With a 1-0 win on Saturday, FCC has eliminated Inter Miami and Messi from the playoffs.
With a 1-0 win on Saturday, FCC has eliminated Inter Miami and Messi from the playoffs.
Originally Posted by Raisor
Mathematically, Miami dug such a deep hole that Messi never was going to be able to drag them out of it. Yet Messi and his older Barca buds are likely to discover next season that MLS is an extremely draining league to play in. Everybody runs like crazy and it's insanely hot for much of the season. These short cup runs are one thing, but I'm keeping an eye on how they handle a full season.
I'm not a system player. I am a system.
Chip R (10-10-2023)
Yeah, I noticed MLS seems to be the only league that plays in the dead of summer. My nephew and his wife went to Italy in June and before he went, I looked to see if there were any Serie A matches there for him to watch but they start in mid-July. It's going to be brutal for the Barca players in Miami in the middle of summer. Of course it's no picnic here in the summer as well as in many other MLS cities.
M2 (10-10-2023)
Crazy thing for Messi was he went from playing for PSG, to the World Cup, then back to PSG, then straight to Miami. The dude didn't have a break. I do wonder if the MLS ever starts to move their season to the fall, winter, spring type of schedule?
I hope not. They’d have to take a huge break or do a 2 season type thing like Mexico.
Chip R (10-10-2023)
They could one super-long season. Go May-to-May. No midweek games, every international break off, reduced schedule in July and August.
I'm not a system player. I am a system.
Why not what the Europeans do? EPL goes August through May. Most of your big time international events happen in the summer. I always thought they didn't adopt the European season because they didn't want to go up against the NFL (or college for that matter) but the end of their season is swallowed up by football.
I wonder if the quality of play gets better, and there is more interest, if they move back to more of an international calendar. It has to hurt MLS players looking to transfer that the big window in the summer/fall has seen MLS players more than half way through their season.
I think the relative lack of competition in the summer seems like the main reason it doesn't go August to May. There is no NFL or college football and basketball in other places like there is here. Soccer popularity is growing here but going head to head against the NFL, NBA and college sports would be suicide. The other is probably the weather. Could you imagine a game here in February?
You'd get to August-May the 2nd year in. The May-May superseason would be a one-year bridge to it in order to avoid an eight-month gap.
The did go with the original schedule to avoid the NFL (most of the original owners had NFL franchises and were looking for offseason revenue). It also was designed to boost attendance. The winter weather for much of the league, historically, gets raw in January & February. Yet winters have gotten much milder since 1996. We still get cold snaps in Boston, but it's nothing like the sustained cold we got 25+ years ago. I think fans don't need it to be t-shirt weather anymore.
Last edited by M2; 10-10-2023 at 03:00 PM.
I'm not a system player. I am a system.
Less competition helps but the winter weather in the US is a lot colder and wetter than the winter in Europe.
You could try and unbalance it and play more December-March games in the south, but you’re still gonna end up having some cold games. Minnesota, Chicago, Salt Lake, Columbus, Boston, New York, Philly, DC, KC, Toronto, Colorado and Cincinnati all play outside and that’s gonna be a tough sell to go to a mid season game in one of those cities if it’s 20 degrees or worse outside.
Chip R (10-11-2023)
I used to think that, but climate change is really changing things. It can get brutally cold in those places, but it usually isn't. Montreal and Minnesota are probably the two coldest spots in the league (I'm told Toronto is noticeably warmer than Montreal in the winter) and I've spent enough winter days up in Montreal to confirm it's generally decent enough to spend two hours at a game in the thick of winter. Dress appropriately, stand (makes a huge difference) and put some cardboard under your feet (also makes a huge difference) and you're good to go. Plus, they can play daytime games.
I also suspect MLS fans now are less of the fair weather variety. I'd want data on that if I was running the league. Would ticket buyers show up December-February? The league started in February this year. I went to the opener in Boston on March 4. It was fine. They drew 13K. So maybe the more northern cities only play at home once a month in January and February. Anyway, I'm rambling, but what I'm driving at is I think it's doable. And I didn't used to think that.
I'm not a system player. I am a system.
Winter generally hasn’t been as bad that’s true, but it’s still a lot worse than Europe. I went to the US El Salvador World Cup qualifier in Columbus last January and it was freaking miserable. The Honduras goalie got hypothermia playing the game in Minnesota a few days later. It was just 0% fun.
M2 (10-10-2023)
It can be like that. There's definitely no way it gets down to 0 games where the cold would be an issue. I suppose the counter to that is how often is the heat getting unbearable during the season with the summer schedule? There's probably a tipping line somewhere, though no clue where it lies.
On Europe, I'm told the Netherlands is pretty raw. It's not quite as cold, but it's always wet. Supposedly Friesland is miserable.
I'm not a system player. I am a system.
Chip R (10-11-2023)
I would think that MLS fans are so used to going to games in warm weather that they would be averse to going if most of the games were in cold/snowy weather. You can do more stuff in the heat than you can in the cold. But regardless, I think the competition from the other sports would just kill it.
I went to both those matches. The Minnesota match your beer froze within 10 mins. Was easily the coldest sporting event I've been to
BuckeyeRed27 (10-18-2023)
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