MLS Cup Playoffs: A beginner’s guide
Playoffs? We’re talking about playoffs?! The MLS Cup Playoffs.
Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports
Well, you didn’t call it ‘the MLS’, which is a good start. Major League Soccer is a 19-year-old professional soccer league featuring teams from the United States and Canada. Creating the league was a requirement for the U.S. hosting the 1994 World Cup, and despite some bumps (two clubs folded back in 2001) the league will grow to 24 teams by 2020, has stadiums all over the country and no longer includes teams with names like ‘the Wiz’ or ‘the Clash’.
One thing they didn’t get rid of, though, was the playoff to decide their champion.
They have a whole secondary competition after playing a bunch of games?
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Yep, they call it the MLS Cup Playoffs and it comes at the end of a 34-game season that effectively serves to seed the postseason. Ten of the league’s 19 teams get to participate, with the top five from the Eastern and Western conferences qualifying. At the end of the roughly month-long knockout competition, one team is declared champion, regular season standing be damned.
That doesn’t seem fair does it?
Probably not. But we Americans love our playoffs, so don’t get all high and mighty here. The format isn’t that different than cup competitions across Europe, the Champions League or even what a league like Belgium’s top flight uses. Liga MX, still the most popular league in North America, also happens to use a playoff system.
It also means that the season isn’t over with eight weeks to play. Take that, Bundesliga.
Does the regular-season winner get anything for their trouble?
Yep, they get something called the Supporters’ Shield, an honor fans created back in 1999 to reward the best team in the regular season. It was immediately embraced by the league, who were glad to honor the team that shone over eight months as opposed to just the one.
Hold up, you get a trophy before the playoffs?
Yes, there are two major trophies awarded by the league each year. The first goes to the team that finishes the regular-season with the most points, for which they receive the Supporters' Shield. This season, that it went to the Seattle Sounders. Aside from a trophy -- and some level of pride -- Seattle also receive home-field advantage in the playoffs, meaning they will host the MLS Cup final if they get there.
The MLS Cup is awarded to the team that wins the playoffs. Even if they didn’t win the Supporters’ Shield, the MLS Cup winner is recognized as the league’s one-true-champion. They get a star above their crest and get to tell the other teams how good they are for the next year. That is very important because the point of sports is to tell your friends who support other teams that your life is better than theirs and you are a superior human because your club played sports better than theirs.
And the Shield is just ceremonial?
Not quite. It’s recognized by most fans as the second most important trophy a team can win. The holder also earns a berth in the CONCACAF Champions League. Go on, try to tell the drunken Sounders who trotted the trophy around the city that it’s not important
So what sort of play can I expect?
If you’re used to watching the likes of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo play, MLS might disappoint. But that’s not really a very fair comparison. Although there are no world-class talents in the league, the level of play is actually fairly high, and it’s only getting better. A few years ago a lack of quality was a major issue, but the league’s come along in leaps and bounds recently, and boasts some very watchable matches as well as some household names.
Landon Donovan, who will retire at the end of the season, is likely the most recognizable face in MLS. Robbie Keane and Clint Dempsey spent enough time in the Premier League to become household names. If you've been following the sport for a while -- or if you flipped on TV that one time -- you'll definitely know New York Red Bulls striker Thierry Henry. But you won't see Michael Bradley, since he signed with Toronto FC, who never make the playoffs.
If you enjoyed the United States at the World Cup, you'll get to see a lot of your favorites in the playoffs, including Jermaine Jones, who signed with the New England Revolution mid-season. Some young future USMNTers are likely to feature as well, like Real Salt Lake's Luis Gil, Columbus Crew's Wil Trapp and LA Galaxy's Gyasi Zardes.
Who’s the favorite?
The Sounders won the Shield, so probably get that title, what with having the best regular season record and everything.
The Galaxy are right on their heels, though. They challenged for the Shield despite an awful start to the season, compiled the best goal difference MLS has seen since 1998 and have the right combination of star power, experience and form to match a Sounders team that has been phenomenal all season. If one of these teams isn't in the MLS Cup final, it will be the biggest surprise in MLS since the 2010 Colorado Rapids sold their souls, sacrificed 12 goats and took Satan as their lord and savior to win the title.
Is the East any good?
D.C. United hung tight in the Supporters' Shield race and boast a stellar defense, so don't sleep on them. They've managed to be this good even without Eddie Johnson being very good for most of the year. But they were the worst team in MLS last season, so there are still doubts. Apparently 34 matches of excellence isn't enough to erase the horrors that were burned into our brains a year ago.
However, the favorite out East is probably the No. 2 seed New England Revolution. They had MVP candidate Lee Nguyen and a nice young core to make them a solid team, but then they added Jermaine Jones in the summer and have gone 8-1-1 since. He gives them some much-needed steel, a bit of a skill and plenty of experience. But most importantly, he looks like a pirate, which the Galaxy proved to be a key and elusive intangible when David Beckham helped them capture the MLS crown in 2012.
Winslow Townson-USA TODAY Sports
What happened to Sporting KC? Didn’t they win last year?
Yeah, about that ... they’ve been pretty bad for a couple months now. They made the playoffs pretty easily, but no team heads into the playoffs having played worse over their past 10 games. You can bet on their experience, but then you’re betting against talent and form so good luck with that.
What’s the format?
Five teams from each conference qualify. The Nos. 4 and 5 seeds have to meet in a midweek winner-take-all match for the right to play the conference’s top team. The next two rounds, the conference semifinals and finals function are home and away, two-legged ties. The best aggregate score wins and, in a rule change for this year, away goals is the tiebreaker. If the teams are tied after extra time, they go to penalties, but real ones and not the silly run-up from midfield ones that MLS had 20 years ago.
The MLS Cup final is a one-legged match played at the home of the finalist with the better regular season record. Standard rules apply -- if the teams are tied at the end of 90 minutes, there’s 30 minutes of extra time, followed by a penalty shootout if necessary. At the end, one team gets a trophy and probably very drunk, the other cries tears of deep sorrow and pain.
When does this all go down?
Here’s the basic schedule:
Conference Knockout Round
- Wed-Thurs, Oct. 29-30
Conference Semifinals
- Leg 1, Sat-Sun, Nov. 1-2
- Leg 2, Sat-Sun, Nov. 8-9
Conference Championships
- Leg 1, Sat-Sun, Nov. 22-23
- Leg 2, Sat-Sun., Nov. 29-30
MLS Cup
- 3 pm ET, Sun., Dec. 7
Convince me this is worth watching.
Fair or not, nothing quite beats a tournament for pure entertainment value. One bad game can ruin a team’s season -- just ask the Sounders -- and every now and then a team will catch lightning in a bottle and make a surprise run. The tournament is full of great moments from great players and it’s all condensed into a pretty tight timeframe. It’s not perfect, but it is fun. And sports are about having fun, right?
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