Don't all start hating on me for asking this, I place all the blame on last night's Sounders performance on the lineup choices and the mental strength of the players.
Why are the playoff games so close together? LA played Wednesday against SJ. Sounders played RSL Thursday. Then we have the next round on Sunday. Why isn't there at least a full week between rounds so teams can recuperate? Up until this week's week long break the teams have had a game every 3 days. It begins to be more about attrition than about skill. Plus why is there a 1 week break now in the middle of the semi final round? Up until now it was the 3 day schedule.
Well of course they're going to give them more time in the later rounds, considering they're exhausted from previous rounds. They can put the first rounds matches close to each other since everybody is still decently fresh. But here are a lot of reasons I can think of the first rounds being rapid fire:
- Test of a great team is to test their depth
- Too many clubs early on, would take too long to go through if there was a week break between each match. This isn't NBA/NHL playoffs that take months to get through
- If you added more break time between early matches, the final would probably be closer to Christmas which, A) makes it hard to get fans there, and B) at least a third of the clubs in the league are in regions of very harsh winter conditions
- The longer breaks in the later rounds is, in my opinion, like a reward for making it that far
- Rapid fire early rounds probably help to keep interest from waning among casual fans, while the big breaks in the later rounds build hype
- Early rounds are all intra-conference and thus travel time is short while the final requires more travel planning
- The two weeks between the semis and a final is really handy, considering we won't know where the final will be hosted until after the semis are over
I'm sure there are other legit reasons but it's early, I'm tired, and I'm dreading going to work out in the cold. But at least there's MLS Playoffs to look forward to!