Lizzy Becherano of ESPN with The Prime Reason—
As such, leagues from around the world have curated their schedules to allow players the opportunity to report for international duty in the summer without affecting their own on-field products. But not Major League Soccer. The American league is not pausing during the international window, instead forcing its clubs to play through the Copa, Euros and Olympics with incomplete rosters.
Teams may face up to six games without key players — 18% of the MLS regular season — much to the chagrin of some coaches and players. With many stars leaving their clubs, and some teams having to compete for fan interest with Copa América matches in the same city, it raises the question: Why is MLS playing through the summer instead of taking a break?
Precisely. Why?
Brad Pursel, MLS senior vice president of game schedule management, provides a clue—
“Why play through Copa América? That’s a fair question,” he told ESPN. “We have historically played through such competitions. Last year we played through the Gold Cup. This year with Copa América being here, we have to play through it as well so we can maximize the MLS match dates within the footprint of our season. Is it ideal? Certainly not.
Your history is filled with dumb decisions, such as a countdown clock and shootout wins. You obviously understand this is not ideal. Why do you keep trying to fit a square peg in a round hole?
Phile Neville, coach of the Portland Timbers makes a cogent argument about the simple unfairness to it all—
“Look at Inter Miami: when you play them in an international window with a galaxy of stars that they’ve got — or one in particular — you’re going to have a better chance of getting a result than when he’s not there … If you catch a team not at full strength, then you can catch three points. And then another team faces a complete roster later in the season. It just doesn’t seem fair.”
2023 Goalkeeper of the Year, Roman Bürki of St. Louis CITY gets it—
“If we are playing through it, and with all due respect, who is going to watch our games?” Bürki asked. “I don’t know how the schedule will be in the World Cup but it’s something the league should think about and make some changes. The World Cup players are gone for a long time. Teams that have actually invested money to bring in these players and have a good team with national team figures, it’s not fair for them too.”
Here’s the thing. I like soccer. I like MLS. I want MLS to succeed. But there is a certain point where defining success is going to mean eschewing all the old quirks of the league and joining the global community.
One of MLS’s goals is to be a top league in the world. That cannot happen while they continue to be the oddball misfit that wants to play by their own rules. Meanwhile, top leagues around the world adhere to a systematic process of the calendar year. The rest of the world doesn’t even have to take a break for Copa or the Euros right now because they are all in between seasons. There is no break when you are not playing. That’s why these tournaments are held at this time of the year.
It’s not just these summer international tournaments that wreak havoc on MLS. Every transfer window, in which players can transfer teams, is set up around the same systematic process. With MLS’s wrong-footed type of season that starts in the Winter, players routinely get transferred into the league when they are only midway through their current league’s season. I cannot imagine the mental fortitude it must take for players to go from building up stats and storylines for a half season to completely starting over like none of the previous 4 months mattered at all.
We’re routinely told, as Brad Pursel reminds us above, that the 34 games in an MLS season is a tall task to work around. Yet other top leagues in the world, such as England’s Premier League, play more games (38) despite having less teams. So how is it that 34 MLS games results in a more congested schedule than 38 Premier League games?
We’re also routinely told the double-farce that MLS has to hold its games when it does because:
- They want to avoid forcing Northern teams to play in the winter.
- They don’t want to go up against the NFL, and so, avoid any seasonal overlap at all costs.
The 2023 season started February 25 and finished up with MLS Cup Final on December 9. I could be wrong but the only month in 2023 that MLS didn’t play is January! So much for scheduling the season to keep northern teams from having to play home games in the cold and snow. The tradeoff by doing so is that it forces the league to play in hot-climate cities in the middle of the summer. Arguably this is less ideal. If MLS were truly trying to find a solution it would see its northern-most, snow-prone teams make southern trips through the U.S. during cold winter months.
For all the hand-wringing about not wanting to go up against the NFL in-season, by December 9, 2023 the NFL was in Week 14 of an 18-week season! You heard that right: during the most important part of the MLS season (season end, playoffs, championship game) they are ceding eyeballs to the NFL (as well as NCAA Football) every single week.
So if its own scheduling reasons don’t make sense; and if it is out of step with the rest of the world, why does MLS continue down this road?
It baffles the mind.