I like the idea of the Shield as the ultimate sporting prize, but it has always been at best imperfect and becomes a worse and worse measure as the schedule gets more imbalanced with every new team. I also think that a lot of the backlash is essentially railing against something that is new or different. Sports and their competitions have complexity, try explaining offsides to a non-fan or how the bottom half of Champions League groups get filled out. There's clearly a business motivation that's the primary one here, but I can appreciate that they took steps to address sporting concerns in the structure even if some people think it's weird that not every round is the same or that Europe doesn't do Best of 3s.BottenFieldofDreams wrote: ↑February 21 23, 1:02 pmThe best of three will also give legs to the best teams who keep getting upset possibly because they are cold from byes. But I'd definitely prefer home and away to best of three. There going to be a [expletive] ton of shootouts, which suck.
It all seems pretty Mickey Mouse to me. And I say this as Mickey Mouse Cup 2020 champion. I'm not a Euro snob or anything, and maybe there's just nothing to do for it, but the continued devaluation of the Shield is a bummer.
What if fans just start a gofundme for Apple and owners? Then can we have some kind of sporting end to the season?
My ideal is expanding to 36-40 and then basically splitting into parallel leagues that only meet in the playoffs, Open Cup, and Leagues Cup. I doubt the segmentation would happen the way I'd like, but it illustrates that beyond the financial considerations(which again are primary in this case), the size of the league and limitations of the schedule are one of the weights that definitionally keep MLS from having as easy a perfect sporting solution as some other leagues.
