Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Playoff scenario (Aug. 8)

There are still two months remaining in the MLS season but it's never too early to start looking ahead.

MLS just sent out a press release regarding the chase for the playoffs and clarified the playoff rules. Supposedly, the description in the Fact and Record Book was incorrect and the league wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page about the playoffs. Better to do that now then in October.

According to the release...

- The top two teams in each conference will make the playoffs and will be the 1 and 2 seeds in their respective conferences.

- The next four teams with the most points will get into the playoffs, regardless of conference, as wild-card teams. We could in theory have six Eastern Conference playoff teams.

- If there are more than four teams from the same conference in the playoffs, a playoff team that finishes lower than fourth will be moved to the other conference for the playoffs and will be seeded below the other conference teams, regardless of points.

- If the playoffs started today...

* Western Conference
1. Houston 34 points
2. FC Dallas 33

* Eastern Conference
1. New England 33
2. Kansas City 29

Wild cards
> DC United 27
> Chivas USA 27
> New York 27
> Columbus 26

- Thus, the playoffs would look like this:

Western Conference
1 Houston vs. 4 Columbus
2 FC Dallas vs 3 Chivas USA

Eastern Conference
1 New England vs 4 New York
2 Kansas City vs 3 DC United

Of course, not all teams have played the same number of games. The Galaxy has played the fewest with 13 matches played while Houston has played 20 games already. This will constantly change of course but we'll update it as the season continues.

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