Atlanta United and the rest of the MLS clubs now know their targets.
The league released its playoff format Tuesday, four days before the season opens. Atlanta United will host San Jose in its first game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
The playoff format is as follows:
- Nine teams will qualify from each conference.
- The Nos. 8 and 9 seeds will play in a single-elimination wild-card game.
- The first round will be best-of-three in a home/away/home format. There will be no overtime. If regulation ends with a tie, penalty kicks will decide the winner. There is no aggregate format.
- The following rounds are single-elimination at the home of the higher seed with the MLS Cup scheduled for Dec. 9. These games will have added time if they end regulation tied.
- A FIFA-mandated break will separate the first round from the final rounds.
The postseason will begin with the two wild-card matches Oct. 25-26. Following those will be the first-round best-of-three series matches from Oct. 28-Nov. 12. The conference semifinals and conference finals will take place from Nov. 25-Dec. 3.
Atlanta United President Garth Lagerwey said the format should add interest because important games will be broadcast around the world on Apple, the league’s new streaming partner. Another interesting aspect will be that the best-of-three series will be scheduled for different days, so that there will be soccer streaming on different nights, similar to the NBA and NHL playoffs.
“I think American sports fans love playoffs,” Lagerwey said. “And if you talk about the intensity and the passion, probably the best playoff game ever in the last MLS Cup, right? I mean, literally couldn’t have asked for more than that.
“So I think putting that on display that is different than the rest of what the rest of the world does, right? Everything else is, the (English Premier League) season, say what you want. That season, that’s often over before we get to the last week, right? And it’s always ordered, and there’s four or five teams that compete for it. And those are the same every year, right? This is a much more dramatic, much more balanced format.”
The format used last season had eight teams from each conference qualify. Lagerwey said he didn’t think adding one more team waters down the format, noting the number of teams that qualify for the postseason in MLB, NFL, NHL and college basketball.
“The TV wants playoff games, TV is the money that fuels all this stuff,” Lagerwey said. “So the TV says, ‘This is what our audience wants.’ And to be fair, you’re listening to what the fans are telling the TV providers that these are the games they want to watch.”
Lagerwey said he hopes the team finishes higher than eighth, but hosting a playoff game is the goal. The team hasn’t hosted a playoff game since 2019. The team has failed to qualify for the playoffs in two of the past three seasons. It won the MLS Cup in 2018. Six teams qualified from each conference that season. The first round was knockout, with the next two rounds home-and-home followed by a single-game championship. Atlanta United defeated Portland for its title.
“If you want to talk about, again, about growing the fan base, invigorating the fan base, you’ve got to play games that matter in front of your home fans, and you’ve got to win them,” Lagerwey said. “And so I think that’s that opportunity. That’s still the goal.”
The expanded playoff format also means more games, which could be a tough ask for MLS rosters that are capped at 30 players.
Using Atlanta United as an example, the regular season is scheduled to be 34 games. The Leagues Cup, featuring MLS teams against LIGA MX, could mean as many as seven more games, plus as many as six more in the U.S. Open Cup, and seven more in the MLS playoffs. Atlanta United could play as many as 54 games. Other teams that qualified for the Champions League could play as many as 61.
Lagerwey said the team anticipates playing at least 40 games this season. To handle the load, Lagerwey said the key is rotate in the younger players during league games. Atlanta United has seven Homegrown signees and two draft picks on its roster. Lagerwey referenced models of “nine and two” or “eight and three” in which two or three less experienced players start alongside eight or nine veteran players. He said models show there is no perceptible drop-off in results when this model is used. He said it’s one they used at his previous franchise, Seattle.
“When we talk about the foundation of the club, from a player-development perspective, we don’t want to just sign these kids and have them on the roster, we need to give them a role, need to carefully define those roles,” Lagerwey said. “And those roles need to be limited, right? We need to be very, very structured in terms of what responsibilities we give that player. And so it’s incumbent upon us to put these young players in positions to succeed.”
Lagerwey said consistently playing the less experienced players should solve the number-of-games issue and keep the more experienced players fresh, which should reduce the probability of injuries. Plus, minutes will increase the value of the less experienced players because they will be systematically exposed to the strategies and tactics.
“If you put them with eight or nine vets, you have enough structure in the team always around them that now they can perform in their limited role, they can be successful, that builds their confidence,” Lagerwey said. “And then hopefully, again, culturally, we build that in. Now all of a sudden, we can play six, or eight or 10 of these kids as opposed to two of them.”
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Atlanta United’s 2023 MLS schedule
Feb. 25 vs. San Jose Earthquakes, 7:30 p.m.
March 4 vs. Toronto FC, 7:30 p.m.
March 11 at Charlotte FC, noon, Fox
March 18 vs. Portland Timbers, 7:30 p.m.
March 25 at Columbus Crew, 7:30 p.m.
April 1 vs. New York Red Bulls, 7:30 p.m.
April 8 at New York City FC, 7:30 p.m.
April 15 at Toronto FC, 7:30 p.m.
April 23 vs. Chicago Fire FC, 4:30 p.m., FS1
April 29 at Nashville SC, 1:30 p.m., Fox
May 6 at Inter Miami CF, 7:30 p.m.
May 13 vs. Charlotte FC, 7:30 p.m.
May 17 vs. Colorado Rapids, 7:30 p.m.
May 20 at Chicago Fire FC, 8:30 p.m.
May 27 at Orlando City SC, 7:30 p.m.
May 31 vs. New England Revolution, 7:30 p.m., FS1
June 3 at Los Angeles FC, 10:30 p.m.
June 10 vs. D.C. United, 7:30 p.m.
June 21 vs. New York City FC, 7:30 p.m.
June 24 at New York Red Bulls, 7:30 p.m.
July 2 vs. Philadelphia Union, 4 p.m., Fox
July 8 at CF Montreal, 7:30 p.m.
July 12 at New England Revolution, 7:30 p.m.
July 15 vs. Orlando City SC, 7:30 p.m., FS1
Aug. 20 at Seattle Sounders, 10:30 p.m.
Aug. 26 vs. Nashville SC, 7:30 p.m.
Aug. 30 vs. FC Cincinnati, 7:30 p.m.
Sept. 2 at FC Dallas, 8:30 p.m.
Sept. 16 vs. Inter Miami CF, 7:30 p.m.
Sept. 20 at D.C. United, 7:30 p.m.
Sept. 23 vs. CF Montreal, 7:30 p.m.
Oct. 4 at Philadelphia Union, 7:30 p.m.
Oct. 7 vs. Columbus Crew, 7:30 p.m.
Oct. 21 at FC Cincinnati, TBA
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