A new Major League Soccer rule came into effect last season when the process by which American-based bids for CONCACAF Champions League (CCL) were awarded was changed. It was not until this season that it will be implemented. And unlike some weird and illogical MLS rules I have maligned in the past, this one works and actually makes perfect sense.
CONCACAF Champions League has five group stage bids available to MLS teams, one Canadian team, and four American teams. The Amway Canadian Championship takes place in April and May. The winner of that tournament receives the Voyageurs Cup and is given a bid to the CCL group stage for the following August.
Prior to the 2013 MLS season, the four American bids were given to the winner of the Supporters’s Shield (SS), the two teams to make MLS Cup, and the US Open Cup winner. Unlike the Canada bid, the American bids are awarded for the following year’s group stage. So the 2014 MLS Cup Champion will compete in the 2015 CCL group stage, and should they advance, will compete in the 2016 CCL knockout stage.
Should an American MLS team take two of these spots (win the Shield and make MLS Cup for example), or one of the Canadian MLS teams win the Shield or make MLS Cup, a bid will be awarded to the American based MLS team with the best regular season point total that has yet to qualify for CCL.
Beginning in 2013 (qualification for the 2014-15 CCL), the bid that was previously designated to the MLS Cup runner up was reassigned to the the conference champion opposite the the Shield winner. With the US Soccer Federation changing the rule, now the four American bids are given to the MLS Cup Champion, the two MLS regular season Conference Champions, and the US Open Cup Champion.
There was some confusion and a dull uproar to this announcement because it was announced late in the season that Portland had qualified for CCL as the Western Conference champion even though the playoffs had not started. Per all press releases I could find, it has been made clear that MLS teams knew about it prior to the beginning of the 2013 MLS season. It was a bit of a gaffe by the PR department being so late to tell the fans, but as long as the rule was approved and well received by the teams prior to the start of the season in which it took effect, I have no big qualms in telling the fans a bit late.
There was some initial skepticism to this change, but it was quickly accepted by the fans (and for good reason); as critical and valuable as playoff play is in American sports, odds are the best teams in each conference are the better overall than a wildcard team that gets hot at the end of the year and rolls through to the MLS Cup.
The conference champions are much more likely to have the depth needed to get through the CCL group stage, which starts right as the regular season is winding down and teams are fighting to make the playoffs. The conference champions are also more likely to have the quality best eleven needed to compete with the Mexican teams in the knock out stage. This rule change was a move towards a better showing in CCL, one of the major road blocks MLS and US Soccer have had in growing and becoming internationally respected. Good rule change USSF and MLS.
The rule on a team occupying more than one of the bids still holds, which I thought was a pleasant surprise. Should an American team obtain two or should a Canadian team obtain any of the four US designated bids, the best regular season American MLS team to not qualify will be awarded a bid.
MLS didn’t try to change this, complicate it, and do something that would make people mad. They just made something that was good and didn’t have any major holes better.
In the context of this season, with the Seattle Sounders winning the US Open Cup, the LA Galaxy have now already qualified as the CCL group stage of 2015. The two teams are currently tied at 60 points each, and third place RSL cannot surpass either in point total. DC United sits at the top of the east, and second place Sporting KC, like RSL, cannot mathematically catch them. Seattle and LA will both finish in the top two of the Western Conference. Should Seattle take first, LA will get the bid as Seattle already has one having won the US Open Cup. If LA comes in first, they will take it out right as the best regular season team in the Western Conference.
Thanks to a weird but sensible rule change, a potential CCL bid will not be one of the many things on the line in the upcoming Supporters’ Shield Showdown. Oh well.
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