 30-minute overtime period.
There will be no overtime after the first match of the two-match series if it is tied. At the end of the second match, if the clubs are still tied, there will be two 15-minute overtimes. A sudden-death, golden goal will end the match and series. If it is still drawn after the entire 30-minute OT, they will go to penalty kicks to determine which club moves on to the next round.
Well, I can remember a lot of cases where the old wives tale came true. With no away goals, though, it matters less, but the team that plays at home first has pressure to get a good result because they want a cusion, while the other team can play defensively. In the second leg, the home team knows exactly what it's up against and has the home fans with them as they try to get it. Presuming the away teams can limit their opponents effectively, the overtime becomes more important. Of course, if Home Team 1 wins big, they have a huge advantage. I guess we'll have to wait and see how it plays out... They wanted to guarantee each playoff team a home game, and probably bring their system closer to the global system as well. (Yes, they use single elimination all over the world, too, but...)
Yeah, but only 50% of the time. Don't take my word for it. Go to www.rsssf.org, look it up, run the numbers, and see for yourself. But you'll find that the team hosting the first leg still managed to win almost exactly 50% of the time. In other words, there is no advantage to be had by hosting the second leg. None. Zero. Zip. That being said, I imagine that a majority of MLS' two-legged ties will go to the team hosting the second leg, but that's only because it's the higher seed hosting the second leg. After all, a #1 seed will usually beat a #4. Still, if upsets can happen when the higher seed had an entire additional game at home, I can well imagine that they'll happen even more often when that advantage is reduced to a possible 30 extra minutes at home. Spare me the bullcrap about two-legged ties being a "global system." Single elimination is almost as ubiquitous as two-legged ties, and it's used in all of the major international tournaments between national teams. Honestly, the people who advocate two-legged ties over single elimination for a tournament between seeded teams are the soccer purists' equivalent to the people that drive Citroens in the USA: It isn't really necessary, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, and in the end, it's not done for reasons other than to be fashionable. Finally, let me just say this in favor of single elimination all the way through the MLS playoffs. Yes, it would mean that some teams would not get to host a playoff game. So what? This ain't youth soccer. These are the pros. Everybody doesn't get a chance. If you wanted a playoff game at home, but didn't get one, you should've won a few more games during the regular season. But Lord knows that we wouldn't want to give the regular season any more meaning by actually having it determine whether or not teams got to host any playoff games.
All I can say is that the fourth place team does not deserve as many home games in the first round as the first place team.
ElJefe, Just because you get an advantage does not automatically mean you will take advantage of it. It would be an advantage for me in a race to use a bike against a guy on a pogo stick, but that doesn't mean I'm going to win every time. Hell, you could let San Jose play four games at home in the playoffs and it doesn't mean they will win all four. They just have a better shot at doing it. Whether they take advantage of this better shot depends on them. Let's look at San Jose, since we know they are the number one seed in the West. At this time, they would play L.A. in the first round. Game one would be at Home Depot. Game two on their pitch. If they win game one, they now come home knowing they've got the aggregate goal lead on a pitch they know better then most (due to the dimensions, they have a slight advantage over anybody they play there) with their home crowd (no matter how many show up) behind them, plus a good night's sleep on their own bed. That is an advantage whether or not they make full use of it. If they tie game one, they come home with the same conditions mentioned above, knowing that if the series is tied at the end, the thirty extra minutes is in front of their twelfth man. If they lose game one (barring it being a blow out), they still got a game in front of their crowd against a club with zero road victories this year. Say they win this series. The conference final is on their home pitch. If you're playing a one game, all-or-nothing contest, you want to be playing on your home field. That is an advantage. You could probably find stats that showed being at home for a single game elimination means nothing (I don't follow NFL at all, but how many times do the teams with home field all through playoffs actually make the Super Bowl?), but I'd still want that home game. That is an advantage. Revs had home field advantage last year and they still lost MLS Cup at home. Does that negate that it was still an advantage going in? No. My brother told me that the Cubs won in Atlanta in game five. It seems like the Braves had home field advantage and still lost. Does that mean it wasn't really an advantage for them? Not at all. They blew the advantage they had. To throw out stats like you have proves nothing, because numbers don't always tell the whole story. All home field advantage means is that you are given a wee bit more then your opponent is. It doesn't mean you'll win. You just have a better shot at winning (or a greater chance of blowing it, depending on how you look at things).
That's an absolutely bogus argument. If the team hosting the second leg only wins 50% of the time, then it has been absolutely, positively proven numerically that there is absolutely no advantage in a two-leg series. A team would have the same odds in a coin flip. Of course, San Jose will have an advantage because they'll be playing the worst playoff team from the West, but that's not advantage of the two-legged series because they'd have the same advantage in best-of-three, first-to-five, or single elimination. For example, in the MLS playoff series from 1996 to 1999, they'd get to play the worst playoff team from their conference AND they'd get one more home game. Compare and contrast with the current system, where they get to play the worst playoff team in their conference, but only get an extra 30 minutes. Yes, yes, yes. That's what I've been saying. In a best-of-three, first-to-five, or single elimination, the higher seed gets one more home game than their opponent. THAT'S an advantage. But in two-legged series, that advantage doesn't exist. Incidentally, in the single-elimination FA Cup, home teams won 73 times, lost 49 times, and drew 27 times in the 2002-2003 tournament. Of the matches that had a winner, the home team won 60% of the time. Of course they had the advantage. They had one game at home while LA had none. Clear advantage. LA overcame New England's home-field advantage and won. But there is no provable home-field advantage in a two-legged series. Each team has one home game, and historically, it's been shown that you have a fifty-fifty chance of winning a two-leg series, no matter which leg you host. And this is the reason why they use it in the UEFA Cup and in the qualifying rounds of the UEFA Champions League. When you have a team from the Norwegian league playing a team from the Czech league, it's hard to say that one team inherently deserves an advantage, so you even it up by giving each team a home game and the better team will theoretically win. (Note the word "theoretically" in there. Practice is a bit different from theory.) But a seeded playoff is a different story. Or at least, it has been in MLS' short history and in the history of ever other league's playoffs in North America and Mexico. If you finish with a better record, you get to host one more game than your opponent or your get to advance in the case of a tie (as it is in the Mexican two-legged playoffs). Ridiculous. There is no home-field advantage in to be had in a two-legged playoff. Each team gets one game at home. In a best-of-three, first-to-five, or single-elimination playoff, there is a palettable home-field advantage when you get to host one more game than your opponent and you play in a league where the home team has a 62-36-37 record so far this season. The numbers do tell the whole story. From 1996 to 2002, teams that hosted Game 3, the ones who got the extra game, went 18-5 in that extra game. THAT'S a home-field advantage.
However, do any of the stats that have been thrown out about teams in a two-legged tie winning 50% of the time take into consideration a 30 minute mini-game (or overtime, or whatever they are calling it?). I don't think so, because most other two-legged ties use the away goals rule, while MLS is not. So you can't equate the system used throughout the rest of the world to the MLS. Without having numbers on my side, I would conjecture that the higher seeded team will win more than 50% of the time in the MLS version of home and home. Why? Two reasons: 1) they are the higher seeded team, so have an advantage, just based on seeding. 2) They have the mini-game at home. I don't know what kind of advantage this will be, but it is better than nothing. The MLS system does provide a home field advantage. The question remains, is it enough?
True. There's also the fact that in UEFA competitions you'll get a big team in a big league playing a relative minnow a lot of times, and in such a case, it wouldn't matter who's hosting the first leg or the second leg. The big team's gonna win. However, assuming that in those cases, the big teams host the first legs 50% of time and the second legs 50% of the time, it's all a wash anyway. Well, I copped to that already. Chances are that San Jose will advance over LA. They're a much better team. However, it's not a given. LA's got a terrific home record, and although they don't have a single road win this year, they do have a lot of draws. A win at home and a draw in San Jose would send them to a third game in the old "first-to-five" scenario. Now, it'll send them to the next round. There weren't very many of the series tiebreakers from 2000 to 2002 -- only two of them. But they were run the same way as the current one, and in those two, Kansas City at home beat LA in 2000 and Dallas at home lost to Colorado in 2002. With this little historical evidence, it's hard to say if there's a big advantage or not. My gut tells me that there's not a big one, since it's sudden-death. After all, over 90 minutes of non-sudden-death soccer, the home team usually wins. But that doesn't mean that the home team always scores first. And in sudden-death, it's all about who scores first. With the amount of parity in this league and with no substantial home-field advantage in the first round, I'd say that it's very likely that either San Jose or Chicago will go down in the first round. After all, San Jose hasn't exactly been insurmountable at home and Chicago doesn't have a good record against New England this season.
Did I say those were my reasons for having a two-leg playoff? No. Those are MLS' reasons, and therefore the only ones that count. Didn't I admit that single-elimination was prevelent in the rest of the world, as well? This is what it says on MLSnet: I think they are realizing that all their experiments, like shoutouts and first-to-five, haven't worked all that well, and they might as well go with the way soccer is played everywhere else. And I completely agree. I want the season to hang on more than 90 minutes of play in that first round, and I wouldn't mind home-and-home in the second round as well, but hey. All the regular season means as it stands is that your team is out. The parity among the rest of the teams will make the playoffs exciting, and I'm happy with the home field advantage we're going to get. As I said, we'll see what happens...it'll probably be different again next year...
Finally, El Jefe, we are getting somewhere. My argument all along has been that there is a home field advantage in the MLS playoffs. You deny that there is, but now you right that there is not a "substantial" home field advantage. Yes, playing two out of three at home is MORE of an advantage then just one game in the first round, but only if you made it to three games (and how many playoff series did between 1996-1998? Very few--I can think of only two: United-Metrostars 1996 and United-Crew in 1998). Look at the last two years of MLS playoffs. Out of twelve home field advantage series played (don't count the two MLS Cup finals, since officially L.A. were the home team last year due to the #1 seed), five series ended with the lower seed winning them (2001--Quakes beat Crew, Quakes beat Fusion FC, L.A. beat Chicago) (2002-Rapids beat Burn, Crew beat Quakes). Just barely over half. That is not a substantial home field advantage either. Again, it comes down to the degree of home field advantage we fans want. Some, such as El Jefe, want more of an advantage. Well, if two out of three at home is better then one out of two (and I'll agree it is), does that mean all you home field advocates would like to see the higher seed get all three at home of a three game series? This system isn't perfect. There are better ways to reward a higher seed, I'll agree. But I think too many out there are living in denial if they think there is no home field advantage whatsoever here.
Correction Obviously in my first full paragraph, I meant "now you write" rather then "now you right". Just spent the last 90 minutes typing and my fingers are moving quicker then my thinking at this point in time. It's late. Sorry.
After talking to my brother today (him talking about Cubs, me pretending to care out of familial loyalty) about the MLB playoffs, I thought about the home field advantage once again. Cubs have the home field over the Marlins in the best of seven series. With a three to one advantage coming into the game today, they could win and go to World Series. Here's the thing: if Cubs win series today, they will have played two at home and three on the road. Even if it goes to game six, that would be three home and three away. If it had been a sweep, it would have been two home and two away. So unless a series goes all seven in MLB (and possibly NHL and NBA, I'm not sure) playoffs, there really isn't a home field advantage there. In MLS, the team with home field will play the deciding game at home, guaranteed. Not a guarantee in MLB. Just a thought.