The Playoffs: what do we really want out of home field advantage?

To me, deciding game means game 3 in a best of 3, game 5 in a best of 5, etc. AND, that's how it is always used in the US sports media.

But the game would have been even MORE exciting* if it had been a one game knockout, because we would have gotten overtime.

That doesn't mean that my preferred format is better. I'm just pointing out that it definitely doesn't mean that the current format is better.

*Assuming everyone had played the same way, which, of course, is kinda dubious.

 

But they didn't really have an advantage. The RFK leg was 2-2, yet their season ended when the final whistle blew.

 

the problem with the series is that Chicago also had an equal amount (90 minutes) of home-field advantage.

each team had "equal" amounts of home-field play and advantage. yes, Chicago did a better job over the course of the 180 minutes of capitalizing on their home-field advantage (and of negating DC's HF advantage for more than a half of the game at RFK by scoring the first 2 goals on 11/1 and the first 3 goals of the series).

but overall, the HF factors (90 minutes at each team's venue) cancelled eachother out. Chicago was the better team across the 180 minutes.

but taken as a whole, no one team in a first round 180-minute series has a "given" HF advantage, when compared to their opponent.

the H/A system used by MLS doesn't offer a "guaranteed" first round advantage to the higher seeds. a guaranteed HF advantage for the higher seeds is severly lacking in the current MLS playoff system and something that should be addressed, imo.

 

Then, if you follow Kenns school of thought, you can't really claim players and teams turn-it-off as you can't tangibly measure effort in order to determine that.

oh my aching head.....

The one thing BigSoccer has taught me is that you can argue the contrary on every single point under the sun. There is simply nothing that can be taken for granted.

 

Because it would (almost) eliminate the only home-field advantage that the current format gives to the higher seed.

 

Edit: Doh!!! Too slow.

I don't know what MLS' thinking is, but since the only advantage to DC was getting to be at home for a (potential) extra time and PKs, using away goals as a tiebreaker reduces the chance of even that. So long as MLS Cup is THE biggest trophy to win, you gotta give the higher seed that, you can't allow away goals to deny them home OT.

 

You're saying that (using yet) as though the first leg, in which DC lost, didn't matter.

They were 0-1-1 in the series; no wins, including at home.

Their home field advantage helped them get back in the game and almost force OT.

 

Exactly, as was explained elsewhere, the away-goal rule actually serves to eliminate any home-field advantage. The example of UEFA Cup or CL is a good one, since it's already been brought up. 2 teams play each other in a home and home series. Now, these teams are not actually seeded (discounted the whole selection pools). To create an equal environment, each team gets a game at home, however away goals serve to counter that advantage with another advantage for the visiting team, creating more equal opportunity.

Adding an away-goal rule would infact destroy what home-field advantage there is in the MLS playoff system.

 

DC had 90 minutes of "advantage" of playing at home.

Chicago also had 90 minutes of "advantage" of playing at home.

overall, neither team had an "unequal" amount of HF advantage.

Chicago won the series (by performing better across all 180 minutes, both when they did and did not have the benefits of playing on a home field). but the series was not set up to provide (guarantee) any sort of HF advantage in the first 180 minutes to the higher seed.

i'd like to see an MLS playoff system that guaranteed the higher seeds "more" HF advantage than the lower seeds receive. that's why i like this idea so much: https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=613858

 

That's not the bloody point, the point is that DC didn't have a home field advantage.

That's just math. It's not even debateable.

 

In theory.

But in 2003, all four second-leg hosts advanced.
In 2004, three out of four second-leg hosts advanced (only CLB didn't).
In 2005, only one of four advanced (this is the year that really screws everything up - this is Valparaiso, bigtime).
and in 2006, three of four advanced.
So far in 2007, home second-leg hosts are 0-1 with Houston up tonight.

That's 11 of 17 second-leg hosts advanced (65%). So, obviously, only 35% of first-leg hosts advanced.

This is a small sample, and the study (which I can't find) of European two-legged play from several years back, which encompassed many more games and teams, showed that for them, there was not much of a benefit in hosting the second leg (at least, you were almost equally likely to go through whether you hosted the first or second leg).

Again, that's without a seeding system that puts ostensibly "better" teams at home second, where their supposed higher quality may have as much or more to do with it than the order of the games (with coaching mentality in the first leg playing into it as well).

Home teams in the playoffs are 24-9-12 since 2003 (.667, if you count ties as half-and-half). This year, home teams were 91-54-50 (.595).

Being at home seems to help in the playoffs. There doesn't seem to be evidence that you don't actually hold an advantage having the second leg (whether or not you go to SOT or PKs) because those teams are the ones advancing more often than not.

It may be that we don't think it's much of an advantage. It may be that the supposed advantage is all mixed up in actual team quality and coaching tactics and stuff like that.

 

i'm confused, what is the "home-field advantage that the current format gives to the higher seed"?

is it the "gets to play the potential OT session at home" factor?

i don't see that there is a HF advantage built into the first 180-minutes of the series.

there is not guaranteed HF advantage for the higher seed. both the high and low seed are set to have equal amounts of the series played at home. if it is decided in those first 180 minutes, then the series is over. HF advantage does not enter the picture (for any series that isn't tied after 180), imo.

maybe i'm looking at it incorrectly.

 

Or if both games were in Chicago, maybe they were defeated 4-0.

I mostly don't debate that they didn't have an advantage in the whole sense.
(I mostly think they should alter it a little to give the higher seed a little more advantage....3 game series, 1 game knockout, ties count as wins for higher seed instead of OT, etc).
The slight home field advantage is that they know what result they have to get at home, while Chicago didn't in the first leg.

What I'm mostly debating that the second line:

infers that they didn't (since you seemed to connect the two using the preceded by that sentence) because they didn't lose at home, yet still ended their season.
That had nothing to do with it.
Just because a team does not win in their own park doesn't mean that there isn't a "home field advantage."

 

The thing is, if we want the champion to be the best team at the end of the season, then if we try to give advantages based on the regular season we could wind up giving unfair advantage to the weaker team! We don't know who the better teams are at the end of the season. Many people want to conclude that the DC - Chicago series shows that Chicago is the better team at this point in the season. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. But if they're really better, and we want to try to find out who's best, why would we want to give advantage to the weaker team? That skews the measurement and could enable the weaker team to win.

Could be a factor. All I can say is that's not always the case. In 2005 the Quakes played LA in LA on the last game of the season and beat them badly, 3-1 I think, and clearly outplayed them. Then they played again the very next game, again at LA, in the first leg of the home-home series. Hercules Gomez hits a free kick that magically sneaks through the wall and into the goal, LA's energized, Quakes start to panic a bit, and LA wins 3-1 and eventually goes on to wins MLS Cup.

 

i would say that is likely because the higher seed (the team that has always hosted the second leg of MLS's current H/A system) is generally a "better" team than the lower seed (as the regular season helped to show).

in an "even" series (90-minutes at each venue) the "better" team should win. and in theory, the "better" team is the higher seed. although with the built-in parity of MLS, it is hard to know.

i guess that's why they have playoffs, to see who the better team is at the end of the season. but as it stands, the current system has no real and guaranteed home-field advantage build in for the higher seeds vs the lower seeds.

my contention is that it doesn't matter if they play the first or the second game of a H/A series at the higher seed of the lower seed. the better team should still rise to the top across those 180 minutes. i think the only reason MLS plays teh second leg at the higher seed, is to give the higher seed the benefit of "hosting" OT and PKs. but those "tie-breakers" aren't always needed, and if they aren't than the HF advantage isn't a "factor" in a 180-minute agreegate goals H/A series as used by MLS.

 

Or you could say that they had one, but just didn't utilize it.

Teams lose at home. It happens. But if teams are demonstrably better at home, that IS an advantage. This format, designed long ago to minimize it, may have done just that.

It may very well have been that in a one-off format at RFK, DC (which was close to impenetrable at home) would have enjoyed a much bigger perceived advantage. That doesn't necessarily mean they would have utilized it.

Or are you saying they didn't have a home field advantage in the East final last year, because they didn't win?

To me, not taking advantage of a home-field edge and not having it are two different things.

But I'm not trying to trample on your point, which is this: you can make the case that this system doesn't do enough to reward teams that excel in the regular season.

You can also make the case that you should just beat the fourth seed and be done with it. But that's not always going to be the case.

And I'm not saying that this is your take on it, but I'm guessing there are more than a few DC fans this morning blaming the format rather than the fact that their team was pretty punchless for the first 158 minutes of the tie.

 

If you took the scales of justice and placed all the home field advantage DC had on one-side and all of Chicagos on the other-side, they'd be in perfect balance.

If DC had true home field advantage in this series, the scale would be tipping in their favor.

 

Well, when home-field advantage is eliminated, you would expect the higher seed to advance more often than not, because the higher seed is ostensibly the better team.

 

That rule is a Neutral rule, it really doesn't serve to advnatage anyone over anyone else. It just rewards teams that attempt to play the game for results not defensive scoreless draws in one leg to get the next at home. Its more of a rule to discourage away teams from playing negative football and rewarding teams that try to score.


IMO, there isn't measurable Home Adv in a series. In a one off there seems to be based on the data in MLS since 1996, looking at single game results for home teams in conference finals and results under the old formats, that home teams win at a 10-15% better rate than H/A. But, there are inherant dangers in one offs. Given the nature of the sport a bad call, a red card, o PK, etc can change a game on its face. The theory with H/A is that it relies on the premise that over 2 legs the better team should advance and reduce the liklihood of starnge events deciding the game. Not sure if thats a truley valid concern.

IMO the Seeding is what is most controling in first round series, and that Home Adv is a myth at worst and a slight advantage at best.

IMO, if we are going to do home away and we HAVE to make any change to it at all, which i am not completey conviced yet we need to, then subsituting the FMF Rule to serve as an artifical home field advantage in a H/A would be the way to go. Also, if we want to further strengthen the seeding formula be go 1 v 8 and get rid off 1 v 4 conference match ups to provide in theory a slightly better % there.

Other than that i just don't see any other reason to change anything.

 

I agree with you completely. My point was that the opportunity to host extra time is an advantage, however slight, and that the away goals rule would prevent extra time in most cases and wipe out that advantage.

In England's promotion playoffs, they used to use the away goals rule, but did away with it for this exact reason. The first round of those playoffs now use exactly the same home/away format, with the higher-ranked team hosting the 2nd leg, that MLS uses in the first round. Yay, we're just like England!

 

Except that DC knew the result that they had to get while playing at home, while Chicago did not.
And the opportunity to host extra time in their own park if they had shown they were equal over two games.

I agree, it isn't much (and I too think there should be more), but it is something.

 

What "we want" doesn't factor into it.

The "champion" is the team that advances out of two legs in the first round, through a one-off in the semis, and wins (or wins in PKs) a one-off final, in an 8-team tournament held in late October and early-to-mid November.

The "champion" of Major League Baseball is a team that wins 3 of 5, then 4 of 7 and 4 of 7 again, in an 8-team tournament held in October. Sorry, 116-win Mariners. Thanks for playing. We'll always have Paris.

If "we want" the "champion" to be the best team over the course of the season, we wouldn't have playoffs.

And despite what "we want," it's not even necessarily the team that plays the best in the four-week tournament at the end. It's the team that advances, which can be a hot team, a lucky team, lots of things.

Look, MLS is going to have playoffs. I don't forsee a time when the regular-season champion gets anything other than the Sam Pierron Award, a spot in a continental competion and a copy of the home game.

And as long as that is the case, there are always going to be party crashers. What I would define as the best team isn't always going to win. And, emotionally, some people are just going to have to find ways to deal with that.

In theory, yeah. Should happen. Like I said above, I don't know how much of the actual statistical home-field advantage is due to that or due to hosting the second leg or what. I don't know that there's any way to determine that.

They should. But this is a funny game. The best team doesn't always win. That's why you watch.

And you may very well be right. Like I said, it's hard to tell.