The MLS has announced their changes to the 2011 MLS playoff structure. Ten of the 18 teams in the league will feature in the playoffs in yet another unique MLS playoff structure. The simple version goes like this: the top three teams in each conference, which got shaken up a bit during the off season, automatically make the playoffs for their conference’s half of the bracket. Joining those six teams will be four wild card teams. Based on a single MLS table, the next highest four point total earners, not already in the playoffs, go into a play-in game to face either conferences number one seed.
Then it gets a little tricky.
Those four teams will play as the seven through ten seeds in the wild card playoffs. The seven seed will play the ten while the eight seed faces the nine. Whichever lowest seed is remaining after the two games will play the Supporter’s Shield winner, which goes to the team with the most points in the league at the end of the season.
The wild card round will be played as a one-game playoff hosted by the team with the higher seed, the seven and eight seeds.
The bracket would then look more like the typical 1v4-2v3 seeds facing off on each side, with the one seeds from each conference facing the wild card team as the 2 and 3 seeds in each conference play each other. This format ensures that at least one team from their respective conference will represent that conference in the conference final, hopefully reducing some of the strange conference final matchups in the last few years.
The conference semi-finals will be, like previous postseasons, two-legged goal-aggregate matches, with the winner advancing to one-game conference final playoff hosted by the highest seed remaining.
The location and date of MLS Cup 2011 is yet to be determined and will be announced at a later date.
To give this structure some context, here’s a look at how last season’s standings would’ve shaken out come playoff time. The top three seeds in the East would be, in order, New York, Columbus then Kansas City. The automatic qualifiers from West would consist of Los Angeles, Real Salt Lake and FC Dallas.
Following them, as wild cards, would be Seattle, Colorado, San Jose and Chicago. This would mean Seattle would host Chicago and Colorado would host San Jose.
This format would’ve given two more clubs, Chicago and Kansas City, trips to the playoffs and some potential interesting matchups. Instead of meeting in the Eastern Conference final, Colorado and San Jose would meet for the opportunity to play either Supporter’s Shield winner Los Angeles or Eastern Conference champion New York in the conference semi-finals.
Also guaranteed home playoff games, Columbus and Kansas City would face off as the two and three seeds in the east as well as Real Salt Lake and FC Dallas would in the west.
With over half the teams in the league making the playoffs, this format will still not give the playoffs or the MLS Cup the credibility that the fans would like it to have. Two more teams are scheduled to join the league over the next two years which will obviously make it more difficult, but the league has said that it will leave the door open to future playoff format changes.
Heath Harshman is a sophomore Communication major at Washington State University in Pullman, WA. Heath has a weekly political-media radio show Thursdays from 11a.m.-12p.m. on KUGR.org. He hopes to have a career in public relations and is currently the media relations coordinator of minor league baseball’s Tri-City Dust Devils. Follow Heath on twitter @heathharshman or add him on facebook. Thoughts or comments can be sent to Heath at heath_harshman@yahoo.com
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