I don't understand there's a Western and Eastern League in the US, and now the clubs from east play against clubs from the west coast, like Toronto against Chivas. How does the MLS work?? Why it isnt just a single table then?
I'll have mercy on you and give you a quick rundown: - All MLS teams play each other, but they play teams from their own conference more often. - US is a big country and travel from coast to coast wears out teams. By playing more games in-conference, travel wear (and costs!) are kept down. - Conference format allows for building of regional rivalries, since in-conference teams play more often. - Looking at the future, US has enough big cities to support a lot of top-flight teams, making it very hard to do a single table schedule once more than 22-24 teams are in the league. Promotion-relegation will not work with MLS (don't ask, there are threads on that too), leaving a conference format as the only feasible solution.
Because the US is a very big country and it cuts down on travel costs (also builds rivalries) by having teams play the teams closer to them more times. This is also the traditional way that sports leagues work in the US (for the same reasons above), breaking down a big league into conferences and sometimes further into divisions.
but yet each country has their own league, where those teams only play each other. sure a few of the top teams travel in Europe occassionally, and we have that same idea here with the CONCACAF Champions Cup. But for the most part, most teams stay inside their own country, which by itself is a lot smaller than the USA.
just adding a little bit to what has been said. If you look at the other major sporting leagues in the US (Major League Baseball, National Football League, National Hockey League, National Basketball Association)... they all have 2 conferences... which are further subdivided into divisions.... this is probably the eventual model for MLS. In the US, standing within a division or conference is the most important thing during the regular season... the playoffs are used to determine the eventual champion. For example, in American Football (the NFL)... I am a fan of the Chicago Bears... they play in the National Conference (NFC), North Division... The NFL only plays a 16 game schedule, even though there are 32 teams in the league.. every year, the Bears play home and away games with Green Bay, Minnesota, and Detroit, the other 3 teams in our division. that accounts for 6 of the 16 games each year.. the other 10 opponents change from year to year (there is system in place to assure you play every team at least once every 4 years, but I won't get into that).... For me, the most important thing every year is winning our division, because it guarantees a spot in the playoffs. How teams in other divisions and the other conference doesn't mean as much There is no way American Football is going to play a 62 game 2-legged schedule (16 games is plenty, the game wears on players)... and even 31 games isn't practical... divisions and conferences are used to maintain rivalries. In the case of Baseball, teams play an insane 162 game schedule, but once again, most of the games teams play are within their own division... even when playing 162 games in a summer, there are still a number of teams that don't play each other. Baseball is actually split into two overlapping leagues, the American League and the National League.... until about a decade ago, teams from the two leagues never played each other outside of the world series finals, even though some cities had teams that were across town from one another. Once again, the big thing is winning your division... even though you play teams from all over the country, you are in direct competition for a playoff spot with the 4 or 5 other teams in your division. I guess the point of all of this is that in America, sports traditionally use the division/conference scheme... so even though MLS has only 13 franchises, it splits teams into divisions to give a sense of familiarity with other sports. It isn't out of the bounds of reason to think that in the future, when the league hopefully has 24-30 teams... that MLS will be arranged much like other US pro leagues.
...and to add some more. MLS is not the only entity does so. FMF in Mexico has a conference system that mixes single table and groups.
Not to mention Central and South America--most of whose leagues have playoffs. Oh yes, the Australian A-League also has a playoff series for the top 4 clubs.
In addition, population distribution in Europe means that most UEFA team traveling is confined to the western part of the continent. If you look at sheer size of European Russia, it is a huge part of the continent that is not represented by many clubs. On the other hand, US has large population centers both on the east and west coast that are serviced by MLS teams that play within the same league. Since the league is looking to expand into the Pacific Northwest and (hopefully) come back into Florida, travel is only going to get worse. --------- Ante Jazic (LA Galaxy) knows a lot of the guys playing for Toronto FC that are new to the league. This is what he says they were most surprised by: http://www.lasoccernews.com/article.php?article_id=1469
Yup, even A-League tailors its playoffs to a sport more popular in their country: they use the playoff system used by Australian rules football that has major and minor finals (essentially a double elimination tournament).