MLS Playoffs Good; MLS Playoffs Attendance not so Good
By: Bob | October 23rd, 2006
Forgive me for being a bit cross-eyed today. I spent the weekend watching roughly 9,000 hours of football. In between seeing Arsenal run over Reading, Manchester United put the boot in against Liverpool, Sheva getting his shot on for Chelsea, Real Madrid capture El Clasico and a game involving 6-year-olds in the park down the street (number 8 was all over the place and has a bright future if she would ever stop trying to catch butterflies during the game), I also tuned in to the MLS playoffs.
I sometimes hear that playoffs are a distinctly American concept and that might indeed be the case, but taking a look at the crowds during the MLS playoff games would lead you to believe otherwise. It is a pity that more people didn’t turn out because the games I watched were quite entertaining. With one goal separating each of the two teams in the four playoff matchups, next weekend’s action should be full of drama and excitement even if they are played in front of audiences that could fit in my living room.
Both DC United and FC Dallas have to be feeling pretty good about their chances, coming away with road victories in the first leg of their series. New England also has reason for optimism only trailing the Chicago Fire by a goal with the second leg being played on the treacherous rodeo-like pitch at their home stadium.
The big surprise, at least for part-time prognosticators like me, was Chivas USA winning their first leg 2-1 against the Houston Dynamo. Chivas was actually up a pair of goals in that one before the Dynamo came back to get a much cherished road goal. MVP finalist Dwayne De Rosario had a chance to get the equalizer on a penalty kick in the 86th minute but he was stoned by Chivas keeper Brad Guzman. I still like the Dynamo to advance.
The return legs of all four matchups are on Saturday and Sunday and even with 9,000 other games on I’d recommend you’d give them a look or at the very least you can get your groove on with music that would make Jay DeMerit proud to be an American.
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Category: MLS
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Comments
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Only 9000 hours Bob? LOL
Posted from
United States
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Don’t worry – There will be a very good crowd at RFK for the DC United match on Sunday.
Posted from
United States -
It’s interesting that MLS insists that it NEEDS a playoff system to sell the sport and could NEVER mess around with such esoteric concepts as promotion/relegation for fear of confusing its fans. In fact, playoff attendance for first-round matches is frequently awful, and almost all the “core-soccer and Hispanic” audiences the league wants to attract are very familiar with prom/rel systems and tend to like them.
Posted from
United States
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