Jen Chang and Steve Davis at ESPN have stated that seedings in MLS playoffs are "irrelevant" because none of the higher seeds won the first game in the two leg series. http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=476619&root=mls&cc=5901 http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?name=chang_jen To which I have to ask: for higher seeds (and home field) to be meaningful, must they win the road game? No-- why on earth would anyone expect teams, even very good teams, to win on the road in MLS? United, the best team in the regular season, was barely .500 on the road at 6-5-4. Chivas USA, the next best team was below .500 and was outscored 20 to 18. So, the only way to judge if the seeds are meaningful is to wait and see who actually advances. In the past, the higher seed has advanted 75% of the time, despite frequently losing or tying the first game. So, why exactly Jen Chang and Steve Davis at ESPN are calling seeding irrelevant, I don't know. Of course, you expect the higher seeds to do well-- they're higher seeds becuase they're better teams. So it would be a shock if they didn't win most of the time. But precisely how often do you need your higher seeds to win? I took a look at the regular season records of the higher seeds to try and set a baseline. From 2003-2006 (the period during which the current playoff setup has been in effect), the higher seeds earned 1.58 points a game during the regular season (which equates to a solid, 50 point regular season). During the first round of the playoffs, the higher seeds earned 1.69 points a game. So, the higher seeds are getting more points (off of better opposition) than they got during the regular season. So the best guess is that, yes, seeding means something. But is 1/10th of a goal enough for teams to want to be a 2 seed instead of a 3 seed? That's a tougher call. Then I started to wonder about what really motivates players and fans. I thought I'd take a quick look at a league where home field advantage is indeed supposed to mean something: MLB over the past five years. The thing is, the results weren't quite what I expected. Overall, only half of the higher "seeds" advanced from the first round of the playoffs. And the higher seeds, which had combined for a .594 winning percentage during the regular season, combined for only .519 during the first round of the postseason. Against this backdrop, I'm starting to wonder why MLS's playoffs aren't even more random. So... what does it all mean? I'm still not sure. I know that seeding is worth something, but it might not be much. BUt it appears to be worth a lot more than home field in league where teams supposedly jockey for post-season positioning. Are these results just because we don't have enough data? And if 3/4 of the higher seeds have made it on, would we really want a playoff system where the underdogs are even less likely to move on?
For me, its not about a magic percentage. It's not about a that at all. I'd like to see a major connect between results in the regular season and a clubs standing in the post. <exaggerated for effect> When a first place club can go 30-0 and their reward is to face an under .500 in a home and home series, I don't see proper value assigned to regular season wins. The higher seed will most likely win most of the time. If they had a better record, they are probably the better team. Logic says they'll win more often than not. Still, A format like ours leaves the door open to an underachiever to get hot in the end and 'steal' the Cup. This is true especially in a game like soccer and in a league where parity still plays a big role. The top seed gets bounced in the first round just about every year. That's not a problem unto itself, but it does show that winning during the regular season isn't as important as people might think. I am right out of the NFL school. I think they way do it would be perfect for this league. 35% in keeps gives only the top clubs a chance. Bye weeks reward the top teams. One-offs give genuinue HF advantage to the higher seeds. Adopt a format like this and, voila, you have little or no debate on this topic again as their would be a clear connect between regular season success and how the Champion is determined.
Chang and Davis have no clue what they are talkign about, as per usual. If they bothered to research they would have found that the seeding format has a 70% advancement rate for higher seeds. They and others do this every year after the first leg. Home field advantage is an abstract advantage, its based on the principle that you perform better at home than on the road, and it does tend to have statistical support in all sports. Rarely is a team better on the road than at home. Seeding format is the variable that needs to be looked at. The stats support the idea that since both teams in the first round have equal home field advantage the seeding format where the higher ranked team plays the lower ranked team is what controls the first round match ups...so basically Chand and Davis f*cked up the very first premise of thier essay. (you could argue that the second leg home team has more of the advantage because they get more time on the field at home) Home field advantage where only one team gets to enjoy that advantage doesn't kick in until the second round and its the only round of the playoffs where we have it. They also use the seeding format on top of that so its supposed to be a double advnatage in that round. Stats show that conference final hosts advance at a rate higher than first round series (not by much though) So it suggests that home field advanatge only is a partial factor in advancement and what is really driving the outcome is seeding.
Until you're hypothetical 30-0 team gets knocked out of contention for the championship after only 90 minutes. You said it yourself: "especially in a game like soccer" - where scoring is at a premium and a single fluke can have a dramatic impact.
A 3 game series with game 1 & 3 going to the higher seeds. The 3rd game is only if teams are tied after 2 games, then would the 3rd game wll be needed. This should only be for the first round so that the playoffs won't be too long. The rest of the games after the first round should be single game eliminatons at the higher seeds home.
I think people need to figure out that the regular season only indicates who gets into the post season. Post season rules are determined by the league. Nothing else matters. You can talk about homefield advantage, first seed, home and home, byes, play-ins, whatever. But it doesn't really matter in the slightest. What matters are the rules set in place. Make them hold and do not mess with them. Make it tradition. That's all that really matters. If you really want the regular season to matter more. Put more weight/money in the Supporter's Shield. If you want the playoffs to mean more, give more money to the winners. Personally, there needs to be more money in the Shield and both Cups. MLS needs to keep the playoff format they have (8 teams, home and home, then knock-out, then final). Nothing is wrong with it. Aside from not having much in the way of tradition.
That was the point about baseball: most folks think that home field means something in baseball. They perceive it to be a reward. But the reality is that the higher seed has won only half of the time. The connection between results in the regular MLS season and the post-season surprisingly appears to be a lot stronger. Right-- you need to figure out a baseline. We need to get a sense of how frequently those teams ought to win, apart from the playoff format. And it looks like they win more frequently in the post-season than you'd expect them to based on their regular season record. I prefer one-offs, but they also create a chance for real fluke results and fluke champions.
That could definately happen, not doubt. A team can rest their legs on a bye week then still lose at home. Losing will always be a possibility. That's part of the beauty of the playoffs, isnt it? I don't think want to guarantee the top seed as the winner. Some of us though, would like to see them offered a bit more of an advantage for their regular season success than they are offered now.
I agree completely. I think the problem with the MLS format isn't so much that there are not rewards for higher seeds (I think there are, especially when compared against the backdrop of most of the other sports). The problem is that the rewards aren't entirely tangible. An extra game at home is a tangible reward in a way that facing crappier opponent or getting overtime at home just isn't. To me, the stats show that there's a pretty big advantage to being a higher seed in MLS (again, especially compared with MLB), but that doesn't really matter if it doesn't motivate players.
Thinking back. DC won the SS last year and lost in the first round. SJ won the SS the year before and lost in the first round. Columbus (maybe I forget if that was the year before or the year before that) won the SS and lost in the first round. Dallas won the west the last 2 years and lost in the first round each year Galaxy was awful in 05, and won the Cup NE was tied for the worst record in the league and came a PK away from Cup match. I know these are not all the stats. I know the better team usually wins. BUT when you have results like this year after year after year, the perception is going to be that the regular season doesn't mean that much when it comes to winning the Cup, the matter what the calculators read.
Yeah the SS winners have been bounced more often than not, but I'm not sure how much sense it makes to just focus on the top seed. Over time, wouldn't you expect the results to look more like the other higher seeds? I get what you're saying about perception-- but I'm not sure the perception really matches reality. Does that matter? Probably not if what we're trying to do is motivate players...
This subject always gets beaten to death like an adulturous mulsim woman in a extrmely fundementailist idealogical society at this time of year. I have been screaming from a mountain since 2003 that we need to stick with one format for a number of years and get good data on the trends in order to determine what if any minor tweeks need to be made. The current format is a comprimise of many different inputs and priorities. The incorporate as their primary level of advantage the seeding format. It has a long and statistaclly supported history in american sports. It runs on the idea that over the course of any given season the best teams in the league are the teams that finsh with the most points or highest winning %. They are matched up with a corrosponding team of lesser points or winning % because it is assumed they are not as good as the higher seed. As the seeds become lower the match ups tend to be more equal. Looking at MLS's playoff advancment statiisitcs sine 2003 we can see that this format has an advancement % of just over 71%. The second level of advantage is what people call the home field advantage. In many sports in the US it is stronger than others. Some have an extra game at the team with the advantage, others have only one game, some like MLS's first round have only a marginal advantage if any. There is a split in theory as to whether haveing the deciding game at home, with extra time and PK's in your building is an advanatge. I am part of the camp that thinks it is always better to be at home in a deciding game knowing what you need to do to advance without worring about what has to happen in another game. It may not be a great advantage but it is one. Its tough to measure because it also piggybacks seeding format. But if we iscolate just one off games at the higher seed in the second round we see that advancement for the home team is higher than that of the first round (at around 75% but with a considerably lower sample size) When compared to other US sports we see that our format actual mirrors and in some cases outperfoms other sports in this country with respect to higer seed advancement. So the debate IMO has never been are the playoffs fair. It is. If you rig the playoffs to get advancment %'s of 85-95 then you take away the compelling anture of the event. If its too hard for an upset to occur then you sort of lose the thing that drives post season play. The debate has ALWAYS been about rewarding regular season achievement. MLS has started to thankfully do that. I think they can do better though. They now award CONCACAF club international championships to the SS winner, they award top 4 in the league to SuperLiga. If they would adopt the SS trophy and find a sponser and give a REAL cash award for the players and the club for winning it then it becomes even more tangiable. About the only idea i have heard that will still respect the integrity of the current system and maybe prove a better advantage to other teams is the FMF rule (tied match on agrregate goes to higher seed) but if they do that they have to make all rounds home away until the neutral site final. Because: Seeding + home field in one off + tie goes to higher seed = a practically unwinable game for the away team and wouldn't be very compelling. So essentially the FMF rule would eliminate and replace home field advanatge rule. But until i see that the current format can't sustain the current 71% advancement rate i wouldnt make the change.
You better retake MLS History 101. DC lost in the second round last year on a fantastic goal by Twellman after dominating most of the match. Dallas only won the West once (and how could they have won it two years ago when San Jose won the SS?). Columbus did lose in the first round though it's hard to blame the system when they miss two PKs in the same game. You are right about LA in 05 and NE in 04 but neither would have qualified for the playoffs under the current system so that problem has already been solved.
I agree with everything Onionsack said. There is no system that would adequately reward a team for going 30-0. Now that there are extra rewards for regular season achievement and making the playoffs is no longer given, the regular season is more intense and bad teams are less likely to get a shot at the Cup. It'd be nice if there was a more tangible reward in the playoffs for regular season success but other than the FMF tiebreaker I can't think of one that wouldn't negatively affect the marketing and scheduling goals of the playoffs (giving each team a home game, having definite dates to promote each game, having a one off final to put on TV). Also, I don't think the second round should be forgotten. Even if the first round advantage is minor, the second round advantage is large.
Thanks for the corrects above. I was just going off the top of my head and got a few mixed up. As to the bottom part, I wasn't talking in this post that this was a problem in need of solving; rather I was pointing out why the perception that MLS playoffs doesn't reward the higher seed enough might exist. Just as an addition to the conversation, I was watching Fox Phone in last night and from the part of the show I saw, virtually every person asked about this format didn't like it. Chris Armas talked in detail from a players standpoint. Ironically he is a huge beneficiary of this format, and still, sees it as unjust.
The two leg format in the first round is becoming a problem. I suspect either DC or Chivas, if not both, will get bounced this weekend, adding fuel to the fire. Whether that's justified, or whether the format is irrelevant and the two teams' chances were hurt by injuries (Moreno, Emilio, Razov, Galindo), well, everyone will have their own opinion. EDIT: Apparently, parts of the post I quoted weren't 100% accurate. Blame him, not me.
The first leg games are always so bland, conservative and low-scoring, it does actually up the ante for the Round One home field advantage in my mind. Game two is the focus from the start, the players say it, the coaches admit it. Until teams go balls out in game one and try to win 3-nil, we are playing a de facto single game elimination. If DC for instance is "happy" losing only 1-0 on the road, and are confident they can at least win 2-1 at home and force OT, then they are saying to themselves from the start that they are banking on being able to win at home in the extra session. Since MLS is still small in size and has tons of parity, the seedings don't seem to have much effect in terms of advancement, given the number of number 1's that get bounced year after year in Round One.
If you just look at number 1s, then yeah, it doesn't seem like seeding has much effect in terms of advancement. But when over 70% of the higher seeds have gone through, that suggests to me that the Number 1 phenemenon is due to (a) small sample size and/or (b) the fact that the highest seed sometimes hasn't played a must-win game in over a month. I really think that, if we kept this system for 100 years, you'd see more than 70% of the highest seeds go through and that what you've noticed is just an anomaly.
Actually, DC United won their first round series and lost in the Eastern Conference Final to NE 1-0. As to the question posed by this thread, it's entirely a function of what you intend the playoffs to be. Is it supposed to be determined by the regular season or a post regular season cup competition? Is it supposed to reward teams for the regular season or make it pretty much a wash? 1. Part of the explanation for the 1st game results is the lack of a payoff for regular season results. Thus the arguments by Davis, et. al. But an equally driving factor in this season's playoffs is that if you look at the top 4 seeds (Chivas, NE, DCU, Houston), none of them was playing well at the end of the season. And of the other 4 playoff teams, only KC could be said to be playing poorly. Chicago ended well, NYRB seemed to improve defensively and got healthy, FDC dumped Denilson (who has been nothing but a dead stinking albatros for that team). So going purely by form, the first round isn't surprising. 2. What pisses me off the most about the current playoff format is that it allows a team like the 2005 Galaxy to win an MLS Cup after being putrid (not just posting a bad record but playing ugly-ass soccer) all season. To put it another way, a bad team can get hot and win the league--and that's bad if this is supposed to truly be a championship. I get that injuries happen at bad times or teams can get cold. But it's not good for the league if bad teams can win it all IF we purport to make the MLS Cup our championship. If it's just a cup title, than invite all teams and play home and away. 3. Making the playoffs more selective (bigger league, fewer playoff slots) helds deal with the "bad team winning it all" syndrome.
I suspect changing the first round to a one-off would quell many of us that disparage the format. It would go along way to disarm naysayers. People respect (wether the stats back this up or not) real home field as a legit advantage. Most people just don't see having the possibility of overtime just in cases where that scenario comes to pass, as a just reward for regular season success. Maybe there are stats that prove otherwise, still people, most anyway, don't see that as a real advantage (a real reward). I think Onion looks at from a different perspective than the average US sports fan. He feels that this format is just, because there are other prizes (CONCACAF, SL, SS) and seeding top-against-correspoinding-worst works as it renders the 'proper' winner most of the time and rewards regular season success with these other rerwards. That's obviously a legit way to look at it. For most US sports fans though, the league Championship is THE' prize. That's the main focus for most. When people see the an underachieving team getting the same (or very similar) reward as the top team, I believe many people will continue to see the process as unjust; wether the stats back up their case or not. If, let's say, Chicago and DC play to a 0-0 draw, many will call/think foul. People can argue against it ofcourse (poor Onion has been screaming stat-supported-evidence from the rooftops since 03'), and still that perception is going to remain. Change it, don't change it. Personally I don't give a sh!t anymore. But one thing is fairly certain in my mind, this perception in many peoples and players mind will persist unless this part of the format changes.
I'm definitely in favor of a straight single elimination tournament. Many of the reasons have already been discussed. The biggest is clearly that one-offs are so much more intense. Win or go home. And if the 8th seed can knock of the #1 seed at their own place, then so be it. They've earned a right to advance. I don't like that a lower seed can squeak out a victory at home and then play for a tie on the road. One other advantage that no one has mentioned is that getting rid of the 2 legs will shorten the season by 1 week. In a league that is trying to cram in the schedule while adding more teams and more international tourneys, but still may want to try and avoid FIFA dates, those kinds of things can really help out.
As a balance of regular season performance and incremental post-season importance, I like this: 6 teams make the playoffs. Top two teams in each conference get a bye. #2 seed in each conference plays at home against the #3 seed in a one-game playoff. Winner of that game travels to the #1 seed for a one-game conference final. Here's why I like this setup: 1. Fewer than 50% of the league makes the playoffs. This should maintain some level of competitiveness during the regular season. 2. There are tiered rewards for finishing first, second, and third. 3. The one-game playoff creates more urgency in both rounds. 4. The bye week gives the conference champ two weeks to sell tickets for the final game of the season, hopefully ensuring a great crowd and maximizing its homefield advantage. 5. It retains the conference set-up, hopefully building history. Look how successive DC - NE games built up to what would be a great final with history if they meet again this year. SJ - LA has drama every time they meet in the playoffs. The only downside I see is that a 4th place team in one conference could have more points than a 3rd place team in another confernece. To which I say: win more games.
I wouldn't mind this set up at all. The only downside is that two straight weeks off might lead to a loss in form. But....it's probably worth it to jump straight to the semis and only have to win one home game to get to MLS Cup. One way to tweak it might be to set it up exactly as they have right now with the bottom teams. Give the conference winners the byes and the home field, the next four spots are given out to the top four remaining teams regardless of conference. I don't mind having eight though if they would just go to a single elimination in the first round. Once we have 16-18-20 teams, that number will be just fine.
Here are my playoff system preferences - in order: 1. 4 teams make the playoffs. Semis - W1 vs. E2 and E1 vs. W2. 2. 8 teams; 1st round group stage, winners move to MLS Cup 3. Same as 2, except top 2 move to semi-finals, with W1 vs. E2 and E1 vs. W2. 4. 8 teams with single elimination games. 5. 6 teams with byes for #1 seeds (I'm just not a bye fan) 6. Current system 7. Current system with two-legged conference finals 8. Best of three 9. Metros Playoff Fever 10. First to Five