Avoiding the Drop

The World Cup is a fairly significant tournament. Outside of perhaps the Olympics, no international sporting event attracts the attention and imagination of the world in the way the World Cup does; it is, quite simply, the biggest tournament out there, attracting the best players and best talent from the best leagues all over the world.

The MLS, however, has never really cared about the World Cup. For whatever reason, they’ve always insisted on rebelling against FIFA and scheduling games through the tournament. This issue has been a sore spot for stateside soccer fans, who (rightly) feel that the MLS is doing the teams, the fans, and the overall integrity of the organization a disservice by scheduling matches that are in direct competition with the World Cup; that’d be like having the U.S. Gymnastics Team schedule their tournament right in the middle of the Summer Olympics. It makes no sense, but MLS has insisted on doing it anyways.

Until yesterday.

In a partial compromise, MLS chief Don Garber announced that the league will go on a two week hiatus during the group stage of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The group stage will start June 10th and continue on through June 25th; that’s fifteen whole days of no MLS play. Additionally, Garber’s also agreed to not schedule matches to compete against the semifinals or the final, rightly assuming that people would rather watch a World Cup semifinal match than a meeting between the San Jose Earthquakes and the Kansas City Wizards. Says Garber:

“The decision to stop League play during the group phase of the 2010 FIFA World Cup is part of MLS’ commitment to deepen its connection with the millions of soccer fans in the United States and Canada,” said MLS Commissioner Don Garber. “The World Cup will be a focal point for all MLS fans and several MLS players will compete with their national teams at the tournament.”

This move, frankly, doesn’t go far enough. Currently MLS also plays through international breaks that are set up for the World Cup qualifiers; while the qualifiers might not all be watched by many fans, there are plenty of MLS players who feature for their national team. Those players are probably among the best players on their team’s roster, too, so when they’re away for international duty and their club team still has matches to play, the fans and the team suffer because they’re not at full strength. Furthermore, because the MLS roster is limited to 23 players and has a rather low cap, teams struggle to field sides that are even remotely competitive during these breaks.

Plus, cheapening the available talent pool cheapens the league; the quality of play drops, which makes your product far less interesting. It would make a lot of sense if MLS adhered to the same national calendar that every other league seems to adhere to, but the fact that they’ve at least cried uncle on the World Cup is a step in the right direction.

Garber also made another announcement, and it’s one that seems to hint at the possibility of a single table format at some point in the future. The thirty game schedule currently in place will be retained; however, with the Philadelphia Union coming into the league, it’s now possible for every team to play each other at home and away. Right now, the extra two games are made up of “rivalry” games, which are predetermined based on locality; that format will be scrapped for next season in favor of the more traditional “everyone plays everyone else twice” structure. The press announcement specifically places the Union in the Eastern conference, so there’s not been talk of going single table for next season; however, with the intended scheduling format, it’ll put everyone on an even playing field and open the door for that in the future.

All told, these are two steps towards things that fans of the MLS have been clamoring for for a little while, and it’s nice to see the league finally adopting some of the fan requests.