MLS is considering a "Best of 3" playoff format. This is not wise.
There are three serious arguments against using a "Best of Three" format. The first is logistical, the second is aesthetic, and the third is television.
1) LOGISTICAL
This issue involves getting playoff dates in October for two rounds of "Best of Three" Playoffs in stadia which MLS must share with "senior" tenants. The regular season is easy to handle, either the stadia are not in use, or you can schedule around the NFL and college football. However, once you get to October, it gets much more difficult.
MLS also runs into the potential embarrassment that the A-League faced IN 1995 by moving game three of their "Best of Three" Seattle - Atlanta series so as not to conflict with the Mariners - Cleveland baseball game.
It's October and what is soccer competing against?
When MLS playoffs take place there will be a possible 12 games in the first round of the playoffs (8 teams in 4 series), 6 games in the second round of the playoffs (4 teams in 2 series), plus the final game (thankfully, this won't be a best of three series too).
This is a total of 19 games that we are going to try to stuff into this crowded sports calendar!
Since all playoffs, except the final game, are 2 of 3, look at the places where MLS will play: Foxboro, Meadowlands or Rutgers, RFK, Tampa Stadium, Columbus, Arrowhead, Cotton Bowl, Mile High, Rose Bowl and Spartan Stadium, San Jose. ALL of these places (excepting the Rose Bowl, the Cotton Bowl, San Jose and Columbus) will have NFL teams as the prime tenants during September and October, and the other four stadia have college football as tenants. Can MLS actually get all the dates they want? Wouldn't playing a FIFA-standard home and away series simplify this problem by 50%?
I can guarantee that we will have both stadium conflicts and dates in which other pro sports in the same city will have playoff games. If we juggle games -- as we inevitably must -- then we are basically saying "Soccer is a minor sport and we can't compete against the major sports for the media dollar."
The Solution:
#1) No playoffs, but have promotion/relegation and a league cup! (OK, this isn't going to happen, but I had to raise it at least.)
#2) Only the top 2 teams from each division make the playoffs and these should be 2 legs, home and away!
I realize the importance of keeping hope alive for all 10 MLS cities for the whole season, especially for the first few years, but is MLS going to continue this forever?
Maybe we should use the principle "less is more" regarding the playoffs. If we turn this into a mini-NBA/NHL playoffs are we really helping the sport here? If you devalue the regular season -- as the NBA and NHL do -- this is not in the game's best interest.
2) AESTHETIC
For this argument, here is some data from the last two years of the A-League (APSL) playoffs (best of 3) and offer some data from the Mexican League playoffs from last year (2 legs, home and away).
A) 1994 APSL Playoffs
This was the result of the regular season with the top 4 teams in the playoffs, with the format 1 vs 4 and 2 vs 3:
Official Table Pd W L WN WE WS LN LE LS G+ G- GD Pts Seattle Sounders 20 14 6 14 0 0 4 1 1 38 16 +22 121 Los Angeles Salsa 20 12 8 10 1 1 5 1 2 36 22 +14 106 Montreal Impact 20 12 8 10 0 2 7 0 1 27 18 +9 93 Colorado Foxes 20 12 8 9 1 2 8 0 0 26 26 0 92 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Ft Lauderdale Strikers 20 8 12 5 1 2 9 0 3 23 33 -10 72 Vancouver 86ers 20 7 13 6 0 1 11 1 1 25 41 -16 65 Toronto Rockets 20 5 15 5 0 0 15 0 0 14 33 -19 44 (Winning team receives six points for a victory in regulation time or overtime. In games decided on shootouts winner receives four points, loser receives two. Teams receive one point for each goal scored in regulation up to a maximum of three per game.)
For the 1994 APSL was "Best of Three" games with the third "game" being the 15 minute-long "mini-game" played right after game #2:
If the 1994 APSL playoffs worked like a normal FIFA 2-leg series, the championship match would have been:
(home teams listed first) Seattle Sounders - Los Angeles Salsa :
This, however, is what the semifinals produced:
Colorado Foxes - Seattle Sounders 2:0 Seattle Sounders - Colorado Foxes 4:1
Seattle should have won _deservedly_ 4:3 on aggregate. But, instead, the teams won one each and so after a 0-0 "Mini-game", the Foxes went on to win 2:1 in a "Shoot Out".
Meanwhile:
Montreal Impact - Los Angeles Salsa 2:1 Los Angeles Salsa - Montreal Impact 3:0
The Salsa should have won _deservedly_ 4:2 on aggregate. Instead, after another scoreless "Mini-game", the Impact steals it by winning the "Shoot Out" 2:1.
In short, after stressing for an entire season that more goal scoring is good, the APSL changed the entire rationale for the playoffs. Now goals were far less relevant than games.
B) 1995 A-League Playoffs
This was the final regular season table, again with the top 4 teams advancing, with 1 vs 4 and 2 vs 3 again:
Official Table Pd W WS LS L GD G+ G- P+ Montreal Impact 24 16 1 1 6 +20 47 - 27 51 Seattle Sounders 24 13 5 2 4 +16 40 - 24 51 Vancouver 86ers 24 10 0 3 11 0 43 - 43 33 Ruckus Atlanta 24 5 8 1 10 -12 29 - 41 32 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Colorado Foxes 24 7 1 6 10 -6 35 - 41 29 New York Centaurs 24 5 1 3 15 -18 21 - 39 20 Win = 3 Points Win Shootout = 2 Points Loss Shootout = 1 Point
The problem, however, becomes worse:
(Home Teams Listed First, of course):
A- League Playoffs 1995 - Semi-Finals
Ruckus Atlanta - Montreal Impact 1:1 HSW 14 Sep
Montreal Impact - Ruckus Atlanta 3:0 17 Sep
Montreal Impact - Ruckus Atlanta 0:0 ASW 20 Sep
(Atlanta wins series, 2 games to 1)
Vancouver 86ers - Seattle Sounders 0:1 15 Sep
Seattle Sounders - Vancouver 86ers 0:0 HSW 17
(Seattle wins series, 2 games to 0)
A- League Playoffs 1995 - Finals
Ruckus Atlanta - Seattle Sounders 1:1 HSW 1 Oct
Seattle Sounders - Ruckus Atlanta 3:0 8 Oct
Seattle Sounders - Ruckus Atlanta 1:1 HSW 12 Oct
(Seattle wins series, 2 games to 1)
HSW = Home Shootout Win ASW = Away Shootout Win
Does anything bizarre stand out here (aside from Atlanta advancing)?
Take a look at the following:
Games 8 Goals 13 Goals/Game 1.62
Why such low scoring, you might ask?
The problem here, is the playoff format!
If you listen to most North American soccer officials for the past 25 years, the constant lament is there are not enough goals scored and that we must do all that we can to encourage offensive play.
Guess what? In the playoffs, goals are no longer important, only wins are! Doesn't this seem perverse?
The entire rest of the world -- when more than a one-game competition is involved -- uses a 2 leg series, in which aggregate goals, and then away goals are the tie-breakers (in the case of the Mexican playoffs, the higher seeded team is the third tie-breaker).
Under this world wide system, GOALS ARE STILL IMPORTANT! And away goals are even MORE important!
We would NOT likely have seen such low scoring A-League playoff action if goals were rewarded. What is even more bizarre, is that this system seems to go out of its way to produce the unintended consequence of downplaying goal scoring!
Why do we feel we must 'reinvent the wheel' and use a playoff system that may be appropriate for other North American sports but is clearly not in the interest of seeing more offensive-minded soccer?
What is exactly the problem with the 2 leg, home and away format?
In my view it is the ONLY way to avoid the defensive, physical, arid, soulless soccer that we have witnessed in the A-League playoffs this year. The major problem for the A-League in the playoffs is that the insistence of the "best of 3" _series_ means that ONLY WINS ARE IMPORTANT AND THE ACTUAL SCORING OF GOALS IS NOT!
This is all the more ironic since for 25 years US Soccer officials have relentlessly come up with the most arcane, convoluted scoring systems to produce goal scoring. Yet in the playoffs, they do a 180, completely disregard the importance of goals and don't even realize how they have altered the outcomes.
The playoffs are supposed to be a league's showcase event, and yet the foolish attempt to have a "winner" every game and the insistence on having a best of 3 series meant that the A-League has devalued the scoring of actual goals to irrelevance during the playoffs.
Just to put this in perspective, using 3 points for a win during the regular season -- and thereby encouraging goal scoring -- the A-League averaged 3.07 goals a game. The playoffs have produced an incredible decrease of almost 1.5 goals a game!
Do you really think we had best teams in the final round of the A-League for the past two years?
C. Mexican League Playoffs - 1994/1995
If MLS really wants to run the playoffs to produce exciting soccer in which goals are still important, just look at the Mexican playoffs where many MLS fans will have seen this on US TV. The way the Mexican league does it is that the first game as at the home of the LOWER seeded team, the second is at the home of the higher seeded one. I don't know how much you follow the Mexican 1st division on Univision/Telemundo/Prime Deportiva, but they also have one more tie-breaker after aggregate goals, and away goals. Namely, if both teams are even on both of those first 2 criteria, the team with the _best_regular_season_record_ advances (which is also the team that plays the second game at home.
Mexico 1st Division Playoffs 1994/95
Preliminary Round:
Monterrey - U.A.G. 2:0
U.A.G. - Monterrey 2:0
(U.A.G. advances based on better regular season)
Veracruz - Puebla 1:1
Puebla - Veracruz 0:0
(Puebla advances on away goals)
Quarterfinal Round:
Puebla - America 0:0
America - Puebla 4:2
(America advances on aggregate)
Santos - Guadalajara 3:1
Guadalajara - Santos 2:0
(Guadalajara advances on away goals)
U.N.A.M. - Cruz Azul 1:0
Cruz Azul - U.N.A.M. 1:0
(Cruz Azul advances on better regular season record)
(note: the winning goal was scored in the 94th minute of game 2)
U.A.G. - Necaxa 0:2
Necaxa - U.A.G. 2:1
(Necaxa advances on aggregate)
Semi-Final Round:
Necaxa - Guadalajara 0:0
Guadalajara - Necaxa 1:1
(Necaxa advances on away goals)
Cruz Azul - America 1:1
America - Cruz Azul 1:2
(Cruz Azul advances on aggregate)
Grand Final Round:
Necaxa - Cruz Azul 1:1
Cruz Azul - Necaxa 0:2
(Necaxa wins on aggregate)
The beauty of this system is that you don't need some convoluted shootout/PK system to settle each game. In fact, you can actually have a "winner" of a 2 game series come out of 2 draws in normal time. I personally watched about half of these games and they were hard-fought, tense matches in which teams attacked regularly because the only way you could overcome a disadvantageous position vis-a-vis the tiebreaker, was to score more goals than the other team over two legs. As it should be.
In other words, the system is:
+ 2 legs (home and away, first game at lower seeded club)
The tiebreakers are:
With this system you will have NO shootouts OR Penalty Kicks, and you can even have drawn games since the tiebreakers will ALWAYS produce a winner after 2 games. And because there is a tremendous premium on scoring away goals, the away team is encouraged to score goals.
More importantly, goals are the important consideration instead of teams 'hunkering down' and playing negative, destructive soccer in a competition (the playoffs) when you WANT casual fans to see more scoring! Look at the Ruckus in Montreal and in Seattle as a horrible example of what not to do.
To restate my position:
ALL playoffs -- including the semis and finals -- should be a 2 leg, home and away series using the Mexican league tiebreaker format!
Why?
Do we REALLY want to keep pushing the best of three series concept for soccer?
3. TELEVISION
There is one more for avoiding extra time, PKs, SOs, etc. in the playoffs is Television!
Why television?
Well right now most games are set for ESPN2, with playoffs on ESPN and the final on ABC. These games have to have a defined limit as to their duration or it will be harder to get the games on ESPN vs ESPN2, and ABC.
There are 2 choices right now as to how much time to allot. Either you do it "lean" and put the whole thing in a 2 hour window, or do it "heavy" and do it in 2.5 hours, with pre- and post game reports. It is crucial to avoid "run on" games in soccer since we will be competing with other sports for TV time.
In fact, I think that given the complaints about the length of all of the other North American pro sports games, soccer may have a unique marketing niche in being intense without all the "dead" time and interruptions of the other sports.
In short, this isn't the NBA, NFL, MLB, or NHL. It is an INTERNATIONAL game with INTERNATIONAL rules. The burden of proof should be on us to show why we should NOT play by the international rules! We in the US are not used to thinking about things in these terms due to the nature of our other pro sports.
But we have to because soccer is different and it should be marketed that way, especially with the rising fan anger at the "big 4" North American sports.
Back to Chris Allen's "Shots at Goal" Page
Back to Chris Allen's Main Soccer Page