Article by Matt Lichtenstadter
When MLS returns from its COVID-19 induced pause, not much will look familiar, not just for MLS fans, but for soccer fans around the globe. In almost every league that has resumed, teams are playing in their own stadiums but behind closed doors. MLS has gone down a very different path, not just out of necessity but in attempt to create buzz when the other major American leagues haven’t resumed play yet.
The “MLS is Back” Tournament will put all 26 teams at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando for a World Cup style tournament. Each team will play three group stage games against conference opponents, all which will count towards the nascent regular season standings. The best two teams from each group along with the four best third placed teams will advance to a 16 team knockout tournament just like in the Euros/World Cup, with the winner taking home a cash prize of $1.1 million and a berth in the 2021 CONCACAF Champions League. Those knockout games will not count as regular season games, which will resume when this tournament finishes in mid-August.
Why has MLS gone down this path rather than follow what leagues in Europe have done? Don Garber and company are following the model that the NBA and NHL have used; the hub city and bubble model. Due to the nature of the American COVID-19 outbreak, which is unevenly distributed across the country, and the travel considerations, MLS picked a place where the facilities could easily hold the 26 teams and their support staffs for multiple weeks while also limiting the amount of interactions each player and team had with the outside world, thus hopefully limiting exposure to the disease. All games, not surprisingly, will be played behind closed doors, and some of the now ubiquitous images of a resumed soccer world with coaches and substitutes wearing masks, plus extended benches and substitutions will also be present for MLS.
All was not smooth sailing to reach this agreement for MLS and its players. CBA negotiations went decently well prior to the season, but the agreement itself was not signed before the league paused play. Thanks to the new financial realities of a post COVID-19 world, the league and its players had more negotiations to do, and it nearly ended in a lockout. Players gave up nearly $100 million over the life of the new CBA in former financial gains, as well as a now ubiquitous force majeure clause, which could be used to cancel the CBA in the case of something like a global pandemic, is now included after not being included before. The threat of a lockout and the imposition of harsh terms angered players, and so what was a decently harmonious relationship between the league and the PA is now far more tense.
Placing all 26 teams and key personnel, amounting to nearly 1,500 people, in a bubble like this comes with problems that haven’t come up elsewhere. Will players be allowed to leave the bubble? A player going out into Orlando, catching COVID-19 unknowingly and bringing it back into the bubble is a concern. Many players have concerns about seeing family, who in most cases will not be brought down to Orlando as part of the bubble. Will players with underlying medical conditions that increase risk of complications from COVID-19, such as Seattle’s Jordan Morris who has type one diabetes, skip out for safety reasons? How many might do so? If a player or other key personnel tests positive, they will be isolated immediately, but how many people can test positive before the tournament itself is in jeopardy? One unique problem also facing MLS are players whose partners are currently pregnant, and two of the leagues biggest stars, Chicharito and Carlos Vela, both have pregnant partners. Both could in theory skip the tournament for this reason. Chicharito will play, according to reports, but Vela is currently undecided.
MLS has had to jump through many hoops just to get a restart of play greenlit, and that’s before any of the soccer questions themselves are asked. Will this tournament be the jolt the league needs in an otherwise somewhat bland regular season? How will managers use their rosters with three games in 11 days, and with extended benches and more substitutions allowed? Can the league make these games, played at a venue that normally houses preseason games and behind closed doors feel important? With an almost certainly truncated regular season schedule to follow, could a misstep in a game like this cost a team a playoff spot? How many people will take the plunge and watch games that start at 9 AM Eastern Time, a start time picked to avoid the baking heat of a Florida summer? Will teams like the LA Galaxy, who started poorly in the first two games before the pandemic, be able to re-jigger their own fortunes in a unique environment?
When MLS resumes, it will look entirely different than what the Bundesliga, La Liga, Serie A and the Premier League will look like. The league has a chance to drum up interest at a time when only NWSL has re-started in the US and can provide a different look and feel to return games than everyone else has across the globe. It took some acrimonious negotiations and hard feelings just to get a re-start greenlit, and the effects of that will last far beyond this tournament. Can the league bury all of that, and the inherent skepticism about re-starting play during a pandemic that hasn’t abated all that much in the US to build buzz and bring new fans into the fold?
Is MLS’ hard work done now that the tournament is official? Hardly. Opportunities and pitfalls lie ahead for a league that has made so much progress, but still hasn’t had the breakthrough its craved, domestically and abroad. Perhaps this tournament will be the start of something new, on and off the field, but as the world has found out in the last few months, nothing is straightforward anymore.
Can MLS turn lemons into lemonade? The poorly named, but well conceived “MLS is Back” tournament will go a long way to answering that question.
