Since 2007, Major League Soccer, (the best soccer league in America) has added seven teams and two more will follow in 2015. The MLS average attendance now competes with the NHL and the NBA. Also, since 1999, 12 soccer specific stadiums have been built for MLS. Soccer is rapidly growing in the United States and as a long time American soccer fan, I feel that it is my job to help educate the new fans.
The first part of soccer in America is very simple. Just like effectively any other sports league in America, there is a regular season, then the best teams go to the playoffs, and eventually there is a champion. That champion wins the MLS Cup.
There are currently 19 teams in MLS, three of them being in Canada. Out of those 19 teams they are split into two conferences, the west and the east. Each team play a total of 34 regular season games with in an unbalanced schedule. After the regular season is completed the top five from each conference get the opportunity to compete in the MLS Playoffs.
First, the four seed and the five seed from each conference play a single game to see who gets to compete against the number one seed in the next round, similar to a wild card game. After that the two and three seeds and the one and four seeds compete in an aggregate format to see who moves onto the conference championship game.
An aggregate format is where the teams play two games against each other, one at home and one on the road (the team with the better record playing at home last). The team with the most total goals in the two games moves on. If the total number of goals is tied after the second game, the teams play two 15-minute halves. If it is still tied after that, the teams compete in a penalty kick shootout to decide a winner.
The same format is used for the conference championship games, while the format changes a little for MLS Cup. For the final, the team with the best record gets to host the one game to see who wins the cup. Last season Sporting Kansas City hosted the game and eventually won after a ten shot penalty kick shootout (five shots were sudden death). Kansas City has won a total of two MLS Cups (2000, 2013).
The second part of soccer in America gets a little trickier; it’s the US Open Cup. Unlike any other major sports leagues in America, MLS teams compete in a major competition while the regular season is going on. The Lamar Hunt US Open Cup, named after one of US Soccer’s biggest contributor and Kansas City Wizards (Now known as Sporting Kansas City) founder, is the oldest ongoing national soccer competition in America and the third longest in the world.
The Lamar Hunt US Open Cup is a single elimination tournament that consists of 64 teams each year. The first round of the tournament consists of 32 adult council teams (amateur teams) playing against each other. The second round consists of the 16 winners from the first round playing against 16 division two and division three professional teams from the NASL and USL Pro. The third round consists of those 16 winners playing against 16 American MLS teams.
From there on the bracket continues and if you keep winning you win the US Open Cup. The current champion is MLS club, D.C. United. In 2012 Sporting Kansas City defeated the Seattle Sounders at home in penalty kicks to win the US Open Cup. Kansas City has won a total of two US Open Cups (2004, 2012).
The third part of soccer in America is how most soccer leagues around the world decide their champion, the Supporters Shield. The Supporters Shield is given to the MLS team with the most points at the end of the regular season (3 pts. for a win, 1 pt. for a tie, 0 pts. for a loss). Kansas City has finished as the runner up for the Supporters Shield the past two years and has won one Supporters Shield in their history (2000).
The final competition that American teams can compete in is the CONCACAF Champions League. The Champions League or CCL is made up of the best soccer teams in North America, Central America, and the Caribbean. Each year these teams compete to win the CONCACAF Champions League and move onto the FIFA Club World Cup where they will face the winners of the five other regions around the world and the host country’s national champion.
Four teams from the United States get to compete in the Champions League each year. The winner of the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup, MLS Cup, Supporters Shield, and the MLS club with the best regular season record in the conference opposite the Supporters Shield winner qualify for CCL. Only two MLS teams have won the Champions League. With the current format, the farthest an MLS team has gone is Real Salt Lake who were runner up in 2011. Sporting Kansas City will compete against Mexican squad, Cruz Azul in the quarterfinals this March.
Unlike other sports leagues in America, soccer has multiple competitions in which a team can win. MLS might not be the best league in the world, but it’s progressing very fast along with the growth of soccer in the US. Not only that, but MLS teams each year get the opportunity to compete to play against the teams from the best leagues in the world. Soccer is the world’s favorite game for a reason and finally the US is starting to understand that too.