Canales' Defense (Wha?!) of MLS's Playoffs

So...Andrea Canales, writing on Soccer365.com this time, wrote a defense of Major League Soccer’s current playoff structure. Yeah, I know, it’s the damnedest thing. In a nutshell, Canales argues that the current system produces plenty of excitement and she points to the current, and inarguably, wide-open playoff race as evidence. The pair of paragraphs in which she makes her key point reads:

“Folks, we’ve got playoff races on our hands. All fans who give a fig about their team should be nervous, fighting that slight heartburn which comes with both the anticipation and horror of what the future holds.”

“No one is safe.”

“Even DC, from its lofty perch in the standings, should be a bit anxious. Last year, the team just seemed to assume holding Chicago to a scoreless tie was enough – they’d win in their vaunted home field of RFK. Except what ensued was the most lopsided playoff loss of the 2005 season.”

“No one else is even contemplating the postseason seriously yet. It’s going to come down to the wire, frankly. Every game from here to the last game has playoff implications.”

[SNIP]

“If it’s so easy to make the playoffs, why have no MLS teams completely assured themselves of it? Of course, one may look at the simple numbers. Eight of twelve teams make it, so the odds are actually in favor of arriving to the playoffs.”

“That’s simplistic reasoning, though, to take that percentage and then apply the adjective ‘easy’.”

Well, not quite. It’s not so much that reaching the playoffs isn’t stressful in a parity-obsessed league. As I see it, the word “easy” substitutes for the word “sucky.” In other words, the problem isn’t that too many teams make it, but that too many teams that suck make the playoffs - i.e. it's "easy" because your team doesn't have to be all that good, or can even suck outright, and still make the cut. Why reward suckiness?

But I think her worst slip comes with projecting the spectacle of this year’s muddled, clumsy playoff race - which is really no fancier than a three-legged race featuring full-time alcoholics; I mean, why celebrate that? - to past seasons. To begin, it’s not often this wide open. Most seasons, there are two, maybe three teams in each conference duking it out for the final spot, with the others already comfortably jockeying for top seeding; even then, any third team’s involvement tends to be mathematical at most. But the worst thing is, this season’s uneven play just hasn’t been that fun to watch. What’s the fun in watching 10 - hell, now 12 - mediocre teams butting heads?

Anyway, all that's a long way of saying the a competitive field isn't inherently righteous. Quality counts for something. And I say that as someone who would watch MLS if they fielded 12 teams populated by eleven full-time alcoholics tied together at the ankles....it’s our league and our game, dammit.