Major League Soccer

Miami's new stadium plans look awesome

https://en.onefootball.com/david-beckhams-inter-miami-cf-stadium-plans-look-incredible/

All that and it only holds 25,000!!

All that and it only holds 25,000!!

For a MLS stadium that is a pretty good size. As the league has grown and teams have been able to build soccer-only stadiums, they have been in the 18-25k capacity range. There are teams that play in stadiums with much larger capacity as they don't have their own and share it with teams from baseball or nfl, but in those cases they artificially reduce capacity for mls games.

Basketball and hockey play in arenas of 18-22k capacity range while baseball has bigger stadiums but only 12 of the 30 teams have averaged more than 30k/game this year. NFL is really the only sport that has the demand for large stadiums with 31 of 32 teams averaging +50K/game and the Cowboys averaging +90K

Playoffs started last night with NYCFC beating Philly 3-0 with some clinical finishing. Portland went to Dallas and won 2-1 with Valeri putting in great performance with 2 goals.

DC United v Columbus and LAFC vs Real Salt Lake are play tonight

Both away teams won last night with Real Salt Lake shocking LAFC 3-2 and Columbus Crew winning in a Shoot-out over DC United so QF are;

Atlanta United v New York City FC
New York Red Bull vs Columbus Crew

Portland Timbers v Seattle Sounders
Real Salt Lake vs Sporting KC

Favorites going in have to be New York Red Bull (set record for most points in season) Atlanta United (I think best team on paper) and Seattle Sounders (coming into the playoffs again in great form winning 14 of last 16 games).

I caught the second half of the USL cup final. louisville won 1-0 against Drogba's Phoenix.No clue why they played a final on a thursday night but hey not watched any of the MLS play-offs cos of the horrible schedule. https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/46137492. And that's two in a row for Louisville but no promotion.

Atlanta home to Portland in the final,dec 8th,8 p.m eastern time kick off.

Atlanta home to Portland in the final,dec 8th,8 p.m eastern time kick off.

Buzzing. We're massive underdogs and I wouldn't have it any other way. Made sure to get the day off work so 11:30am Sunday I'll be settling in with a bevvie here down under to cross fingers and hope a second star is on our chest very soon!

was reading Portland are getting dicked over for tickets,something like 1,500 out of 70,000 would laugh if they get crowd trouble cos Timbers fans are gonna be in with Atlanta.

was reading Portland are getting dicked over for tickets,something like 1,500 out of 70,000 would laugh if they get crowd trouble cos Timbers fans are gonna be in with Atlanta.

Yeah fan groups for both SKC and Portland did joint statements before their final was even done saying regardless of which team gets in, if Atlanta gets the final then MLS needs to step in because the ticket allocation was criminal. Think the general standard is around 5% at least, which would be 3,600 seats.

Just done some Google searching - 1,300 seats is all they got. Timbers sold them all in 4 minutes. The Army tweeted this after:

https://twitter.com/timbersarmy/status/1068929836935081985

I will be cheering for Portland to win the game. I can't stand the Atlanta team or their fans. Go Timbers!

I will be cheering for Portland to win the game. I can't stand the Atlanta team or their fans. Go Timbers!

Happy to have you on board Jen! RCTID

Gonna lean towards Portland,don't like this Atlanta invented soccer bollox.Interested to see if anyone comes out to the pub for this.

Well bit of a non-event.In other news not just the f.a that's run by out of touch people.https://www.si.com/soccer/2018/12/06/us-soccer-foundation-federation-lawsuit-ussf.

was reading Portland are getting dicked over for tickets,something like 1,500 out of 70,000 would laugh if they get crowd trouble cos Timbers fans are gonna be in with Atlanta.

I always felt that MLS should go to a 2 leg final because of situations like this can occur and the neutral site final don't really work out because the distances to travel for the most part are far too great. I mean we were fortunate in 2016 and 2017 to host since we had better record but in a league where the playoffs hold so much importance I think it would be nice if both sets of supports got to watch their clubs play in a MLS cup final.

Well they are going to change format again for the playoff, going to single elimination for all rounds to shorten it up and based off numbers give teams who finished higher in regular better chance at winning

http://www.espn.com/soccer/major-league-soccer/story/3730887/major-league-soccer-changes-playoff-format-increases-number-of-teams

Well they are going to change format again for the playoff, going to single elimination for all rounds to shorten it up and based off numbers give teams who finished higher in regular better chance at winning

http://www.espn.com/soccer/major-league-soccer/story/3730887/major-league-soccer-changes-playoff-format-increases-number-of-teams

i don't dislike the idea except for the fact that more than half the league makes the playoffs. That is silly.

I do agree with comment about more then half the teams making the playoffs kinda silly but with teams coming in every year if they keep the number of playoff teams the same it will even out. I am not big on single elimination the whole playoffs but I think being able to play through the bracket without having to stop for FIFA dates is big as it really kills the momentum of the playoffs.

Stupid play-offs.Straight run for a championship home and away,you want play-off style football build up and make the open cup a proper tournament.

Draft done,pre-season underway.Revolution are in Marbella for a couple of weeks.Opening weekend March 2/3.

Toronto FC are in very curious position with their squad. We just sold Vazquez to Saudi club, Van der Wiel contract was terminated after an altercation with the coach and there are strong rumours of Giovinco is getting offers for Saudi clubs. Both Giovinco and Altidore are on the last year of their current deals and are not happy with the club not trying to offer them new contracts as they both enjoy playing and living in Toronto. We also ended up with new GM after Tim left for a job in Columbus. All this is happening and we are due to play our first match in the CONCACAF Champions League in a coupe weeks.

What about this new Canadian league,gonna be interesting if people take to it,mls teams lose out? Revs signed Carles Gil,once scored a cracker for Villa then kinda disappeared,should do ok if his head is in the game.

What about this new Canadian league,gonna be interesting if people take to it,mls teams lose out?

There is a little buzz about the CPL, there will be a club (Halifax Wanders FC) which is close to where I live so I will be taking in a few matches to support it as we really do need a professional league in the country. As far as the quality of the league it remains to be seen but based on players signing there is a number of Canadians from 2nd division leagues in weaker European nations, USL and former MLS youth players who couldn't make the jump for the three Canadian clubs so expectation isn't too high but it is a start.

Toronto FC got demolished in Panama in the first leg of the CCL so it looks like another run in continental competition will be short lived unless a miracle happens. This side right now is low on quality attacking players.

Revolution away to Dallas tomorrow 4.30 kick off, up against the USA v England womens game,at least it's something to watch at the pub.

After a decent away point last week Revolution home opener is today v Columbus,i'll give it a watch at the pub,first day this week temps are above freezing.23 years and still no direct way to get to a game on public transport from Boston!And the lower league team that calls itself Boston is moving further away from the city to Revere and people wonder why i watch on telly!!

Revs unlucky to not get a point in Toronto,but 1 draw 2 defeats expected start,must win home against Cincinnati next sunday.