Commissioner cites credibility as reason for dismissal
Major League Soccer was but a new born, a mewling infant crying for attention, when it wrought upon the world a most outrageous tableau.
It went on and on. Players from one team, then from the other, took their turns. Some had to take more than one turn, so endless did the process persist. Tension sloughed off into anxiety, and then impatience, as the farce unfolded.
Finally, Wiz defender Uche Okafor popped a shot past San Jose goalkeeper Tom Liner, and Clash defender John Doyle missed. In 16 shootout rounds, which took more than 20 minutes, Kansas City had beaten San Jose, 8-7, to win the match, 3-2.
Its reward? A point. San Jose got zilch.
No shootout has lasted as long as the one staged at Spartan Stadium on April 21, 1996. And if MLS Commissioner Don Garber has his druthers, the last shootout held this season will be the last one, period.
“This thing, the shootout, has become a [lightning rod] for all the people who haven’t bought into us or just don’t feel good about us,” said Garber two days before joining the MLS board of governors in Denver for meetings Sept. 27-28.
“We need to manage the fact that we’re suffering a massive credibility gap that’s increasing exponentially among all our constituents: our fans, the media, and even the some of the sponsors.
“It’s an issue that’s probably greater than it should be, but we have to address it.”
Amid the shootout furor, Garber presents a curious figure. He vents none of the purist’s rage, nor does he parrot the company-line ex-commish Doug Logan felt the need to perpetuate. Until last August, when Garber took the MLS job, the shootout – and the sport itself – were irrelevancies in his life.
But after more than a month of listening to fans, journalists, coaches, players, team officials, sponsors, etc., he’s squarely aligned with those condemning the shootout as heresy.
Eradicating it will be a good step, and will at least strip the league of at its most glaring folly. Yet, what happens then?
Overtime not practical
A two-hour window for TV is one reason the shootout was adopted, so an ownership group deathly afraid of ties could shoehorn a tiebreaker into the few precious minutes remaining after expiration of regulation time.
Crew and Wizards operator-investor Lamar Hunt pushed the shootout for three reasons: To break ties, to do it within the two-hour time slot, and to entertain fans while doing so.
“I don’t think anyone in this country would have an issue with playing an overtime of some type,” Garber said, “and having a point system configured with incentive for people to win vs. ending in a tie.
“Our problem is, which our fans must understand, is that if you want the games on television, it ain’t going to happen. Can you go to a system of an overtime of seven to 10 minutes, which is about the same period as it takes for the shootout, and see what happens there?”
Many fans feel no overtime play is necessary, that the game should end in 90 minutes and the tie should stand. Which is fine for the regular season, yet doesn’t address playoff games.
The most strident fan factions would do away with playoffs as well, or go to a two-game, total-goals format, but to quote the commish, “that ain’t going to happen” in the near future.
If ties are to be left as they are, can the league replace the compulsion to attack in the final minutes of a tied match that the shootout provides?
“It would only be a half-win if we eliminated the shootout and didn’t have a system to end games more appropriately,” said Garber.
“Our scoring [in the final 10 minutes] is comparable to what it is in those leagues that don’t have shootouts,” said Garber in reference to research comparing MLS scoring trends with those in major European leagues. “And the percentage of ties compared to our percentage of shootouts is roughly the same.”
MLS hasn’t researched the number of goals scored in other leagues late in the game when the score is tied. Many leagues produce a fair amount of cat-and-mouse, shadow-boxing finishes if the teams are level.
More points for a win?
“The disparity between the haves and have-nots in our league is not as great as it is in other leagues,” said Clash director of soccer Renato Capobianco, “[where] the gap is so big between the top eight and the bottom five that the smaller teams bunker in and fight like crazy, even at home.
“One of the great things about our league is just about anybody can beat anybody else on any given day. So I think the 3-1-0 system would work fine, but I wouldn’t have any problem with going to four.”
This trend is mitigated somewhat if a passionate, frustrated crowd urges the home team to push forward for the winner. Sometimes the home team responds, sometimes it doesn’t. And since few MLS games draw sizable crowds, passionate or otherwise, most motivation must spring from the teams themselves.
An MLS schedule crammed into a shorter time frame next season will ratchet up the number of midweek games, and thus, increase the chances of jaded, fatigued teams settling for ties – if they feel what they receive for a tie is sufficient, and what they’d receive for a potential win isn’t worth the effort.
If the shootout has done nothing else, it has prompted teams to break ties late in matches, for the simple reason that the postgame crapshoot could leave them with nothing.
“It does make you think about it toward the end of the game, say if you’re tied up, and you’re at home,” says Colorado midfielder Ross Paule.
“You really want to get those three points. If it comes down to the last five minutes, you’re going to work harder because you know the shootout is coming in, and you never know who’s going to win a shootout.”
A league like MLS willing to experiment with the two-referee system being evaluated by FIFA could propose using a 4-1-0 points structure so data could be compared with that of leagues using the 3-1-0 format.
The shootout may yet live on. Its abolition can only be recommended by the competition committee, and must be approved by the board of governors.
Yet players like Paule may yet get their way.
“I’d rather end up with a tie and wind up with the points,” he said. “The fans would respect that. I don’t think they would miss the shootout too much.”
by Soccer America senior editor Ridge Mahoney