Still Not Getting It

Pitch Invasion is reporting that MLS is "seriously considering" changing the MLS playoff structure, but it actually looks more like what we just saw from the World Football Challenge with home-field advantage added than any sort of nod to the WPS.

I still don't like it, but that's not because I'm any sort of single-table purist. It's simply too many matches, and historically, selling tickets to playoff games has been inexplicably difficult for MLS clubs. This experiment with two-game aggregate series is the worst of both worlds, in that it kowtows to the Europhile and the Champions League format, despite the fact that the underlying reasons for a two-leg series don't exist.

However, if the Board of Governors is actually considering this idea, it means that the idea that every team in the playoffs has to have at least one home match seems to no longer be a prerequisite. This should, hopefully, open the door to the most sane approach that hasn't been tried, and that's a regular old single-game knockout format. The regular season would still have meaning, because in a single match, home field is going to be pretty important. Fewer games mean fewer potential conflicts for scheduling both stadiums and broadcast coverage.

If the purists complain that playoffs are such an American concept, why not offer them up in the style of American football?