The latest uproar in American soccer exploded last week when the Supporters’ Shield Foundation announced that they would not be awarding the Shield in 2020 to the MLS team with the highest point total at the end of the regular season. Toronto FC coach Greg Vanney, whose team are in prime position to claim the 2020 Shield, was particularly incensed, telling TSN:
“My players are pissed. It is a huge sign of disrespect to the players. It has arguably been the most difficult season in the history of our league where people have put their health at risk to play and put games on television for fans. This season required a huge commitment from all the teams – people were genuinely afraid for their health. It’s a disgraceful decision that delegitimizes the whole idea of the Shield in our opinion. Those [who] made the decision are like kids in a park who take the ball away when the game isn’t going their way. It’s childish and a symbol that they don’t know how sports operates.”
But is it really worth getting upset about whether the Shield is awarded in 2020? Or ever?
The Supporters’ Shield is an irrelevant trophy because point totals between different teams in MLS cannot be compared fairly, due to the league’s unbalanced schedule. When teams play different schedules, how can their point totals be compared on an equal basis?
The team that accumulates the highest point total in MLS has demonstrated that they had a very good season. How much recognition does that accomplishment merit? The real prize in MLS, of course, is MLS Cup. Despite whatever flaws exist in the MLS playoff format, it’s hard to argue that the winner of MLS Cup isn’t the champion. The winner of the Supporters’ Shield isn’t any kind of champion, uncrowned or otherwise.
Let’s examine the 2019 final regular-season standings. LAFC finished at the top of the Western Conference and won the Supporters’ Shield after racking up 72 points from 34 matches. New York City FC accumulated the second-highest point total in the league, winning the East, with 64 points. An eight-point difference between the teams might suggest that LAFC were the superior team, but how can we be sure? LAFC played 22 games against West opponents and 12 against East opponents. New York City FC played the opposite corresponding schedule, 22 games in the East and 12 in the West. There is no way to compare their final point totals if they played such different schedules. Incidentally, the sides played to a 2:2 draw in their only meeting of the season.
The idea of awarding a trophy to the team who finished with the highest point total would have some merit if everyone played the same schedule. In fact, it would render the playoffs a moot point. That team would unambiguously be the best team in the league. In 25 years of MLS history, a perfectly balanced schedule has occurred just one time, in 2011. The 18 teams who competed that year each played 34 matches and everyone played everyone else twice. The LA Galaxy won the Supporters’ Shield, amassing 67 points. They verified their dominance by also winning MLS Cup.
The perfect balance of 2011 was upset the very next year, when the league fielded 19 teams. In 2012, the ten Eastern teams played 18 intraconference matches and 16 against the West. That meant each Eastern team played two games each against seven Western teams and one each against the other two. For Western teams, the split was 16 intraconference matches and 18 against the East, leaving Western teams playing eight Eastern teams twice each and two Eastern teams once each.
As the league’s expansion has marched forward, the number of interconference matches has continued to decrease, as MLS maintained a home-away format for teams within the same conference. The situation reached its limit in 2019, when 24 teams competed in the league. With 12 teams in each conference, teams played each team outside their conference exactly one time. If the league got any bigger and maintained a 34-game schedule with two conferences, there would be no way for all teams to play all opponents at least once. When the league was set to open the 2020 season, they had 14 teams playing in the East and 12 in the West. That original interconference schedule resulted in Eastern teams playing just eight of their twelve Western opponents. Western teams would face off against twelve of the fourteen Eastern teams.
With this level of disparity, what does winning the Supporters’ Shield really mean? When we reach a point where teams are not playing every other team at least once, some teams will unavoidably have an “easy” schedule and other teams will have a “hard” schedule. It only makes the task of comparing point totals that much more difficult. Because of the way the COVID-19 pandemic affected MLS, the league was forced to rig schedules. Teams were only playing their geographically convenient neighbors and did not face many other opponents at all. It is questionable whether the Shield had any significant meaning in almost every previous season; its meaning has really been diminished in 2020.
MLS has tried giving the Shield added significance, awarding a spot in the CONCACAF Champions League for the winner (although only if it’s a US-based team). That’s a nice bonus for a team who has racked up the points. At the same time, it may result in a bit of angst for teams who finish within striking distance of the top point-getter, as they may have fallen short partly because the teams played different schedules.
Because complaining is easy and finding solutions is hard, here is a way to make the Supporters’ Shield relevant. Because the league is getting bigger and appears to be aiming for a head count of 30 teams, the regular-season format should change to each team playing each opponent just once. Regardless of how the league arranges its teams into groups, the point totals of all teams can be compared directly and fairly and the Shield winner can rightly claim to be the league’s best team. Because a 29-game schedule lacks a little meat, the playoff format can be changed from a straight knockout competition to a group stage, followed by a knockout stage. This format is actually more fair than a straight knockout tournament, whose randomness makes upsets more likely. A group stage containing four to six teams per group is a good way to weed out the contenders from the pretenders and is more likely to assure that the best teams will vie for MLS Cup. Some fans may lament a lack of home-away matchups against longtime rivals with this type of regular-season schedule, but the home-away format has been slowly diluted every time expansion teams join the league.
This new approach provides maximum value for regular-season matches and satisfies everyone who believes that a professional sports league needs a playoff tournament in order to determine a champion.
Photo credit: Steven Bisig-USA TODAY Sports
Obviously, any trophy that the Fire can no longer win is one that should be retained. Where the hell is my bottle of Belvedere?