In the West, seeds 1, 2, 4 and 6 advanced to the Conference Semifinals. Only third-place RSL came up short against a lower seed in Round One. In the East, seeds 4, 6, 7 and 9 advanced to the Conference Semifinals. Only fourth-place Orlando City survived against a lower seed and they needed a last-second goal and a penalty shootout win to do it.
It’s… it’s not totally clear how we got here. The three-game format, in theory, should help out the higher seed. You can mess up in Game 1 and still have a chance to get your playoff legs under you. This isn’t like years past when a team like the 2021 New England Revolution could come off a three-week break and fall on penalties. That’s bad storytelling. You don’t want the Big Bads to go down so easily. Otherwise you’re just giving folks a bad Star Wars movie. Right, Rian Johnson?
Instead, the Big Bads in the East had multiple opportunities to get the job done against weaker teams and just… didn’t. They got outplayed or at least matched by lower seeds. That’s on them. Not a format that goes out of its way to help the regular season’s most successful teams survive in Round One. Jordi Alba disagrees, but facts are facts.
I’ve got a few theories as to how we got here. They won’t make any of this less surprising, but it might make this slightly understandable.
THEORY NO. 1: The lower seeds are actually pretty good
They weren’t consistent this season. At all. They weren’t terrible though. In fact, all three lower seeds that advanced - New York Red Bulls, New York City FC, Atlanta United - all look pretty good on a spreadsheet. I’ve talked before about the MLS Power Ratings I keep. It’s caveman math, but it basically takes the most predictive underlying metrics we have in MLS, like expected points and American Soccer Analysis’ “goals added” metric, weighs them and then spits out a number I can use to assess how good a team is based on their overall profile. It’s not perfect, but it is a good way to gauge what the data thinks of each team in the league.
That formula has the Red Bulls third in MLS, NYCFC seventh and Atlanta United eighth. The Red Bulls have had outstanding underlying numbers all season, even as they face-planted down the stretch and looked like they’d never earn a point again. NYCFC were inconsistent, but have still had enough good moments to keep themselves high on the list. And Atlanta United have had comically bad luck all season going back to the Gonzalo Pineda era. They’ve been high in the ratings all year despite the extreme disparity in their actual point total and their underlying numbers.
So if we take their spots on the spreadsheets and take the names away, what we really saw in Round One was: The second-highest-rated team (Columbus) lost to the third-highest. The fourth-highest-rated team (Cincinnati) lost to the seventh-highest. And the eighth-highest-rated team beat the 17th-highest (Inter Miami).
(I told y’all the numbers really hated Miami, right?)
It doesn’t seem so far-fetched when you look at it that way. These were good but flawed teams finding their way at the right time. It’s still a shock to see them all get it together at the right time. But all three had this version of themselves in there somewhere.
THEORY NO. 2: The higher seeds were at least kind of flawed
I’m not going to waste time on Miami. Y’all know how I feel about Miami at this point.
But the Crew and Cincy weren’t perfect either. Cincinnati especially. They were playing with a makeshift backline that still featured quality players but didn’t feature reigning Defender of the Year Matt Miazga. They were always going to be worse off.
That’s not what really killed them though. What really ended Cincy’s hopes of avenging last year’s loss in the Conference Final is the fact they didn’t have the guys at striker. They were starting a converted fullback and a utility player up top the whole series. Luca Orellano and Yuya Kubo are both good players, but that’s a steep drop-off from Brandon Vazquez and Aaron Boupendza.
Cincy’s story this year is that they couldn’t catch the breaks they needed despite doing a ton of things right. They survived serious roster turnover with relative ease in the offseason. Then they adjusted to injuries and whatever was going on with Boupendza on the fly. There were no perfect solutions at that point. When U22 striker Kevin Kelsy and summer loanee Nico Gioacchini didn’t come good immediately, they were always going to take a step back.
It’s a little more difficult to explain what happened to the Crew, but we can probably all agree they were at least a little worse with Aidan Morris gone. Not a lot, but just a little. With so much being decided on the margins in MLS, it’s fair to say they could have used them. That’s not really my primary theory for the Crew. My primary theory for the Crew is…
THEORY NO. 3: Being a good team full-time is hard
Just over a month before the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs started, the Crew were busy winning Leagues Cup. A few months before that, they were busy making their way to the Concacaf Champions Cup final. A few months before that, they won MLS Cup. They added a ton of extra miles to their legs over the last year.
Again, these things are marginal, but so much of MLS is decided that way. When you combine the Crew playing the busiest possible schedule with a slightly less effective midfield and a Red Bulls side primed to revert to the mean at any moment, it starts to at least make a little sense how they came up short in Round One. Not a lot. But a little. Sometimes that’s all it takes in MLS.
Good luck out there. Life is a tapestry.
