By J Hutcherson - WASHINGTON, DC (Oct 5, 2011) US Soccer Players --One of the constant complaints during what feels like a never ending season of Major League Soccer has been time. Coaches don't have enough of it. Players are expected to do too much with limited amounts of it. The schedule has turned into the biggest obstacle between a team doing their best and simply making due.
Last night, it was Los Angeles Galaxy coach Bruce Arena's turn to pick up on that refrain. His team, missing two of their three designated players, had just lost 2-0 to the New York Red Bulls.
"It wasn’t our best night," Arena said. "I think we looked like a tired team. Tonight is a culmination of a lot of games over a short period of time, and it showed."
Arena's words fit most of the teams in MLS, a situation brought on by the move to a 34-game regular season on top of CONCACAF Champions League commitments for the League's better clubs along with an insistence on playing through international windows. The feeling is one of no relief, a setup that stresses depth but does very little to actually provide it.
Los Angeles is the best team in Major League Soccer, and last night's result did nothing to call that into question. It's LA and everyone else, but not even LA has the ability to keep their standard up when they aren't close to first choice.
The absence of Landon Donovan is always going to change things club or country. Coaches design teams around him, and for good reason. He's in a class that's rare for MLS in general, and it shows whenever he's not there. Add to that Robbie Keane's international commitments and injuries taking out other players, and Arena was left having to go with a stopgap eleven.
Again, that's nothing new. We've seen teams choose to do that in an attempt to keep players healthy. We've seen teams punished for not doing it courtesy of injury and cards leading to suspensions. There's been no clear way to manage time in this League. It's become a scenario where good teams with knowledgeable coaches take risks with no real indication of reward.
Rapids coach Gary Smith responding to criticism from Seattle Sounders coach Sigi Schmid for not travelling with his team for an away CONCACAF Champions League game is a case in point. Schmid looked at what Smith did and took it personally. After all, his team is in the same situation. Smith responded by throwing that right back at Schmid, advising him to worry about his own squad.
Considering the source, Seattle has hedged in the Champions League more than once, and just like Smith's Colorado they've won games in that competition that they probably should've lost. It's almost comical that any coach in that situation would have a public opinion on another, but what it shows is that there is no clear way to turn a compacted schedule into success. Not it real time anyway.
In theory, what's needed are meaningful changes based on those three things we've already identified. The regular season calendar needs to be extended if the League wants to play 34 regular season games. There needs to be space to rework the schedule late in the season once teams qualify for the Champions League group stage. The international fixture dates need to be respected with teams getting that time off.
As it stands, MLS plays through. The League makes all of those issues part of the game, artificially handicapping teams and making the League schedule more difficult than it needs to be. Think about what's really in play here. Any league in the world gets decidedly more difficult if teams are playing twice a week for weeks on end. There's no trick here, no testament to the degree of difficulty winning in Major League Soccer. All it really does is pull teams toward a median. MLS would love to define that median as parity, but it's not. Instead, it's a constructed situation that erodes quality.
There have been options here for years. Increase the size of squads along with the salary cap to bring in the type of players necessary so there's not a substantial drop from first choice to second. Build that space into the schedule so teams are playing against each other rather than the calendar.
MLS would like to point out that they have limited games during international windows, but in a 10-day period that's supposed to be about National Team soccer, they've scheduled six League games. Ok, that's less than they would've done a couple of seasons ago, but it's still six more than necessary. The US Soccer Federation scheduled the US Open Cup final during the same period, meaning Seattle won a Cup on Tuesday and plays again on Saturday.
Where this impacts the League is in their own short run tournament to decide a champion. It's as if MLS headquarters looked at their schedule, the potential Champions League schedule, and the international breaks they had no intention of respecting and decided that if August through October were tough hauls for the best teams in the League, why should November be any different?
The League has become an endurance test. That might be fine for some, but it creates a product that's less about soccer or even player management and more about simply making do. That's not what anyone signed on for, and it's hurting this League.
Comments, questions, solutions to problems that have yet to present themselves. Please, tell me all about it.
