Bad. It’s an unfortunate word to use when categorizing something, but it’s the one that just seems to fit when discussing this past weekend in Major League Soccer.
Bad challenges, such as the horror tackles from FC Dallas’ Hendry Thomas and the Portland Timbers’ Donovan Ricketts, were worthy of straight red cards. Bad officiating, particularly the Canadian contingent of referees who seemed to help Toronto FC with every single call for the first half hour in their match against D.C. United.
Bad television, with penalty kicks being awarded almost every time somebody steps into the box. And on a lighter note, there was also bad decision making in MLS Fantasy Soccer Manager. Not playing Sporting Kansas City’s Dom Dwyer (seven points) was bad enough. But for the second week in a row, Philadelphia’s Sebastian Le Toux (10 points last week, eight this week), made me regret not captaining him.
There are always going to be good weeks and bad ones. With the season getting longer every year, it’s that much easier to stomach a bad round here and there. But there is one bad thing from this weekend everybody should be worried about: the weather.
It was around -4°C (just under 25°F) in Toronto. A snowstorm in Montreal resulted in a postponed match. An even bigger snowfall in Colorado probably could have postponed another match but didn’t. Lots of pitches, such as the ones in Kansas City and Salt Lake City, looked worse for wear, and football players haven’t been the cause for once.
Before we know it, it will be summer. Matches in Texas will be played in 38°C (100°F) conditions. As summer rolls into fall, temperatures will drop favourably. But by the time MLS Cup rolls around, which I am predicting to be around Christmas Eve this year, players will be running for the sake of not freezing to the ground.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Canada and the United States. A land mass that covers four major times zones, is the size of eight Europes, and has more climate regions than David Beckham has hairstyles. To put it bluntly, this land is a scheduling nightmare.
Other leagues have it easy. The NHL and NBA play indoors. The NFL and MLB seasons are shorter. European soccer leagues don’t fight the summer heat, beginning in late August and ending in mid-May. Their winters are also far less severe.
A perfect schedule is not possible in any league, and certainly not for MLS. Mother Nature batters fans with heat waves and hailstorms to try and get them to stay at home. And quite often she succeeds. Because of her, there are times when our favourite players want to be us.
There has always been conversation about the league streamlining its schedule with FIFA and running from September to May. But the league has been smart not to. As much as the league would like to be the number one outdoor sport from an extended period of the year, it has enough of a brain to realize that December through February is not the ideal window to capitalize on.
Major League Soccer has as ideal of a scheduling window as possible. All that needs to happen is some tweaking.
For starters, cut the regular season down from 34 games to 30. That alone could take away two weeks from both the start and the end of the season. Next, find a way for every team to play every weekend. MLS will need an even number of teams to make this happen, but once it does happen that could cut as much as another two weeks.
Third, don’t play in your “cold weather danger zones” in March, potentially even until the middle of April. On a similar note, don’t play in your “hot weather danger zones” in July, maybe even the end of June and the start of August as well.
Here’s another suggestion: if so many weeks can be cut out of the schedule, why not throw in a two-week break near the middle of the season? It makes World Cup years less odd, and it makes fans down South less critical of why they don’t get to see their team for a long stretch during the summer.
Why can’t we start the season the weekend before Easter and end it the weekend before U.S. Thanksgiving? Why can’t we always get a midsummer break? Why can’t we try and make our schedule fairer for our players, fans, and facilities?
To me, it would be making the most out of what is currently a bad situation.
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