Take Me Out to the Playoffs – Week 2

The playoff numbers look like this…

Observations

More than 22,800 bought tickets for the Red Bulls/San Jose match. Looked like some didn’t make it to the arena on a damp and chilly Thursday evening. A terrible crowd of under 10,300 on a sunny Saturday in Columbus. A great crowd in Salt Lake, over 19,300. Los Angeles held up its end as their sellout made the LA/Seattle quarterfinal the only one that sold out both legs.

Colorado and Columbus

The Rapids have played 12 home playoff matches. Average attendance: 9,968. Games with under 10,000 in attendance: 7.
Columbus has played 14 home playoff matches. Average attendance: 13,413. Games with under 10,000 in attendance: 2.

MLS Throw Ins

I presume that most of you are aware of the bombardment of bits being written, tweeted and otherwise disseminated about the state of the playoff system in MLS. Much of this crap has taken the form of something like, “The playoffs are a joke”, “Two western teams in the Eastern Conference final”, “We must have a single table”. You get the idea. Even our own Daniel Feuerstein, has chimed in.

I got so tired of seeing this drivel pass my eyes reading #MLS tweets(@SoccerTwit), I simply had to mention it in this post. For I’m sure we’ll see tons more as the week passes leading up to the Colorado/San Jose semifinal, and it’s going to make me even more baffled at the lack of understanding by most of the people spewing out the garbage.

First, as Daniel points out, the SoccerDon(Garber) has already stated that conferences will remain in MLS. Maybe 2, maybe 3, but no single table. And before I have to plug my ears to drown out the cries of Eurosnobs, I would ask… Did the top eight teams make the playoffs? Answer, yes they did.

Will it make it better if we call the first round the quarterfinals, followed by the semifinals? That’s what they are. Simple solution. Rename the conferences. Hunt and Kraft, Yin and Yang, Black and White, anything that doesn’t relate to geography. Feel better?

Next, and I’ll bet this will happen, seed the playoffs as we’d all like to see them, i.e.; 1 v 8, 2 v 7, etc. Problem solved with one caveat. I can see the top conference finishers getting the top two seeds, with everyone else seeded 3-8. Just a thought.

If you are interested in reading a few playoff suggestions worthy of your consideration, try Brian Straus’ idea which includes a group play scenario, or Beau Dure’s tweak of the Australian Rules Football Playoff system.

In the meantime, enjoy the playoffs. They’ve been fantastic.

And …

• After suffering what some are calling the biggest upset in women’s soccer history, the US Women still have a chance to qualify for the Women’s World Cup.