Article by Matt Lichtenstadter
As detailed before in this column, the MLS Cup Playoff format has changed constantly over the years as the league has grown. With scheduling demands changing as well, the league has never been able to settle on a playoff format that is consistent, not just in the number of teams, but the balance between one and two-legged ties.
For 2019, the league went back to single elimination, and created utter chaos and madness, making for the best weekend of MLS playoff action ever. So many of the league’s biggest concerns with previous playoff formats were addressed in spectacular fashion, with the wildest set of six games perhaps in league history. For all the constant tweaking and fiddling, it seems like the league has found a format that not only works but exceeds all expectations.
One of the league’s biggest issues in recent years has been making the regular season matter. With the way the playoffs used to be structured, the travel and the salary cap, the regular season most of the time felt perfunctory. Regular season stakes were only raised when it came to derbies and perhaps when playoff spots were themselves on the line. Two-legged ties meant that home field advantage became less of a necessity in the postseason outside of perhaps the Final itself and getting in was all that was required.
Going back to single elimination meant that suddenly, home field advantage means everything. Five out of six home teams won this weekend, and with the new compressed schedule and bracket system, winning more means more home games and less travel, which could be everything in one game scenarios. Now, the regular season means far more than just getting enough points to get it. Getting home field for one if not multiple games could be the difference between winning and losing.
And in these one game playoffs, the stakes are infinitely higher than any two legged series. The first game in those ties often feels perfunctory and mechanical, even with the away goals rule, but in a one game do-or-die scenario, you get games like we saw in Seattle and Philadelphia, with insane comebacks, intensity, drama and more. Every decision is magnified, and the finest margins matter more than ever. For the league, nothing could be better in terms of drumming up interest and buzz than just playing the highlights of these games on TV or social media. In the world of soccer, straight knockout tournaments like what the MLS Cup Playoffs have become are not common. The uniqueness of the format should attract casual MLS fans and soccer fans from outside the MLS sphere alike, far more than a two-legged series ever could.
It doesn’t hurt to have another El Trafico game set up perfectly by the bracket format, which only adds to the drama and anticipation, but there have been plenty of derbies in playoffs past that never came close to the anticipation this game will have. Part of that is the rivalry itself, but most of it is because of the new playoff format. Non-derbies too now have even more buzz because of the drama the first weekend of these playoffs brought to the fold.
As the league expands even further, it’s possible that this playoff format as it stands in 2019 doesn’t last. However, it should. There is more incentive than ever to win in the regular season to get home field advantage and perhaps even a bye, and the drama of single elimination turns the heat up even further on teams to play open and entertaining soccer because their seasons depend on it. Further adding teams will water down the format and lessen the incentives in the regular season and take away some of the drama in October.
MLS may have stumbled, after much trial and error, on its best playoff format ever. Even as the league expands and its priorities change, this is the format they should stick with into the future. Every part of it feels right, and the outcomes from this weekend have only further proven that.
Nowhere else in world soccer will you find anything like the world found in the opening round of the playoffs, and the best teams have yet to take the field. The possibilities of what could come next are endless, and for a league that needs a jolt in so many ways, they may have found the best way to generate it.
