It’s The End…
By: Chris | November 21st, 2011
… of the 2011 MLS Season as we know it. Welcome back everyone! Sorry I’ve been gone so long, school and work have been taxing but I should have managed my time a little better to make a few posts before now, so for that I am sorry. I’m not leaving the blog yet, and with the offseason upon us now week long absences between posts isn’t too out of the question until preseason training picks up in February. But like last preseason I’ll try to post something at least once a week and once big news items pop up. I do have a couple of interesting things to talk about today though.
MLS Commissioner Don Garber announced two changes to 2012’s schedule already. The regular season’s change back to an unbalanced schedule was hinted at late in the season and was made official last night. With the addition of the Montreal Impact, 36 games a season in a geographical diverse country of ours is simply too extensive right now. With teams putting more emphasis on CONCACAF Champions Leauge and US Open Cup, the long distance traveling has been wearing on certain teams the last couple years.
In most of the soccer world, a team plays every other team in the league, either home or away in the first half of the season. In the second half, the team plays every other team in the same order, with home and away games switched, so that every team is played twice, once at home and once away. MLS is doing something a little similar but with a weird twist.
Seeing as how a 36 game, balanced schedule is a bit too much at this point in time, the MLS governing body has come up with a unique solution. From MLSSoccer.com:
Western Conference clubs will play each other three times, totaling 24 matches. They will play four conference opponents twice at home and once away, and play the other four conference opponents twice away and once at home. The location arrangement will be reversed in 2013.
West clubs will complete their schedule by playing each of the 10 Eastern Conference clubs once. Five of matches will be at home and five will be on the road. Again, the arrangement will be reversed in 2013.
Each East club will play seven of their conference opponents three times each (21 total games) and the remaining two conference opponents twice each (4 games).
To complete their full slate, East teams will then play the nine West teams once each. Those nine games will be split either five at home and four away or vice versa. The locations will be reversed in 2013.
What does this mean for the Quakes? Since there will be 9 teams in the Western Conference next year, the Quakes get to play every other Western team 3 times for a total of 24 matches. 4 of those teams will feature 2 games at home and 1 away, and the other 4 will feature 2 games away and 1 at home. The remaining 10 games will be against each of the 10 Eastern Conference teams, with 5 being at home and 5 away. Then for 2013, the home and away matches are switched.
The reasoning for this schedule change, besides the travel issues, is to highlight intra-conference and geographical rivalries again. The schedule works wonderfully for every rival in the league except FC Dallas and Houston. Since Dallas is in the West and Houston is in the East, they will only play each other once this year and once in 2013. So that’s a bummer for those Texan fans, but for the Quakes fans, it means 3 California Classicos and potentially 9 games to decide the Heritage Cup (if Portland, Seattle and Vancouver all participate).
The other format change for the league is another playoff tweak. There will still be 10 teams making the playoffs in 2012, but there won’t be a traditional “wild card” race. The top 5 teams in each conference automatically qualify. The 4th and 5th place teams then play a 1 game “wild card” play in game to face the 1st place team in the conference. The remaining 8 teams will play 2 2-game series to determine who advances to the MLS Cup. Finally, the MLS Cup will be hosted by the team with the better record at the end of the regular season. MLS is banking on the idea that the higher placed team will be able to sell enough tickets to the final on somewhat short notice, this way the final doesn’t have to be held at a “neutral” site to ensure ticket sales. Check out MLSSoccer.com for all the details.
This little gem comes from Goal.com. Now, most of what Goal.com publishes should be taken with a large grain of salt, but according to Seth Vertelney, our own Chris Wondolowski has been hearing offers from several different European clubs over the past year. When a striker wins the goal scoring award one year and ends up in second in the second year, most teams are going to take a look at that player. Wondo isn’t over the hill either, he’s only 28, that magical age for soccer players where they are supposedly in the prime of their careers. It’s not surprising to hear that Wondo’s skills are being investigated by other clubs, even European clubs with his output the last 2 years. What is somewhat surprising is just how impressive the European club is that is mentioned in the article. Holland’s Feyenoord and other Scandinavian teams were interested in Wondo. Let’s hope that we can keep Wondo for a bit longer and make a run at the playoffs again.
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