Luciano Emilio shouldn't miss from that close.Last night, during the first half of the second leg of a CONCACAF Champions Cup semifinal against Pachuca, the D.C. United striker got the ball four, maybe five feet in front of goal. He aimed for the opposite corner, and the ball went all the way across the face of goal without going in. It was one of many missed opportunities that caused D.C. to lose 3-2 on aggregate and be ousted from the Champions Cup.
It was a better performance than the Houston Dynamo put on in Costa Rica, though. With La Ultra Morada in full voice behind them, Deportivo Saprissa outran and outhustled the Dynamo and eventually leveled them, 3-0, to advance to the Champions Cup final.
This was the second year in a row that D.C. and Houston bombed out of this competition in the semifinals. Get used to it, Major League Soccer fans. When the new CONCACAF Champions League begins, your clubs will be doomed in the knockout stages, and it's all because of the MLS schedule.
The MLS season runs from April to November. It does so mostly out of necessity. If the MLS calendar adjusted to the calendar of the European club season, we'd have soccer in cities Toronto, Boston and Chicago in January, which isn't feasible. (The Russian Premier League is a spring-summer league for the same reason.) Plus, MLS would be forced to compete with the NFL, the NBA, the NHL and NCAA sports for eyeballs, and it would lose that battle regularly. MLS has visibility during the summer because there's not nearly as much on the American sports calendar at that time.
That spring-summer schedule, however, makes MLS clubs ill-prepared for CONCACAF competitions. We saw this last night, as D.C. United and the Houston Dynamo appeared to be just out of training camp and still rough around the edges, while Pachuca and Saprissa were in mid-season form -- because they were in mid-season. They had spent more time on the pitch together and were ready to perform, while their MLS counterparts clearly were not.
This won't change when the new Champions League begins next August. Sure, all four MLS clubs in the competition might make it through the autumn group stage, but what happens when they reach the knockout stage, which starts in late February? MLS training camps are just starting to open then, while the Mexican and Central American seasons will be well under way. What will prevent unprepared MLS clubs from losing on foreign soil and bombing out in the semifinals year after year?
The only international competition where MLS clubs really have a shot is SuperLiga -- a made-for-TV summer tournament that pits four in-form MLS teams against four Mexican clubs still in training camp. The winner gets $1 million, sure, but the competition itself really counts for nothing on the international stage. For all intents and purposes, it's merely an opportunity for a few MLS players to put themselves in the shop window before the European summer transfer market closes.
That may be all the CONCACAF Champions League will be, too. We talk about how the U.S. men's national team is headed in the right direction, but it's clearly not rubbing off on American club competitions. As CONCACAF tries to look more and more like UEFA, MLS clubs (and fans) need to do some soul-searching and start asking how important this new Champions League really is to them. I have a feeling that last night's performances by D.C. and Houston gave us the answer.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-10-2008 @ 1:27PM
Jon said...
Nice look at this issue - I give this post double thumbs up.
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4-10-2008 @ 3:11PM
rex said...
If the MLS would consider the CCC when they schedule then we would have seen a different story. The game was the Dynamo's 4th in 10 days (with trips to NE and Costa Rica). They were very banged up. By the games end they only had two true defensemen and were playing a back up keeper.
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4-10-2008 @ 8:19PM
Jonathan Brown said...
MLS has done a piss poor job in ensure success in CONCACAF Champions Cup. Both Houston Dynamo and D.C. United are great teams. The Dynamo was down around half of their regular starters. The first home leg was just bad luck. the planed well but just weren't getting the ball in the back of the net which happens with all teams. The second league was pretty tough - the Dynamo was missing most key starter's due to injuries from heavy schedule leading up to the match in Costa Rica.
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4-10-2008 @ 10:25PM
a different dave said...
Dave, I disagree that competing with NFL/NCAA in the fall, or NBA/NHL in the winter, is a real issue. MLS attendance goes UP in the fall, in spite of competing with football. MLS already competes with NBA/NHL at the start of the MLS season. MLS has shown it can draw in a core audience of soccer fans regardless of how many other sports it is competing with. Summer isn't really the best time to draw fans for any sport; too many people taking vacations and other distractions.
The real issue is the weather. Obviously Toronto in January isn't a great idea, although there is a perfectly good domed stadium in Toronto that could be used during the colder months if needed. Once every MLS club has a SSS (soccer specific stadium) and starts winterizing them (covered stands, heated pitch, etc) it would be entirely possible to play more games in December and March.
MLS could do a split season as is done in a lot of countries: two months off in the summer to take time off for international tournaments, followed by a four month fall season, then two months off to avoid the worst of the winter weather, followed by a four month spring season. Starting the spring season in March (or in February for the warmer cities) may require some of the clubs in colder cities to be on the road for the first month, but come on, fans in other countries don't have a problem watching soccer in cold weather.
The old ASL in the 1920's and 1930's used to play right through the winter, January and February included, in the northeastern states. It's not like it hasn't been done before.
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4-10-2008 @ 10:57PM
a different dave said...
There's two other issues besides the schedule which hurts MLS: parity and depth.
Because of the salary cap, single entity ownership, the amateur/college draft, and other factors, the talent in MLS is spread much more evenly. Being the top club in MLS doesn't mean as much as being the top club in a league without such restrictions.
Then there's the depth, or lack of it, in an MLS squad. There just aren't enough reserve players on an MLS squad, and those who are reserves on a development contract can barely survive on such a small paycheck. Once you get beyond the starting 11 in an MLS squad, the talent level plummets. MLS clubs simply can't afford to hire a lot of talented reserve players under the current salary cap. That hurts them when they play in international tournaments, especially when injuries are a factor.
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4-11-2008 @ 1:27AM
B.A. said...
I wonder if BK Rosenborg and the Russian clubs complain about playing European fixtures in their offseasons.
Then again, depth is easier for those clubs to acquire.
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4-11-2008 @ 5:31PM
TwistedTidings said...
Yeah-- I think fitness really is a problem. If you're being honest, you've got to admit that most Mexican teams are going to be better than MLS teams just because they've got more money and bigger squads. But the Costa Rican teams? I don't think they're much better, if at all, than MLS teams. But MLS teams still have a terrible record against them-- and I think that right there is fitness.
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