The new and somewhat controversial first round of the 2023 MLS playoffs — with its best-of-three format awarding 16 different playoff teams at least one home game — ended Sunday night with the Columbus Crew’s win over a still-a-work-in-progress Atlanta United.
And with that, all eight Game 1 winners in those series advanced to the conference semifinals, with only three of the eight series even needing to get to a deciding Game 3.
That’s not to say the first round was bad. It offered some fun games and some memorable moments, including a Game 3 playoff shootout between Houston and RSL that eventually saw the Dynamo advance — with Steve Clark stuffing star-in-the-making Diego Luna on a crucial kick.
There is a pervasive feeling among the fans I know who are not shy about expressing themselves that they weren’t big fans of this format, and the 19 games could have been eight.
One problem with this is that there’s a big ol’ international break in the middle of the playoffs, and it wouldn’t be right to penalize teams who have international players on their squads by scheduling playoff games while they’re away.
The other factor here is that the league wanted to get some extra matches on for Apple this year, and a best-of-three first round gets 16 teams at least one home game. (The 8 seed gets two guaranteed, thanks to the play-in game.)
We don’t really need a play-in game, in my humble opinion. Eight teams a conference are plenty and arguably the right number. You can just make the first round four matches per conference, and have the 1 play the 8. In the West, No. 8 seed SKC beat No. 1 seed St. Louis. It’s proof it can happen.
Really, if you wanted a few more playoff games but also didn’t want the first round to churn right into the international break, you could fit the first two rounds in between Decision Day and the break, and then do a best-of-three conference final that raises the stakes a bit to get to MLS Cup, gets teams that go that far the reward of at least one playoff team … and there’s probably a better chance that a team in the final four could pull off the road win it would need to get to MLS Cup.
Let’s take a quick look at the Nov. 25 and 26 games that seem oh-so-far-away. Typically, this is time to get the tree up and get the Christmas inflatables to their homes in the yard for the next month-plus. It’s also a time to lose yourself in some conference semis.
