The MLS playoffs are a defining moment in the league’s annual calendar. For soccer enthusiasts, it is the most anticipated time of the year as they look forward to watching their favourite teams battle it out for the coveted MLS Cup. However, understanding how the playoffs work can be quite challenging, especially for new fans who are not familiar with the league’s format.
MLS is unique compared to many other professional soccer leagues, because its champion is not decided by the regular season table alone. Instead, it features a playoff system at the end of the regular season, which determines the champion.
MLS operates through a 34-game regular season and the league currently includes 30 teams split into two conferences: Eastern and Western. Teams play an unbalanced schedule, facing most of their conference rivals twice and a selection of cross-conference opponents once.
How Teams Qualify For The Playoffs
The MLS playoffs begin shortly after the regular season ends and feature eighteen teams: nine from the Eastern Conference and nine from the Western Conference.
Qualification for the playoffs is based on each team’s final position in their conference table. The top seven teams go straight through to Round One of the playoffs, with the teams finishing 8th and 9th competing in a Wild Card round to see who takes the final spot.
Any team finishing 10th or below simply misses out on the playoffs completely.
This means more than half of the teams in the league qualify for the postseason, which some people think is too many. However, it also creates more opportunities for upsets and surprises, and keeps the middle of the table interesting during the regular season.
Seeding
Qualifying for the playoffs isn’t the only thing that matters during the regular season, seeding is also important.
The higher a team finishes in its conference, the ‘easier’ their route to the final will be. In theory, at least.
Why? Well, for a start, the top seven teams avoid the Wild Card round, which gives them one less knockout game to survive. More importantly, higher seeded teams also get home advantage during the conference rounds, which can make a big difference in tight playoff matches.
During the Wild Card round, Round One, the Conference Semi finals and the Conference Finals, teams only play clubs from their own conference. Eastern Conference teams stay on one side of the draw, while Western Conference teams stay on the other. The last remaining team from each conference then meets in MLS Cup.
For the MLS Cup itself, hosting rights go to the team with the better regular season record in the overall standings (Supporters’ Shield standings). So even though the playoffs decide the champion, regular season performance still matters right up to the final.
The Wild Card Round
The Wild Card round is the first stage of the playoffs, although it often feels like a preamble before they begin in earnest.
Each conference has one Wild Card match: the eighth placed team plays the ninth placed team, with the higher seed hosting the game. It is a single elimination match, so the winner moves on to Round One and the loser’s season is over.
If a Wild Card match is tied after 90 minutes, the game goes straight to a penalty shootout to decide the winner.
In Round One, the Wild Card winner faces the number one seed from its own conference, which is the team that finished first. That makes the Wild Card route very difficult, but it also gives teams that finished just outside the automatic playoff places one more chance to cause an upset.
Round One
Round One is where the main playoff bracket begins. The top seven teams from each conference are joined by the Wild Card winner, creating eight teams in the East and eight teams in the West.
Round One uses a best of three format. This is one of the more unusual elements of the MLS playoffs.
The aim is simple: the first team to win two matches moves on to the Conference Semi Finals. To ensure a winner in each game, if the score is tied after 90 minutes, the winner is decided via penalty shootout. No extra time is used.
The higher seed hosts the first of the three matches and, if necessary, the third match. The lower seed hosts the second match.
This format gives higher seeded teams a clear advantage, but it also guarantees both clubs at least one home playoff game. It can create strange looking series, because a team can win one match heavily, lose the next on penalties, and still need a third game to decide the tie.
In this way, teams can sneak through when they perhaps did not deserve to.
Conference Semi Finals And Conference Finals
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After Round One, the playoffs become much more straightforward. The eight winners move into the Conference Semi finals, and from that point on every round is single elimination.
The Conference Semi finals are one off matches hosted by the higher seeded team, and from this stage onwards, extra time is used before penalties. The four winners then move on to the Conference Finals, which are also single elimination games.
The four remaining teams play the Conference Finals and the winners become the Conference Champions. A trophy is awarded for this, but it is not seen as a major trophy. The real target is the MLS Cup.
These rounds often produce some of the most dramatic moments of the playoffs. By this stage, everyone has started allowing themselves to believe, yet since there is no safety net, one bad night can end that dream.
The MLS Cup Final
At this point, only two teams remain – the conference champions from East and West.
These two teams compete in the biggest game of the season: the MLS Cup Final.
This match takes place at the home stadium of the higher-seeded finalist in the overall standings, giving those regular season finishing spots one final layer of importance.
It’s a single match, so everything comes down to this final game. If the score is tied, extra time is used, and if still necessary, the winner is decided on penalties.
That winner becomes the champion of the entire league, lifting the biggest trophy in North American soccer.
One thing spectators can always count on during an MLS Cup Final is a high level of competition. Both teams will leave everything they have on the field, making for an intense and thrilling match that keeps fans on edge until the very end.