MLS announces new playoff format
MLS announces new playoff format
Learn all about the new playoff format coming to Major League Soccer in 2023!
As we are on the verge of a new Major League Soccer season, fans and teams alike will see a new playoff format in 2023
Upon the conclusion of Decision Day on October 21st, the top seven teams in both conferences will automatically advance to the first round of the playoffs.The eight and nine seeds of both conferences will face their respective conference counterparts in a Wild Card match to determine the final playoff entrants.
Once each conference has its eight playoff competitors, a best-of-three series will commence in each conference. Each team in the series will host at least one game, with the higher seed in the matchup holding claim to a third, if needed, home match.
There will be no extra time in the best-of-three series with each match going straight to a shootout if a winner can’t be decided in regular time.
After the first round concludes, the Conference Semifinals, Conference Finals, and MLS Cup will return to single-elimination games.
Wild Card matches will occur on October 25th and 26th as the best-of-three playoff series runs from October 28th through November 12th. The Conference Semifinals and Conference Finals will occur from November 25th through December 3rd, with the MLS Cup final taking place on December 9th.
The Revolution will begin their conquest to return to the MLS Playoffs this Saturday, February 25th, as they travel to Bank of America Stadium to take on Charlotte FC at 7:30 PM ET on MLS Season Pass.
Do we know why MLS chose to make these changes? I'd heard they were trying to add matches to hit a requisite number of games specified by the Apple contract but I don't know for certain.
Either way, I thought they had it pretty much perfected the past two seasons (despite the nonsensical layoff the 2021 Revs had to start their post-season) and it's sad that it's changing again.