The regular season is over. The Columbus Crew are the best team in the league but they only get a trophy that most people don’t even know exists for that feat. Eight teams will continue their quest for the MLS Cup this weekend while 6 teams are done for the winter. This is how the playoffs look:
Columbus Crew (1 East) vs. (1st Wildcard) Kansas City Wizards
Chicago Fire (2 East) vs. (3 East) New England Revolution
Houston Dynamo (1 West) vs. (2nd Wildcard) New York Red Bulls
Chivas USA (2 West) vs (3 West) Real Salt Lake
The top 3 teams from each side qualify along with the next 2 best teams in the league reguardless of where they come from. In this case both wildcards are East teams. The lower of the 2 wildcards moves to the other conference and takes the place where the 4th seed from that conference would normally start the playoffs.
You could argue that when one conference has both of the wildcards, they are the tougher conference. This creates could reward the lower seeded wildcard by moving them to the playoff bracket with the weaker conference.
Kansas City was the higher seeded wildcard while New York is the lower seeded wildcard. To reward the Wizards for their accomplishment they get to play the Columbus Crew who just happen to have the best record in MLS this year. The New York Red Bulls go to the Western Conference and play the Houston Dynamo. I don’t want to say that playing Houston is any easy task, but it is almost like New York has been rewarded by having a lower number of points than the Kansas City Wizards.
This setup prevent the guarantee of an East vs. West final – so why keep it divided up at all. Why not have a playoffs that simple puts the top 8 teams against each other. The number 1 seed plays the 8th, 2nd vs 7th, 3rd vs 6th, and 4th vs 5th. This sets up a potential #1 vs. #2 game for the MLS Cup. If those teams happen to be from opposite conferences – so be it. It doesn’t make sense to have the best 2 teams in the league play each other in the semi-finals just so you can have an East vs. West final. Remember that the East vs. West final is not even guaranteed with the 2 wildcard system that is used.
Here is how the playoffs would look if the conferences were ignored:
(1) Columbus Crew vs. New York Red Bulls (8)
(4) New England Revolution vs Chivas USA (5)
(3) Chicago Fire vs Kansas City Wizards (6)
(2) Houston Dynamo vs Real Salt Lake (7)
What do you think of this playoff format? It keeps the same teams in the playoffs and I’m sure most years it would do so. I don’t know if it is mathematically possible that 6 teams could ever go from one conference, but I would bet it to be highly unlikely.
Of course with the constant expansion of the league they have to continually change the format of the conferences and the playoff structure. No matter how the conferences are balanced they could still do a playoff like this.
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