Write On Sports LLC - "A Wall Behind the Door" by Jeff Bull

A Wall Behind the Door

2006-10-12 22:43:53 | By: Jeff Bull

Last season, as alert observers of Major League Soccer (MLS) know, the Los Angeles Galaxy snuck into the playoffs as the fourth seed in the Western Conference. They rode two wins and one draw to the final and topped the New England Revolution to win the 2005 MLS Cup.

Putting money on a repeat looks like a sucker’s bet. For starters, the Galaxy will miss the MLS playoffs for the first time in club history. The prospects for a bottom-seeded team rumbling out of the basement and winning it all look only marginally better than the impossibility of a Galaxy repeat. Though the rules of competition adopted for MLS’s playoffs conspire to give a second chance to teams already on what looks like welfare, it’s hard to believe any of the four teams realistically in the mix have the talent or savvy to cash in.

The “welfare” jab comes from the fact that eight of 12 teams make the playoffs, but, as noted above, the format arguably helps as well. Since 2003, the first round of the playoffs features a two-game series with the lower-seeded team hosting the first leg. Because the total number of goals scored decides which team wins the series, the format allows the lower-seeded team to throw everything into the win at home and hope they can successfully pack the defense and earn the draw on the road. While this by no means guarantees success, it doesn’t pose the same challenge as a three-game series with two away games, or a one-off game on the top-seeded team’s turf.

That conclusion is, admittedly, controversial. On the many BigSoccer.com threads arguing the wisdom or folly of MLS’s current playoff format, a number of posters argue that history shows no advantage to the lower seed. Based on numbers alone, the point holds: historically, the top-seeded team has won 8 of 12 first-round series. Last year’s playoffs cut deeply into those numbers, however, when three of the four first-round series ended with the lower-seeded team on top. Neither set of numbers actually proves the case one way or the other. By giving each team a game in their home stadium, one can comfortably argue that the format gives no advantage to either team, which is, in itself, something of a gift to the weaker team. It doesn’t help the top-seed in any case.

Wherever the advantage lies, the two top-seeded teams are already known: FC Dallas tops the Western Conference, while DC United owns the East’s top seed. Two teams - Red Bull New York and the Kansas City Wizards - hope to earn a post-season date with DC United, while Real Salt Lake and the Colorado Rapids want to schedule a dance with FC Dallas; in fairness, Chivas USA could potentially wind up fourth in the West, but the series of outcomes to make that happen seem unlikely to come together. Taking Chivas out of the picture, the combination of those four teams’ recent form and how they played against the top seeds in their respective conferences points to brief dates or dances - whatever metaphor one chooses - for any of them.

Before any teams review footage of DC or FC Dallas, however, all four team must survive the regular season’s final weekend, though some have more to do than others. Real Salt Lake, for instance, must not only MUST win on the road against Chivas USA to even dream of the playoffs, but they also need the Rapids to lose to the Houston Dynamo the day before. In Real’s favor, Chivas’ will field an injury-depleted squad, especially on the offensive end, a lucky break for Real’s league-worst defense. It also helps that Real isn’t the same dazed, disoriented mess Chivas pounded 3-0 in the season’s opening game; two ties, one goal-less, the other featuring three goals for each side, show that Real has grown both in confidence and as a team during the season. Even so, they still must rely on a middling road offense to score against the league’s best home-field defense. This looks a like a tall order for the Utahans.

Desperate as that one game looks for Real, they can find little boosts in the Rapids tricky situation. To begin, the Rapids are on the road - always a bad sign for this bunch. Their league-worst goal-differential grows when they travel, to -17 from the overall -13. To top it off, Houston has enjoyed a recent good spell and they catch an additional break with a key suspension to the Rapids’ defensive line in the person of Mike Petke. Still, a tie would do and a tie seems plausible; both teams have scored only five goals each since September 2nd. The secret weapon for the Rapids, if one exists, is motivation; they’ve got a hell of a lot more to lose.

Back east, the picture is crystal clear: Red Bull hosts the Wizards, their immediate rivals, for the final Eastern Conference playoff spot. A couple of factors favor the Wizards, from recent form - they’ve gone 3-1-3 in their past seven games, better by far than Red Bull’s 2-4-1 - to the goal-differentials over the same period; the Red Bulls labored to a -4 (7 scored, 11 conceded) versus the Wizards’ +4 (14 scored, 10 conceded). Red Bull can take some comfort from the fact that the Wizards haven’t won on the road since June 10th and there’s also the buzz around Josmer Alitdore, the 16-year-old kid responsible for one or two of the wins that allowed this game to matter at all. As long as it’s been since the Wizards won, though, they did manage a tie in their most recent road outing - and that’s the problem for the home team; the Wizards need only a tie to beat them for that last spot.

For all the noise and drama of the final weekend, one very real question remains: if a brick-wall is the first thing one finds behind the playoff door, what is the point in opening up? The reality is, none of these teams deserve to be in the post-season, never mind having a real shot at the title. Red Bull looks best, but against DC they managed only two draws against two losses. Real picked up an unlikely win against FC Dallas, but lost the other three. Both the Rapids and Wizards compiled lopsided, losing records against their prospective first-round opposition, with the Wizards part bordering on humiliation.

The weekend ahead ought to provide some intriguing encounters, even if none of them will be televised (the league, in its wisdom, booked other games and, presumably, can’t switch). The rules of competition are what they are, but they don’t render true various clichés about teams earning “a whole new season.” Even with the gift of having the regular season wiped clean courtesy of the playoff format, things look decidedly grim for all concerned. These teams aren’t playing for a new lease on life so much as they’re cashing in on a series of stays-of-execution. The playoffs are coming and they’ll be exciting enough, but don’t look for any of these teams to play a role above fodder.

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