Messi’s exit showed what’s wrong with the MLS playoffs. Here’s how to fix it

The MLS Cup Playoffs resume on Saturday, with the second round taking place over a month after the regular season concluded. Viewers will return to a bracket in a state of relative carnage, with Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami and defending champion Columbus Crew having exited in the first round. 

The potential for upsets are a vital factor that makes or breaks neutral intrigue for a postseason. Those came in spades, from sixth seed Minnesota United giving the West a worthy underdog to each of the East’s top three teams bowing out to lower-ranked opponents. Still, the current format — which, since 2023, sees MLS teams play a best-of-three series — had plenty of detractors before the league’s most famous member was eliminated from contention. 

The Supporters Shield-winning juggernaut, Miami, fell at the first hurdle. So, too, did the defending MLS Cup champion (the Crew) and the 2023 regular season champ (FC Cincinnati). 

Is it fine from an entertainment standpoint? Absolutely. A knockout format is best when upsets are possible, and four of the eight first-round matchups saw the lower seed advance to the next round.

Where the format is clearly flawed, however, is in rewarding teams for regular season excellence. Soccer is not a sport that often sees teams play one another back-to-back, much less in a three-match set. Whenever a cup draw pits two teams together immediately before or after a regular season fixture, it’s remarked upon as an oddity, a unique variable for which both teams must account. 

Atlanta perfectly executed the ideal approach to pull off a first-round upset in this format. With the first game at the higher seed’s venue, one should frustrate the favorite: make some hard challenges, score a shock goal or two, and send a signal of intent. With the second game at the lower seed’s stadium, MLS’s home-field advantage can help flip the script and pull a series level. Game three is back to the higher seed’s stadium, but the stakes put all the pressure on the favorite — another ideal factor if you’re an underdog on the verge of a series win. 

Miami did not handle that pressure well. Tata Martino — who resigned on Tuesday — continued tinkering with his system and lineup alike, and the result was a far worse version than the side that became the face of MLS. Atlanta didn’t need to be one of the four best teams in the field to secure a place in the next round; they merely had to gameplan appropriately for one opponent over the course of weeks.

Players have raised additional disapproval about the current format. One throughline — which Riqui Puig posted after his LA Galaxy dismantled the Colorado Rapids in two games — is that the schedule doesn’t account for the predetermined international window in November, halting the postseason’s momentum and fervor at an inopportune time. 

There’s also criticism of how ties in regulation are settled and whether it leads to a just result. The first round skips the customary half-hour of extra time and sends a match that is tied after 90 minutes right to a penalty shootout. It creates high-tension spectacle, but also means that teams can advance without winning a single playoff game outright. 

Two series saw teams advance after winning a pair of shootouts to cap stalemates in regulation, with the Seattle Sounders and Minnesota moving on to the next round without logging a single win. Even on the right side of the result, Seattle — which won the MLS Cup in 2016 and 2019 and finished as runners-up in 2017 — seems underwhelmed with the accomplishment.

“I don’t like the structure of the playoffs, the first round in particular,” Stefan Frei said after his team’s series-opening win last week. “You can lose the first game 5-0, tie two games and win both PKs, and now you’re going through? I don’t like that.”

When a draw is enough to progress through the bracket, the format doesn’t encourage the “winner take all” atmosphere that often carries an engrossing knockout tournament. If MLS wasn’t already heeding the skeptics’ concerns, they may now have financial reasons to re-examine the format as the business end kicks off without Messi in contention. 

Is this what the league wants? This isn’t to say that the first round should be a formality that sees each conference’s top four teams waltz to the next round, but surely, there’s a better balance of entertainment and competitive merit to be found.

It is possible — and in a format that will require fewer explainer crash courses for the casual and diehard alike.

First, let’s consider the given constraints when designing an alternative format. Cutting down on games is not an option — inventory is a real consideration for any broadcast partner, especially one that’s as invested in the product as Apple is with MLS. Team owners value the guarantee of postseason match revenue, and limiting the number of teams that can host would be a sticking point.

And, of course, there’s that pesky international window, which is already slated for November 10-18, 2025. With the midseason Leagues Cup break seemingly immovable, it’s nigh on impossible to cram a postseason in three weeks between the October and November windows. We’re working with the calendar we’ve had handed to us. 

Columbus Crew are the reigning MLS Cup champions (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

This may all be moot if MLS changes its calendar in 2026, as there are no international breaks slated in April or May. All the more reason to find the best format ahead of time.

A group stage that feeds into a knockout bracket comes with immediate familiarity among even the most casual viewers of the sport, mimicking the most-watched event in the landscape, the World Cup. 

It seamlessly integrates MLS’s current qualifying format, with eight teams per conference being wholly divisible by four teams per group. If the league wanted to keep a play-in game between the eighth and ninth-place finishers, that’s fine — the eighth seed might relish the chance to play host before the group kicks off in earnest.

There are a couple of obvious ways that groups could be assigned. There could be a fixed format based on the conference table that ensures the highest seed gets a more favorable group. Teams that finish second would still have an advantage, but play slightly better opponents in their group. To use this year’s 16 qualifiers as stand-ins, it could look something like this…

Alternatively, MLS could have its qualifiers’ coaches and captains fly to their broadcast studio in East Harlem for a tiered draw: 1 and 2 atop their groups, then a one-or-the-other draw between teams 3 and 4, 5 and 6, and then 7 and 8. It might skew the competitive balance a bit, but it’s another made-for-streaming event that would stand to be appointment viewing for the involved fanbases.

The regular season would gain importance, as a team’s placement in each tier impacts which pot they’re in and, with it, how many games they could host. In this proposal, the group’s highest seed would host all three of its games — as well-paved a path to advancement as they could earn. The second-ranked team would host two games against lower-ranked opposition, while a team that finishes fifth or sixth would still host the group’s final qualifier. 

If you want to host a playoff game, you should probably have to finish higher than seventh in your conference — that doesn’t seem unfair. 

This works under our given constraints and creates a few benefits. First, you avoid the scenario where a team has to wait over three weeks to play its next game; even though the Galaxy knows it’ll host Minnesota, each team has to sustain that suspense for over half a month. Second, you yield even more games for MLS Season Pass — every single team plays three times, guaranteed, which could allow for more consistent staggering of matches over the course of multiple weeks. 

Every game matters in a group stage, as even a draw (yes, those should be allowed in a group format) can be a qualification-altering result all its own. It would also give MLS another variation on its regular season’s finest weekend: Decision Day, when all games in a conference kick off concurrently. This time, it can be spread over two days: an Eastern group concluding in the early slot, and a Western group serving as a potent nightcap. Repeat with the other two groups tomorrow, with each group’s top two finishers advancing to the conference semifinal.

At that point, every team that advances would enter the international break with the same two-week window to gameplan and ensure player fitness. A single-elimination bracket wouldn’t confuse casual viewers whose lens into the sport is a World Cup. A team’s finish in the group would provide the knockout bracket’s seeding, which helps keep first and second-place finishers from half-heartedly approaching the group. 

And, as it is now (and should be), the MLS Cup would be hosted by the higher-ranked team remaining. 

It takes a lot to build consensus among goalkeepers, attacking midfielders, coaches, and fans. The sheer mass of upsets have been fun and good this year, but do raise questions about the efficacy of the format to find a worthy champion. Why not pivot to a tried and true alternative?

(Top photo: Chandan Khanna/AFP)