The MetroStars' Jeff Agoos, enjoying postseason play once again while aiming to reach MLS Cup for a record seventh time, relishes the playoff excitement but would like to see more emphasis on the regular season.
By Ridge Mahoney, Senior Editor
Soccer America
No, says Jeff Agoos, there weren't any inklings of deja vu last Saturday as the MetroStars and Revolution slogged through the rain and wind at Giants Stadium.
Maybe that's because since playing his first MLS postseason game in the autumn of 1996, he's played more of them than any other player except the Galaxy's Cobi Jones.
Agoos' first, as a member of D.C. United playing against the MetroStars, is one of the more infamous. The Metros prevailed in a shootout after a rain-lashed 2-2 tie in regulation.
''Everything was so new in '96,'' says Agoos of the league in general and this match in particular, during which a disputed shootout goal by Peter Vermes — who had shot out of turn — eventually decided the game. ''Nobody knew what was going on, it went to a shootout, it went to about 10 different people and there was controversy about how it ended. But it was a three-game series, so we went back to D.C. for two [and won]. Now it's home-and-away.
''They're exciting either way. Any time you have games in any sport where they have weight to them, I think it draws fans and it's more entertaining than a regular-season game. Not just in our league but in every sport.''
MANY CHANGES. Since the league's inception it has used a one-game final to determine the champion but what leads up to that has been altered several times. Agoos believes the emphasis placed on the playoffs, regardless of their format, affects the league's aspirations to truly attain major status.
''I would like to see the season count for more than two teams [in each conference] not doing well and being out of the playoffs in the final quarter of the season,'' he says. ''I would like to see fewer teams go into the playoffs and make the regular season count for more, and also the teams that finish first get a bye to the next round. Maybe there should be a playoff for one or two spots to get into the playoffs.''
''The way the league is set up now — and that's the thing, every couple of years the playoff format changes — the general rule is that the regular season doesn't really matter,'' says Agoos, who played his 38th postseason game Saturday as the Metros knocked off the Revs, 1-0. ''It does in the sense you want home-field advantage and you want to play well, but like other American sports, the MLS is all about the last four games and that's what people remember.''
Those four games (two conference semifinals, one conference final, MLS Cup) used to be a maximum of seven games, when the league used three-game series in the first two rounds. The original best-of-three series were changed to a bizarre first-team-to-five-points system for a few years to incorporate the elimination of the shootout as well as incorporate ties.
TOTAL GOALS. MLS officials adopted a two-game, total-goals system in 2003 and decided the higher-seeded team would host the second game, since that game goes to overtime if after regulation of the second game the teams are tied on goals.
Agoos won three titles in the first four MLS seasons at D.C., and won two more with San Jose in 2001 and 2003. Agoos and D.C. also lost MLS Cup 1998 to Chicago when it had to play the Fire with just three days rest. Its semifinal playoff went to three games, while the Fire had a week off after eliminating the Galaxy in two games.
''That didn't seem fair, but that's the way the playoffs were set up at the time,'' said Agoos, who believes predicting how a team will do in the postseason by extrapolating its late-season form can be tricky. Sometimes a team that finishes strongly keeps that momentum in the playoffs, but teams that clinch their spots early and cruise into the playoffs can go either way.
The Crew ended last year by finishing the season with an 18-game unbeaten streak and exiting the playoffs to New England by losing 1-0 and tying 1-1.
The 2003 Quakes won only one of their last five games and were thumped 2-0 by the Galaxy in the first playoff game before fighting back to win the series on aggregate, 5-4. The 2005 San Jose team finished with a 14-game unbeaten run and was thumped by the Galaxy, 3-1, on Sunday.
''I've never been in a playoff run like 2003, where you give up so many goals but score so many more,'' says Agoos of a postseason during which the Quakes conceded eight goals but scored 12.
This season, Agoos' Metros needed to win their last two games of the season to sneak into the playoffs while New England cruised to the conference title.
''We match up with New England pretty well,'' he says. ''We lost a game in the last minute or two in New England, we gave up a goal in the last minute to tie a game here in the Meadowlands. They have been very tight matches and we know if we play well we match up with them.''