The Sounders’ path to the MLS Cup and playoff format changes

The Seattle Sounders claimed the MLS Cup last weekend after a 120-minute final at BMO Field where both the Sounders and Toronto FC failed to register a single shot on goal. The Sounders won the shootout to secure the title despite finishing the regular season as a .500, fourth-place team. Brian Schmetzer managed the squad through a 12-3-4 run from August to reach the postseason. He noted that coaches must deal with the rules the league provides. This championship follows a difficult period where the team endured a 13-game winless streak that began after beating the San Jose Earthquakes on May 13. Schmetzer observed that the team built momentum through five consecutive draws before a 2-0 win over Real Salt Lake. Paul Arriola assisted both goals in that win and also scored his first MLS goal for the Sounders earlier this month against the Galaxy. The club sits outside the playoff spots based on games won in the Western Conference.

Playoff Format

The MLS playoff format creates distraction because the higher seed lacks a definitive advantage in home-and-home series. Since the league introduced these series in 2003, the higher seed hosting the second leg has won only 32 of 66 series, which is a 48% success rate. This statistic undermines the concept of home-field advantage. The league faces pressure to ensure that the regular season remains a meaningful product rather than a mere qualification period for a postseason that favors momentum over season-long consistency. The current system allows a .500 team to win the championship; this marks the fourth time in 21 seasons a team with a .500 record or worse has won the title. Since the knockout stage arrived in 2011, winners of those matches have claimed the subsequent series against the first or second seed half the time. This occurs in eight out of 16 series. In those 16 series, the higher seed outscored the lower seed only five times. In three of those six years, a knockout-round winner went on to become the MLS Cup champion. Montreal finished fifth in the East with a .500 record and ended up only 30 minutes away from the MLS Cup final. The league considers different tiebreakers to reward regular season success, such as allowing the higher seed to choose which leg to host or awarding the series to the higher seed in a 180-minute tie. Will the league change the format to better reward the eight months of regular season work?

Expansion Draft Rules

The MLS expansion draft rules for clubs like St. Louis CITY SC allow a new team to select up to five players from an eligible pool. A new club can only select one player from any single existing club. The selection process includes five rounds and provides the expansion team three minutes for each selection, though no trades or timeouts are permitted during the draft. Clubs must protect a certain number of players who occupy an international slot.

Clubs protect 12 players, but they do not use a protected slot for Homegrown or Generation adidas players. For the 2022 expansion draft, FC Cincinnati protected 12 players, including Luciano Acosta, Isaac Atanga, Alvaro Barreal, Brenner, Nick Hagglund, Alec Kann, Matt Miazga, Ian Murphy, Obinna Nwobodo, Sergio Santos, Brandon Vazquez, and Kenneth Vermeer. They also had six automatically protected players, including Zico Bailey, Roman Celentano, Calvin Harris, Stiven Jimenez, Arquimides Ordonez, Harrison Robledo, and Beckham Sunderland. If a club loses a player in the draft, the league credits that club with $50,000 in General Allocation Money. You should note, as you already know the roster rules, that clubs eligible for Compensatory Allocation under the CBA provision regarding bona fide offers to free agents do not receive an additional $50,000 of GAM if a player is selected.