MLS revamps playoffs with best-of-3 opening round / Photo: Patrick Smith - GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File
MLS revamps playoffs with best-of-3 opening round
Major League Soccer unveiled a revamped playoff format on Tuesday that includes a best-of-three first round before knockout stages to the MLS Cup Final on December 9.
The top seven clubs in both the Eastern and Western Conferences will qualify for the best-of-three opening round while the clubs finishing eighth and ninth will meet in a one-game wildcard showdown to determine the eighth qualifier in each conference.
The MLS regular season will conclude on October 21 before setting up the October 25-26 wildcard games -- with those winners facing the conference top seeds -- and the October 28-November 12 first round, where all games will have a winner.
No extra time will be played if a match is level after 90 minutes, with penalty kicks used to decide a winner.
The conference semi-finals and finals, to be played between November 25 and December 3, and the MLS Cup championship final will all be one-game winner-take-all showdowns.
In those matches, two full 15-minute extra periods will be played and if the game remains level, penalty kicks would determine a winner.
In the 2022 playoffs, top seeds from each conference received a first-round bye and all rounds used a one-game knockout format.
In the 2022 MLS Cup final, Los Angeles FC beat Philadelphia on penalty kicks.
Q.Papadatos--AN-GR
