I talked to Sporting Kansas City manager Peter Vermes over the weekend while gathering player and coaching opinions for Major League Soccer’s new playoff format. (The SI.com story is here.)
Another fly in the MLS playoff ointment
The piece provides some of the ins and out of the new format, which is certainly flawed and imperfect. Having said that, I do have some sympathy for MLS here. Attempting to balance all the competing interests isn’t easy. With all the moving parts and competing interests, it’s 100 percent impossible to please everyone or to properly cover all the bases.
It’s like a poor man’s blanket in a lot of ways. If you pull the too-small covering over your head, your feet get cold. If you push it down over your feet, your head and shoulders are harshly exposed.
So it is with MLS. For instance, if they keep the old 8-team format, they leave money-making opportunities on the table by reducing the number of September and October games relevant to the playoff chase. But most fans and media members (including myself) have criticized this choice, as it dilutes the importance of the regular season. I’ve written plenty about that one.
Any-who … in trying to hold down the word count, I didn’t even mention in Monday’s SI.com piece one big hammer idling over the 2011 playoffs, ready to slam down with a controversial force.
Read on for that, which Vermes pointed out to me.
All the flaws are in danger of being exposed once we reach the playoffs this year. For instance, there will be huffing and puffing the minute the first wild-card team is set to play the Supporters Shield winner in a home-and-away series – with pretty much zero advantage to the Supporters Shield holder.
But that’s in the SI.com piece. Here’s what isn’t: “This year, the major challenge for everybody is going to be dealing with the qualifiers at that time of the year,” Vermes said.
Yep … World Cup qualifying will be going on this fall. The big conflict is a November FIFA date (it’s listed as Nov. 11-15, which means a qualifier would probably fall on Nov. 12.) That put it smack-dab in the middle of the playoffs, probably second leg of conference semifinals.
Don’t think there won’t be some controversy as names like Landon Donovan and Rafa Marquez potentially size up whether to fight for club or country.
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