Except we already have a group stage. It's 30 games long. Seriously, what's the difference between a 30-game group stage that eliminates all but (basically) the top four out of 6 or 7 and doing it all over again with just the top four? Other than the fact that you play everybody the same number of times in a mini-group stage, whereas it's not equally distributed during the regular season. To me, it's not that a playoff format that has a group stage is confusing or unfair - it's that it's unnecessary. It seems to have become, to some, the thing to latch onto at the moment as a counter to the two legs or one-offs, which each have their own faults. That doesn't make it any better than any format they've tried before or use currently. I just don't think it's necessary or dramatic. (And aren't most soccer games "90 minute self-contained games?" I don't even know what that means.)
Yes but the World Cup and Champions League use a group stage to narrow down to 16 teams. MLS already plays a 6 month schedule to narrow down to 8 teams. A group stage is simply redundant. That and the fact that the majority of group stage scenarios would result in at least one team having little or nothing to play for on last matchday. That destroys the entire competitive balance of the group and is very anticlimatic. There is nothing more unpleasant than watching an already disqualified (or qualified) team play a game. The underlying concept of H/A is still a head to head match. The details may be foreign, but it's still one team advances and one team goes home. That's how playoffs work in the US. A group stage would create a scenario where on last matchday a team's fate could be decided in a game they're not playing. There is no way you can tell me that that concept is familiar to an average American sports fan
Well, few things are more unpleasant, but the notion of a "going through the motions playoff game" doesn't thrill me. Any more than the idea of a playoff game ending in a tie or potentially losing a playoff game and still advancing. Maybe not "familiar," but it has happened. There have been scenarios in baseball and football where teams have been waiting by the television to see if a team they needed to lose to get into the playoffs wins or loses. And the World Cup philosophy of having the final games of a group played at the same time to eliminate the "well, we already know we're in or out, let's just tank this game" element would work just as well here. In a four-team group where you would play three games, the chances that there'd be a meaningless game on the final day (if both matches are played simultaneously) is no more than in the World Cup. Which the "average American sports fan" may not be intimately familiar with, but which any American soccer fan worth his or her salt most definitely is. All that said, I agree with your opinion that a playoff group stage would be redundant.
A survey of the proposed formats shows that they are all flawed: 1. The current system does not reward the higher seed enough/at all 2. Single elimination makes for too short a post-season. Compared to the other American leagues the playoffs:regular season ratio for MLS is already small. Also, the lower seed does not get a home game 3. First-to-Five and First-to-Four are too convoluted 4. A three game series with no ties introduces a higher chance of PKs Let me propose a format that suffers from none of these flaws: 3 game aggregate goals!
The major flaw here is that you're essentially creating a 270 minute match. There would be virtually no sense of urgency in the first 100-200 minutes.
the WC also has a group stage (or regular season type set-up; the continental qualifiers) before the first round the final WC (proper) tournament. was it redundant when the US faced Mexico in the second round in 2002 in S. Korea? there are only so many teams (in the world) or in a league, so any trournament that features the "best" teams will of course run into some redundancy, but that doesn't make the format bad. (and yes i understand how the first round of the WC is set up to avoid confederation teams -- except for UEFA -- being grouped with one another). the difference is that in an MLS playoff group stage, the higher seeds would be rewarded with the home games. the lower seeds would really have to pull off an upset on the road. the regular season (especially when the league reaches 16 or 18 teams), likely will be an equally distributed format, and the best teams across those 30 or 34 games will be rewarded with home games in the group phase. additionally, the added incentive of hosting a semifinal, should your team win the group in the first round of the playoffs, adds to the importance of (potentially more of) the games in group play, even on the third matchday. the "group stage" idea is not just the hot idea of the moment (or one to which people are and should be latching onto). many have had this idea for several seasons. MLS has used the current H/A first round format for 4 straight seasons now, and the issues/difficiencies (especially on the first weekend) look pretty consistent. once SUM/MLS/FMF announced the SuperLiga for 2007, I thought that format (8 teams in two groups of four, followed by single-elimination semi's and a final) was something that would be a great fit for the MLS post-season -- and a tournament format the MLS could adopt (for future post-seasons) having seen it effectively implemented in the SuperLiga. the argument against any playoff system for MLS (or any league) is that it is REDUNDANT or unnecessary. (hadn't the Indians already played the Yankees and the Red Sox enough during the regular season, did we really need to see them play more games in the post season? can't the champion for the season just be determined by who had the best record or most points in the regulars season? ) the group stage is a "fair and exciting" system, imo, but it is weighted to reward the higher seeds with more home games. a playoff isn't necessary (unless your running a business and like more ticket-sales and such things as additional tv/media/general exposure and potentially more interest in your product). but there certainly are "more dramatic" options out there than the H/A in the first round. i feel the 6 games that 4 teams would play against one another in one group would be far superior (and more dramatic) than the 4 games they currently play as a pair of H/A series to determine the semifinalists for the MLS Cup. the first weekend of the current H/A syster don't really look to me as if they are "90 minute self-contained games". they look like tactical battles where teams aren't so much concerned with "winning" as they are with either "keeping it close/respectable" or "keeping it even" to reach the half-way point of the 180-minute series. The H part seems like a bit of a time-waste (or an incomplete experience) when the A 90-minute part will often be the decider, and where the drama and excitement can be found. a group stage would offer those complete/exciting "self-contained games" for every ticket, and this is something that is lacking on the first weekend under the current system. a group stage is superior (from an MLS business/money-making stance) to the straight single-leg knock-out option, as it gives the 1 seed 3 home games, the 2 seed 2 home games, and the 3 seed 1 home game (per conference) to sell in the first round.
Yeah. Almost a year before. Considering there was a lot more at stake than an MLS playoff game, no. By its very nature, US-Mexico (who may play twice, maybe three times in the span of 12 months in a really meaningful game) is bigger than New York playing New England again, but this time New York gets them at home. And I don't agree with you. But this appears to be your personal cause celebre of the moment, which is fine. It seems like you're distributing quite a few leaflets about it, which is fine, I guess. But it seems to me that your goal in a group stage situation isn't so much "win this game" as "Okay, what do we need to do to potentially go through?" Do teams in the World Cup (I mean teams that aren't Brazil or Germany or Croatia) look at their group and say "We're going to just win every game," or do they, like the US, say "I think we're going to need 4 points out of this 270 minutes of play, so we'll need a win and a draw, now where can we get those?" So, to me (and, apparently, not to you, which is fine), I don't think it is three distinct 90 minute self-contained games quite as much as it's a campaign out of which you need a certain number of results in a finite amount of time (a longer amount of time than a two-legged or one-off playoff format). But the urgency only gets stepped up as you go along. Lose the first game? Well, you have to get a draw and a win in the next two, so that's more urgent, but it may not have helped you play any harder in the first group stage match. You draw the first match, now you have one point, you only have to win one of the next two, how intense is that? I'm just not seeing it. You obviously are, which is fine and you're entitled to it. I'm just not seeing that a group stage format in the MLS Cup playoffs is so much better than what we have now, except that it's not the system we have now, so, by definition (for some), it's better than what we have now. That and it's the one format that hasn't been hashed to death here for the last five years, so it's like global warming. Everybody's talking about it now, but I'm not seeing where it's a bigger deal now than it was five years ago.
on a four-year cycle, things are spread out a bit more. to say that the eastern conference teams play eachother "too often" in a season, is no great argument when confederation teams can and do play eachother at even a higher percentage of their total games in a 4-year cycle. it's a good cause. the structure is a bit different, as an MLS group stage (just like SuperLiga) rewards the group winner with a home semifinal game. it is a small (or large), but meaningful incentive. playing for 4 or 5 points is an ok tactic, but playing to win all the group games and the group certainly is something i would see most playoff teams pursuing. (yes the lower seeds could be more tactical and just try to get to 4 and squeak into the semi's, but it would be no worse than how the first round is played now). 4 points far from guarantees a team safe passage in a single-round robin group from which two teams advance. i certainly see a lot more urgency (and better played games) in group stage matches than i do in a good percentage of the H/A series i've seen. but i can understand that others may see it differently. five years ago, i think the mentality that "everybody" (or every team that made the playoffs at least) needs a home playoff game made business sense for MLS. now, there's more "independence" by the clubs within the "single-entity" structure. setting/adopting a playoff format the really rewarded teams for their regular season records (by having group stage games always hosted by the higher seed) would be another step (like the DP rule or the reserve league or the youth academies/teams) toward pushing league beyond (or a bit away from) the "we're all in this together" mentality. and i think that would be an improvement. maybe the league isn't ready for that now. maybe they will be when they get to 16, or 18 teams. or maybe, as i think, the league would be ready for it in 2008 when they are at 14 teams. the league is maturing. i can't see the decision makers and the competition committee being content to keep the current playoff format (or one very similar to it) forever. i think the SuperLiga format was great. i don't see why it (the group stage, even with some of its warts and potential issues) couldn't work, and work very well, in the MLS post-season. anyone is free to disagree, but i think most of the objections folks have to the idea/system can be easily refuted (or at least much more easily addressed then some of the current system's shortcomings). not everyone will agree with that, but i know there'd be good reason to agree if they wanted to. i can see how the playoff format status quo isn't killing the league, but i can also see how it's not particularly helping the league.
We can't do one as games per unit of time and one as percentage of total games. If the US played Mexico four times in 63 games in the cycle from 2003-2006 (they did), that's 6% of their total games. New York will have played New England five times in 33 games this year (a "cycle", if you will). 15% of their total games. Obviously, with expansion to 14 teams, we're getting near the point where we'll (hopefully) eventually have enough teams that you'll play everybody twice and no more. Until then, yes, I think it would be redundant to have New York play another group stage to determine which two teams out of DC, NY, NE and CHI get to move on when you've just played thirty games to determine that those four are the most deserving of the 7 to continue to play. But that's just me, obviously. Given the mentality of soccer that I've seen expressed as long as I've been following it (almost 30 years now), I think the coaches that go balls out and try to win all the group games would be a smaller group than you seem to think. Herm Edwards plays to win the game. Soccer coaches, by and large, play to advance, by whatever means necessary. They're not always the same thing. And because you can achieve advancement without winning (too) often in this sport (IMHO), they'll continue to do that. Now that I agree with you on. I think the day is coming (sooner rather than later) where those economic concerns can take a back seat to competitive ones. I'm not sure it's tomorrow, but I can see it happening. Anything can work. They had best-of-three with shootouts and that didn't stop them from crowning a champion. DC United hasn't taken stars off their shirts because they got three of them in that era (was 1999 in the best-of-three era? I forget). They had first-to-five, which was confusing as hell and if the first game was a draw, the second game was meaningless, but that didn't stop us from getting a champion. Two legs/One leg has its merits and problems, but even that hasn't stopped us from getting a champion (did it grease LA's path in 2005? I don't know, if New England could score an MLS Cup goal more than once in a blue moon, it might be a moot point). Anything can work. I'm not saying it couldn't work. I'm saying why go to it? Why, other than the fact that it hasn't been tried before and hasn't been hashed and re-hashed and beaten to death and then dragged behind a horse on Bigsoccer, would you make that change? For what marginal rise in "intensity" or "fairness" or "godidon'tknowwhatyouwantoutofthese games" that you're going to get? That's my point. Except for this one: Why bother? Is it a quantum leap? Is it a panacea? Is it that clearly superior to waiting for expansion to make playoff berths harder to come by or waiting for the level of competitiveness in the league to rise? I simply don't believe it is. I believe it's the new chick who just moved into town who's only perceived as hot because she moved in in January and you haven't seen her in a bikini yet. But, again, that's just me.
yes, but the less than perfect ideas (like the first-to-five, or playing in large venues, or the shoot-out clock, or the 4th-sub-if-it's-a-goalie rule) tend to get replaced over time. the league is evolving and growing. and somethings that may have "worked" in the past, or in the present, may not always "work" best for the league, or continually be used by the league. i think the H/A first round of the playoffs fits into that category of things that can "work" but do get replaced by other ideas/systems. maybe i'm wrong. maybe the SuperLiga (and hypothetically the MLS playoffs, too) will one season in the future move beyond and abandon the group stage (if another, better, simpler format can be devised and implemented). who knows? to answer your why go to it? question, i offer these reasons: the two real and big advantages the group stage has, imo, is that it 1) better rewards the higher seeds in the post-season (i.e. makes the regular season results "matter more" -- as the regular-season competition, even as the league grows from 14 to 16 teams and beyond, isn't just to "qualify" for the playoffs, but to qualify as high as possible to "earn" home games) and that it 2) increases the number of playoff games (which should be good for the I/O's bottom line as it increases ticket sales -- in theory -- and increases exposure for the league). the H/A system is lacking in both of those departments. the group stage would be a simple "fix" (or attempted "fix") to those issues. of course the questions is, does MLS see those as "issues" that are in need of addressing or "fixing" anytime soon? maybe. maybe not. i'm sure they have a lot on their plate. but i know they'd have one more (and potentially many more) happy fan(s) if they "improved/adjusted" their current playoff system, and "improved/adjusted" their regular season schedule so it didn't clash (at all, or so much) with the Fifa calendar. but then again, it's not my money and i'm not lucky/known enough to be able to be a part of the competition committee or the BoG, so these aren't my decisions to make, or really even contribute to. but as a fan i think these are reasonable concerns/positions to have. (i do think there are reasonable/defensible "business stances" that align with my "fan/competition" concerns/preferences on these issues.)
OK, gang, let's recap for those of you who are still reading this thread. It's clear that the current format of 2 legs seems to be sub optimal in terms of goal scoring and, not incidentally, excitement. Rather than reinvent the wheel and come up with something that supposedly works in another American-based sport, let's take a serious look at what other SOCCER leagues have been doing for decades. There are 3 options: Away goals as the first tiebreaker (standard in UEFA and some Latin countries) Higher seed goes through (used in FMF for many years) Group format (used in WC Qualies, Superliga, and likely other places) What the first two seem to do -- unlike the current MLS format -- is to encourage the lower seeded team and/or force the away team to attack. By discouraging bunkering, we get to see goals and maybe more exciting games. This has the added attraction of not giving soccer bashers ammunation for their insane rants. What the third one does is to encourage wins at the expense of draws because the 3-1-0 point system is in force for group play. What do you have to do to win instead of draw? Score goals! I'm really agnostic about which of these methods -- all with long track records -- would be best, but I really do wish the Competition Committee would give all three of them a serious look when they meet next at MLS Cup.
And encourages the other team to do what? Last year's 2-leg UCL fixtures had overall scoring indistinguishable from the last 3 years of MLS 2-leg playoffs previous to this season (to get a roughly similar number of games), once you factor out the 7-1 shellacking ManU laid on Roma, several of those goals being unneeded, and that score being unlikely repeatable here. The reaction to this year's MLS 2-leg round is knee-jerk amnesia to what looks like mostly an anomaly. Now, away goals is an abomination in the sight of God and probably shouldn't be used even in the UCL (where you could always give an MLS-style slight home field to the team with the better UEFA coefficient), but that's their business. The day we bring it to a league where results can fairly give serious home field is the day I start chalking sidewalks. At any rate, I thought I would question its premise.
great post. makes me wonder if the Competition Committe might possibly be reading, and perhaps benefitting from this thread. i doubt it, but it's a nice thought. although the minor quibble I have is that the Group Stage idea (as it is discussed at https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=613858) isn't exactly used in "WC qualies", it is identically-used (save for the home-field factor for the higher MLS seeds) in the actual first round of the World Cup final tournament.
?????? Did the 3 points available in game 2 count less than the 3 points available in the other games? I never figured out what was so confusing about that format. 3 games, the team that wins the most wins. Play a tiebreaker if both teams win the same amount.
a couple of problems i see with the group-stage model: i) you get so many games in one place. and since i'd like them to play the games closer together, the idea of having three in a row in the same place isn't so attractive. even playing just once a week, three straight games at home hurts attendance. how many people would go to all three (or even two)? and if your one-seed happens to be a team with less fan support, there's a big risk of disappointing attendance numbers. you're putting an awful lot of the weight for attendance numbers in one place. ii) the group-stage is more complicated. for the casual fan, knock-out play-offs are the simplest to follow. i watched superliga, but i sure wasn't paying attention to the table. i just saw that a certain game was on and i thought, 'that looks like a good game.' that was fine for superliga. in the play-offs though, i think it should be easier for casual fans to know what's happening. group-stage to me seems more like a thing the hard-core would like (which perhaps is why it's popular around here).
agreed. i don't see what was "so confusing" about the 3-game (first-to-five) series as MLS used it in the '90s. being repetative (always playing the same team for 3 games) and very redundant matches, those are features i saw in that system, but the complications (of ties and whatnot) seemed minimal -- though i do think it was those "point" complications that caused the league to try something else (the aggregate goals H/A series). yes, there is that risk. but i see the reward of getting to host more playoff games in the group stage (for a superior regular season record) as worth that risk. and would not the best teams (those that earned the most points during the regular season) also be the "most entertaining/attractive" teams for audiences? i would think so, or the trend would be as such over multiple seasons. this year the first round gives us the following games: 1 in Chi, 1 in NY, 1 in NE, 1 in DC 1 in KC, 1 in Dal, 1 in Hou, 1 in LA if a group stage were used, the first round games would be played: 3 in DC, 2 in NE, 1 in NY 3 in LA, 2 in Hou, 1 in Dal certainly there are issues with loading the home games up for the higher seeds, but the benefits of a varied schedule, and a "mini-WC" feel and look to the tournament add so much more than is offered in the H/A format. economically, the league would have 12 games to sell in the first round, and that alone beats 8 games, imo, and throw in the bonus of the "best" teams hosting more games, and i think it is a better recipe. the group stage is "complicated", but not overly complicated. i don't see it as any less "confusing" or "strange" than a H/A aggregate goals series. the casual fans have seen the World Cup (and some -- those with TeleFutura -- have also seen the SuperLiga). the group stage is not a completely "foreign" concept or one that would be all that difficult to pick up or follow: each team plays 3 games, the two teams with the most points from those games advance to the semifinals. seems fairly simple to me.
Do we want high scoring games or smart tactically executed games? My big problem with this statement is that it places a greater emphasis on fan entertainment than the game itself. Also, not to belittle your point but: 2003 First leg scores 2-0 2-0 0-2 1-1 Total first leg goals = 8 in 4 games 2.0 GPG Second leg scores 1-1 (3-2) 0-2 (4-0) 2-5 (5-4) 0-2 (3-1) Total Second leg goals= 13 in 4 games = 3.2 GPG 2004 First Leg Scores 0-1 2-0 0-1 0-2 Total First Leg goals= 6 in 4 games = 1.5 GPG Second Leg Goals 0-2 (2-1) 0-2 (4-0) 1-1 (2-1) 0-3 (3-2) Total Second Leg Goals = 9 in 4 games = 2.25 GPG 2005 First Leg Goals 0-0 0-1 0-0 1-3 Total First Round Goals= 5 in 4 games = 1.25 GPG Second Leg Goals 4-0 (4-0) 1-3 (3-2) 2-2 (2-2)PK 1-1 (4-2) Total Secong Leg goals= 14 in 4 games = 3.5 GPG 2006 First Leg Goals 1-0 1-2 0-1 1-2 Total First Leg Goals= 8 in 4 games= 2.0 GPG Second Leg Goals 1-1 (2-1) 2-3 (4-4)PK 1-2 (3-3)PK 0-2 (3-2) Total Second Leg goals= 12 in 4 games= 3.0 GPG 2007 First Leg goals 0-0 1-0 1-0 1-0 Total First leg goals= 3 in 4 games 0.75 GPG Second Leg Goals ?????? Judging by the trends the first leg id always more defensive and conservative. Probably for two reasons. First it isnt the deciding game so each team doesnt play agreesive tactics because of the second game looming they dont want to shoot themsleves in the foot. Second, the away team, the team that usually would be the defensive side, is the team playing at home in the next leg, so they are there to keep things managable. The second leg always prodcues more goals and i assume this year will be no different. I would argue stringlt that the second leg produces tons of excitment and the total average GPG over both legs is comparable to the regular season, slighlty less but understandable due to the playoffs. If main concern is goal scoring i dont see how any of your preposed changes will help that. You can make the argument that away goal would lossen up the first leg and i would buy into that theory, but that doesnt mean it is assured more goals will be scored. But the theory is the away team in the first leg won't be as tempted to play for a scoreless draw. The FMF rule IMO would only encourage lower scoring games because the higher seed would be more focused on defending and maintaining the scoreline as a tie gets them through. Group play. I dont see any releveant effect on that system with respect to goals per game.
i say we want "good" games -- however they are played (be that "high-scoring" or "smart tactically executed"). agreed. the arguments for a group stage don't have much to do with "goals per game" concerns, but they have more to do with "good", "entertaining", "exciting" and "complete" games that don't usually tend to look like generally unattractive "tactical battles" over a good portion of the 180 minutes of the current H/A system. the three distinct 90-minute games that a team plays in a group stage are individually (and collectively) far more attractive to me (as a fan) than those 180-minutes (or two 90-minute individual halves of the series) that a team is guaranteed in the current H/A format. i can see that there can be "good/great" soccer played in the H/A series, and the second leg is usually quite dramatic and can feature many goals, but the drudgery (excessive tactical play and/or the lack of "desire/effort/need" from either or both teams to "win" that first game) in those first leg macthes is a real distraction/disappointment (and potential hinderance to fan and/or media excitement/passion for the playoffs) within the current format.
you might have good teams that don't draw, no matter how 'entertaining' they play. more likely, over multiple seasons you'd have the emergence of 'power teams' and the play-offs would be played overwhelmingly in the same places. h/a. team with most goals wins. seems even simpler for the casual fan, imho. less drawn out, and you don't need to check standings and calculate cross-possibilities of results. right now, such simplicity is a virtue for mls.
or (as i think is more likely) you'll have good teams (the higher seeds) that do draw good crowds. and for those high seeds that don't draw so well, the group stage (and hosting 2 or 3 games in the first round) would be an opportunity to build/expand/promote the audience for those games and that team. what better time than the "playoffs" to try to do that? "successful/winning" teams should be given the chance to carry on playing (more games) in front of their home fans, or the home fans should be given a greater opportunity to come out and see a "good/winning" team from the regular season. with the parity amongst the teams in MLS and the single-entity structure of the league, i think anything that encourages 'power teams' in any way, would be a good change of pace. but i don't see how the group stage in the playoffs would even necesarrily contribute to the 'emergence' of 'super clubs'. there are so many systems in place within MLS that (at least attempt to) level the playing field at the start of the next regular season. i need to check the standings (or previous results) to know who's up or who's even heading into these second legs. my contention is that the "casual fan" (or anyone) is potentially slightly turned off by those first leg games, as they don't "decide" anything, and the real "drama" of the series is always in the second match. there is such a limited level of "importance" on (and "excitement" in) those first 90 minutes. i think a group stage is a huge improvement in that area.
No - if the first game was a draw, you knew that there was going to be a game three and it was going to be the decider, no matter what happened in game two. So game two had to be played, but it didn't mean anything because even if you won, you had to win game three (or get a draw to get the fifth point). First to five was confusing to most people (apparently not to you) and it gave us the lowest average announced attendances of any playoff format MLS has ever tried.
Okay, since you've obviously thought this all the way out, you'll indulge me if I ask a few questions based on trying to get to the heart of the logistics of this thing: You're going to have the first-place team play three home games (against each of the other teams in its group), right? And the second place team play two home, one away, the third place team play one home and two away, and the fourth place team play three away. Am I correct so far? (Disclaimer: Usually when I get to the point in a scenario where I find something I think is a complete "non-starter," I don't go any further, but I'll press on for sake of the discussion. You do, at some point, have to get buy-in from the clubs, who get input from their coaches, in order to get a format like this passed - and I don't know if the playoff format is included in the Collective Bargaining Agreement or not - and I don't see coaches being too keen on the notion that they've got to play three road playoff games in the first round if they finish fourth. You can say "Well, don't finish fourth, then," but somebody's going to finish fourth and while it's Chicago this time it could be DC United next time. I think that might be a non-starter.) Okay, so the second-worst thing to having no playoff games to sell (and from which to generate revenue - not to mention the competitive disadvantage it puts you at) is having three playoff games to sell. It doesn't have anything to do with the top seed probably being a "better" or "more attractive" team -those aren't the attributes that, by and large, sell playoff tickets.. It's date and time to sell. The second-place team has two playoff games to sell, which is no more than they would have had under either of the old systems if they had home-field advantage in a best-of-three (or first-to-five) scenario, and the third place team has just one playoff game to sell, which is fairly close to optimal. Now, again, as I'm sure you've figured this all out, what's your timeframe? How quickly are you going to do this group stage? True or false: A group stage scenario, in the interests of fairness and competitiveness and drama, fairly demands that the final two matches of a four-team group be played simultaneously. Are you with me on this? The World Cup has done it to avoid shenannigans. Superliga didn't do it this year, which I thought was a bit of a failing, but which I understood because it's not easy to do when you have California teams in it. In an Eastern Conference/Western Conference scenario, you are unlikely to have two teams in the group separated by more than a time zone (in a perfect world - though Dallas and LA are two time zones apart). So you run into the notion of stadium availability - what if Gillette Stadium and Giants Stadium aren't available at the same time and they have to host the last two games of the group? (Obviously, those are just examples and Giants Stadium isn't long for this league, but let's say you still have stadium availability issues, because you do). The scheduling issues may not be insurmountable, but they are a challenge and they could make this system more complex than two legs. Second, are you going to play this over a week? Two weeks? Three weeks? If it's a week, you're asking the top team to sell three playoff games on, say, Saturday-Wednesday-Saturday. That's a challenge. Dallas and Houston hosted three Superliga home games in a week (since you like to invoke Superliga). Dallas averaged 14k for its three (thank you, LA Galaxy - because Pachuca on a Saturday only drew 8k) and Houston averaged just over 13k for its three Superliga games in a week's time. And that's with the dates and games for Superliga having been announced a month and a half in advance. You're not going to get that luxury with the playoffs, with seedings (and the number of home games) often still to be determined on the last weekend of the season. It's not an insurmountable challenge. But it is a challenge, and makes me wonder how that's superior to the current system. Worse than that, even if you can get buy in from coaches of the notion that the fourth-place teams have to play three playoff games on the road, I'm even less confident of your ability to get them to agree to play three playoff games on the road in a week's time. Maybe even two weeks is unrealistic. It's such an onerous burden (to me) to ask that of a team. Again, you can say "Well, finish third, then," but somebody's going to finish fourth. And the travel logistics alone (unless you think the cost of air travel is going to be coming down anytime soon) take a currently-challenging situation and make it even moreso. Are you going to play it over two weeks? You've got, then, two weekends in which to stage three games, so somebody's playing midweek. Plus, you have a national TV contract that calls for games on Thursday nights (there's a Thursday night game every week of the playoffs), so unless you want to go Thursday-Sunday-Thursday for these three games or some variant thereof, that's also a challenge. But 14 days to play three games means someone gets scrunched somewhere in the deal, and you want the higher-seeded teams to have some rest advantages, too, don't you? Are you going to play it over three weeks? That could work. You could play each set of group games on a weekend (though, still, somebody has to play on Thursday, and if you're of a mind that the last games of a group have to be played simultaneously, you're now putting at least two games on that last Thursday, and maybe only nationally televising one). But if you're then telling me that the two top teams in a group (we'll have played 12 games to eliminate half the field) have to play again in a semifinal and then there's a final, you've extended the playoffs another week, to five weeks from four. That's not a deal-breaker, obviously, but you do run up against the aforementioned challenges of a hard date for MLS Cup that you're trying to not run up too close to (to avoid a situation where a team qualifies for MLS Cup with less than a week's notice for logistical realities and fan attendance). In your opinion. I don't agree. I don't agree that it's "so much more" than in the current format. We agree to disagree. Blessing and a curse. "That alone" is not necessarily as big a boon as you seem to be making it out to be. It's great for fans. More soccer, I think we can all be down with that. But more soccer to sell, with the challenges inherent in playoff soccer ticket sales, isn't necesssarily a better deal economically. Perhaps as the sport becomes more and more entrenched and teams become more tightly knit into the fabric of their markets, that will improve. But we're not there yet. The "best" teams aren't always the "best teams at selling tickets." If you tell me DC United is going to have to sell three playoff games, I'm with you. Just so happens they're usually a good team and their front office gets it. But championship clubs in San Jose and Kansas City struggled to sell tickets. It is simply not true, IMO, that the "best" teams on the field hosting more playoff games is a "bonus" in an economic sense. Why do you think it's "more likely," given the 11 years of data to this point? Which tells us it's less about the quality of the team on the field or the rivalry and more about a set, attractive date and time to sell? So if you could answer those questions for me, that would be great, as I'm sure you've thought this thing all the way through. My opinion remains, however, that this isn't a leaps-and-bounds improvement over what we have, that its challenges aren't insurmountable but are challenges that make me put another mark in the "why are we going to go to this system, again?" column, and that you're championing it because it's trendy and hasn't been tried before and it's like you've discovered a new band that's okay but is only really cool because no one knows about yet.
you need less information in a h/a than a group. just two teams and one score to remember. but let's leave that. consider this... your one-seed gets all home games. to reach the semis all they need is to come in the top two in the group. what are the chances that a top-seed will EVER not make it out of its group? once in ten years? so where is the excitement and relevance of ALL those group games at home? and if you know that the semi-final will ALSO be played at home, how much money are you (average middle-class casual fan) going to spend on the group phase? are you sure four HOME play-off games one after the other is a good idea? i still say no.