The Major League Soccer playoffs have struck again.
Real Salt Lake (11-10-11), the seventh-best team in the regular season, will play eighth-best Red Bull New York (11-11-10) in the Western semifinal.
And don’t even ask why New York is in the Western playoffs.
New York knocked out two-time defending champion Houston 3-0 on Sunday, winning the series 4-1 on aggregate.
Salt Lake eliminated Chivas USA with a 2-2 tie after winning the first match 1-0.
The league nearly wipes out anything any team has done during the regular season with its playoff system.
Eight of 14 teams make the playoffs, Then, after a 30-game regular season, the first round consists of a two-game, total-goals series, followed by a single-game conference championship.
At the end of the season, the best teams are highly vulnerable to a bad series or game. As a result, it is common for the best teams to NOT make the championship game.
No. 1 Columbus and No. 3 Chicago will play for the East title.
MLS Cup should showcase the league’s best teams. It rarely does.
But hey, it beats the water torture that is NASCAR’s Chase for the championship.
And another thing ...
One more thing that is wrong with MLS: Some teams play far more games than others.
Thanks to the added competitions of the U.S. Open Cup, the CONCACAF Champions Cup, and SuperLiga, not to mention international exhibitions, some teams are playing far more than the 30 regular-season games of MLS.
The two-time defending champion Houston Dynamo has played nearly twice as many games as Colorado.
Here is the breakdown:
Houston: 56 (perhaps the Dynamo were worn out by the time they played Salt Lake in the MLS playoffs)
DC United: 47 (and they didn’t even make the MLS playoffs)
New England: 42
San Jose: 42
Chicago: 39 games (including East final, 40 if it makes MLS Cup).
Chivas USA: 39
Dallas: 39
Columbus: 38 (39 if it makes MLS Cup).
Los Angeles: 38
Real Salt Lake: 38 (plus possible MLS Cup)
Kansas City: 37
Red Bull New York: 36 (plus possible MLS Cup)
Toronto: 36
Colorado: 30
While the Champions Cup and SuperLiga are interesting competitions, something has to be done to spread out the schedule more evenly among the MLS teams.
Argentina guided by Hand of God
It’s official. Diego Maradona is now the coach of the Argentina national team.