North American Pro Soccer 2023

[gosioux76]

This weeks-long break in the middle of the playoffs is ridiculous. 

 

The MLS for years has struggled with making the end of its season as widely engaging as the beginning. The playoffs are already easy to ignore for casual fans or those who support teams who didn't make it far. Taking weeks off doesn't help that. I had forgotten the the playoffs weren't over by the time I saw ads that they were starting back up again. 

 

I understand the logic behind expanding a playoff system so that you can include more markets, but in a sport in which postseason tournaments aren't the norm, and in a country in which the league will inevitably be drowned out by other sports in the fall, the best path would be to make the playoffs pass as quickly as possible. 

[Dilbert]

10 hours ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

I feel like I should have already realized the first round was best of 3 followed by knockout.

We dont need three more months of playoffs

[LaGrandeOrange]

I'm certainly feeling a little MLS fatigue- I think the earlier finish forced by the World Cup last year was favourable. It's a delicate balance of factors (and obviously it's weighted very heavily towards making the owners happy) but the long playoffs in other sports are aided by there being action daily or almost daily- with the big gaps and erratic scheduling it's a little tricky, especially since as time has moved on I've felt less connected to teams other than my own.

[GDAWG]

2 hours ago, gosioux76 said:

This weeks-long break in the middle of the playoffs is ridiculous. 

 

The MLS for years has struggled with making the end of its season as widely engaging as the beginning. The playoffs are already easy to ignore for casual fans or those who support teams who didn't make it far. Taking weeks off doesn't help that. I had forgotten the the playoffs weren't over by the time I saw ads that they were starting back up again. 

 

I understand the logic behind expanding a playoff system so that you can include more markets, but in a sport in which postseason tournaments aren't the norm, and in a country in which the league will inevitably be drowned out by other sports in the fall, the best path would be to make the playoffs pass as quickly as possible. 

 

A crazy playoff schedule.  Why is it so difficult for MLS to do what MLB, NBA and NHL have done with their playoffs?  Even if in those other three leagues, you have two teams that have swept and advanced early, there are at least two other series that could go 5, 6 or 7 games.  

[Digby]

3 hours ago, gosioux76 said:

The MLS for years has struggled with making the end of its season as widely engaging as the beginning. The playoffs are already easy to ignore for casual fans or those who support teams who didn't make it far. Taking weeks off doesn't help that. I had forgotten the the playoffs weren't over by the time I saw ads that they were starting back up again. 

 

 

This is the least attention I've paid to MLS playoffs in recent memory, I've only watched a couple of games. The best-of-3 format seemed to lead teams to basically give up playing after 20 minutes, and then having a week or ten days between those games totally killed momentum even before we got to the international break. I saw the Cincy controversial goal yesterday but beyond that I couldn't even tell you who's still involved. 

[McCall]

I'm new to MLS, but St. Louis had like a 2-&-a-half week break between their final two regular season games. Then you have these breaks in the playoffs. Is there any rhyme or reason to this scheduling? Why not just be consistent with each weekend (& occasional Wednesday). MLS Cup would've happened by now.

[LaGrandeOrange]

The somewhat cynical reasoning is that MLS is a bit of a pyramid scheme because it mostly makes money through expansion fees and the best justification they can get for charging those fees involves having a ton of matches, since it's mostly a gate-based league (and most MLS teams do draw very well). It operates in that way like every other North American sport, except unlike those leagues it has to contend with a higher body that can interrupt its' schedule (FIFA International breaks), and MLS has no real control over it, but the breaks are known far enough in advance that they could just...work around them.

 

 

[Rockstar Matt]

I’m real annoyed that I have to pay for the MLS Season Pass to watch tonight’s Seattle-LAFC when the MLS said playoff games would be free. I’m not playing $15 to watch at most, 3 games. 

[Dilbert]

51 minutes ago, Rockstar Matt said:

I’m real annoyed that I have to pay for the MLS Season Pass to watch tonight’s Seattle-LAFC when the MLS said playoff games would be free. I’m not playing $15 to watch at most, 3 games. 

I dont remember them ever saying playoff games would be free.

 

Anyway. Conference Finals are set. Hell is Real in the East with Columbus at Cincinnati, and Houston at LAFC in the west

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Seattle topped out where I expected. They ended up the 2 seed more by chance than any particular great talent this season. 

 

Always sucks to lose a playoff match at home, but Seattle's crushed LAFC's spirits in LA, so turnabout is fair play.

 

I'm pulling for Cincinnati now.

[Rockstar Matt]

45 minutes ago, Dilbert said:

I dont remember them ever saying playoff games would be free.

You’re correct. I misread, and misinterpreted, a statement from MLS saying a select few playoff games would be on normal TV and thought they meant it would be all of the playoff games. Still annoyed that I have to pay the season pass price to watch the postseason, but it looks like I’m going to have to. 
 

Real pleased that LAFC has found its way back to the Western Conference Finals after a lackluster season. They have been anything  but dominant yet still find themselves two wins away from repeating. 

[Sport]

I know too many Columbus Crew fans. This game will either be very fun or one of the worst sports losses ever. I'm truly nonplussed at how invested I am in an MLS game. This is exactly how I felt when the Bengals were in the AFC Championship the last two years. 

[MJWalker45]

1 minute ago, Sport said:

I know too many Columbus Crew fans. This game will either be very fun or one of the worst sports losses ever. I'm truly nonplussed at how invested I am in an MLS game. This is exactly how I felt when the Bengals were in the AFC Championship the last two years. 

I'm looking forward to this game. I'm also glad that I'm in Texas and not Ohio, because if the Crew loses I won't see all the "Fire the whole staff and ship Player # to Siberia" like I saw after the Ohio State game last week. We've got a good team this year, but just making it to the Conference final was considered pretty big before the season started. 

[Dilbert]

The awards are piling up for FC Cincinnati! Luciano Acosta was named the Landon Donovan MVP for 2023. This award joins Goal of the Year (Acosta), Save of the Year (Celentano), Defender of the Year (Miazga), Sigi Schmid Coach of the Year (Noonan), and the Supporters Shield.

[LaGrandeOrange]

Lucho is really pretty incredible, happy to see him win it. Eastern Conference final really should be pretty exciting.

 

Wilfried Nancy is a pretty great coach, sure wish my team could get a coach like him...

[Digby]

On 2023-11-26 at 2:28 PM, McCall said:

I'm new to MLS, but St. Louis had like a 2-&-a-half week break between their final two regular season games. Then you have these breaks in the playoffs. Is there any rhyme or reason to this scheduling? Why not just be consistent with each weekend (& occasional Wednesday). MLS Cup would've happened by now.

 

On 2023-11-26 at 4:59 PM, LaGrandeOrange said:

The somewhat cynical reasoning is that MLS is a bit of a pyramid scheme because it mostly makes money through expansion fees and the best justification they can get for charging those fees involves having a ton of matches, since it's mostly a gate-based league (and most MLS teams do draw very well). It operates in that way like every other North American sport, except unlike those leagues it has to contend with a higher body that can interrupt its' schedule (FIFA International breaks), and MLS has no real control over it, but the breaks are known far enough in advance that they could just...work around them.

 

 

 

Last year the MLS playoffs were disarmingly normal -- one game per round, winner advances, approx one per week without weeks off in the middle -- but only because they were forced to get the whole ordeal over with before the Winter World Cup.

 

Apparently the origin of this "3 game series but only in the first round" thing was because Apple TV wanted more playoff games to show than there would have been had the rounds just been single games. Which is a bit of a funny shift from the general MLS history as, to @LaGrandeOrange 's point, it's usually been about ticket sales vs paltry media rights. Of course they will never tell us ratings with this purely streaming setup, but based on the chatter I've read and heard from my MLS circles, nobody was watching those extra games anyhow, they torpedoed themselves with meaningless play and momentum-destroying schedules.

 

I actually do think more playoff games / letting lower seeds get a game or two is a noble ideal -- get people in stadiums for playoff atmospheres and hopefully they're hooked. But I continue to advocate for a return to the classic two-leg home-and-home rounds to do so. Play games 5-7 days apart and it's still over with in just over a month when the schedule is right.

[Dilbert]

MLS has suspended FC Cincinnati defender and MLS Defender of the Year Matt Miazga after a postgame incident following the series clinching victory in Round 1 at New York Red Bulls. He is suspended for three matches (which will carry over into next season), fined an undisclosed amount and will undergo behavioral assessment through the Substance Abuse and Behavioral Health Program. Following the match PROs referee union put out a tweet claiming an unnamed player made access to the officials locker room following the game. Many reporters, as well as members of both FC Cincinnati and the Red Bulls acknowledged the incident but said that portions of what the referee union said was fabricated. Miazga was suspended for yellow card accumulation for last Saturdays game against Philadelphia.  With Nick Hagglund out with season ending injury, and Miazga suspended, FCCs back line is hurting.

 

https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/mls-suspends-fc-cincinnati-defender-matt-miazga-x7002

[Dilbert]

Bout to have a Tank level meltdown. The Cincy sports curse is way to real.  Onto next season for FCC. Columbus will host LAFC for the cup.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

7 minutes ago, Dilbert said:

Bout to have a Tank level meltdown. The Cincy sports curse is way to real.  Onto next season for FCC. Columbus will host LAFC/Houston for the cup.

 

That was really tough. Sorry man. I've really appreciated your updates through the season; hopefully FCC comes back stronger next year.

[Rockstar Matt]

Very surprised to see LAFC rebound from the early part of this year where they had countless letdowns and generally just didn’t play up to their lofty standards after blowing the CCL Final against León, yet they made it back to the MLS Cup Final.

 

This Final will be tougher than last year. On the road, no Gareth Bale to save the day and this is a more defensive team than the team from last season. LAFC has to win this for Vela as it’s seemingly his final game for the club. 

 

Also weird bit of history repeating itself: the last time a team won back-to-back Western Conference Titles while being the defending Champions also faced Columbus in Columbus for the Final. Seattle v. Columbus during 2020.