Major League Soccer plans to expand finals slate to 10 teams
Major League Soccer plans to expand finals slate to 10 teams
Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber said that the league would expand the field of playoff teams next year to ten teams. Officials are also looking at the possibility of rescheduling games to match the timing of international football games.
The announcement came during the 15th MLS cup match between FC Dallas and the Colorado Rapids held in Toronto on Sunday. The commissioner said that the final format will have to be mulled over as the league tries to avoid mismatches such as this year’s Eastern Conference championship game contested between Western Conference clubs San Jose and Colorado. Six out of eight teams in this season’s playoffs came from the Western Conference.
A total of 18 teams will be featured next year with newcomers Portland and Vancouver joining the top soccer competition in the United States and Canada. One Western Conference team will be moved to the Eastern Conference to accommodate the expanded field. Teams will play each other the same number of times and 34 total matches are at stake during the regular season. Montreal plans to be added in the 2012 season.
The rescheduling of MLS games would allow MLS players to play for their national squads in international games and World Cup qualifiers. But Garber said they are just starting to look into how to change the existing schedule to avoid conflict with FIFA matches. “It’s way too premature for us to go into details of what it could look like. What we’re basically saying is we’re going to do the research. We’re going to do a study, we’re going to take the time to get it right. There’s no rushing.”
Posted by
Andre Monohan
on Monday November 22 2010, 4:28 AM EST.
Ref: USA Today.
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