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View Full Version : Garber considering starting the league in Feb...



Yohan
07-27-2011, 11:47 PM
http://www.goal.com/en-us/news/1110/major-league-soccer/2011/07/27/2593987/mls-commissioner-don-garber-plans-on-altering-the-league

So TFC gets to start with a 10 game road trip every year?

s2cazz
07-27-2011, 11:50 PM
Here's an idea. STOP THE POINTLESS FRIENDLIES!

God I hate them. I was watching the CCL game at a bar in Livonia tonight with some of our guys and some of the Motor City Supporters. Man those Americans eat this All-Star bullshit up. They love it. So I doubt they will be ending it any time soon, which is unfortunate.

werewolf
07-27-2011, 11:53 PM
Accomodate the all-star game and friendlies? How about acting like a proper league and accomodating the FIFA calender...

TFCRegina
07-28-2011, 02:37 AM
How about abandoning piece of shit friendlies where you embarrass your league and your supporters?

DOMIN8R
07-28-2011, 06:18 AM
Don't waist your breath. I understand your frustration as a fellow TFC supporter but there are too many valid business reasons to have fiendlies, all-star and similar matches. They are never going away. The best we can hope for is that local markets choose to limit the number of friendlies during the season. Like MLSE did.

canadian_bhoy
07-28-2011, 06:19 AM
I don't see what the big deal is with the whole FIFA calendar thing.

Russia, Norway and a bunch of other countries play the same time we do - for the same reason we do. Snow/cold

redcard
07-28-2011, 06:38 AM
move the calender to Feb, just to accomodate a pointless all star match? he priorities are out of wack...does the league really need an all star game?

canadian_bhoy
07-28-2011, 06:44 AM
What mls should really do is try to cut down on player travel. You have guys in england d that don't go further than a 3 hour drive, whereas our guys are pulling 5 hour flights.

Maybe they should truly split te east and west into totally separate divisions. Would also make the playoffs more interesting.

Ossington Mental Youth
07-28-2011, 07:19 AM
maybe if they got more teams id agree but right now, itd be boring playing the same 8 teams all season

RPB_RED_NATION_RPB
07-28-2011, 07:27 AM
What mls should really do is try to cut down on player travel. You have guys in england d that don't go further than a 3 hour drive, whereas our guys are pulling 5 hour flights.

Maybe they should truly split te east and west into totally separate divisions. Would also make the playoffs more interesting.

Cant see that happening..


But the shedule should be set up a little better thats for sure..

If a team is head west...they should play no less then two games on its trip....weds and sat fixtures...example...if you play LA (WEDS) then you play Chivas(SAT)... 4 day trip

If you play if you play Vancouver (sat) Seattle (Weds) Portland (sat) week trip..

this set up cuts back on travel.and keeps the lads alot fresher i would think...

you could get get the west games out of the way alot quicker...

kodiakTFC
07-28-2011, 07:41 AM
This is inevitable, there are more and more teams coming. Garber has stated 22 teams by 2020 and likely 24 soon after that. I for one think a balanced home and away schedule is the only legitmate league scheduling method so there needs to be more room to accomodate that.

I don't like friendlies but I like that MLS makes a ton of money of them so I would suggest a "friendly" week. They could blow it up like the all-star game and advertise all these big teams coming in. The only problem with that is it doesn't make much sense for teams like Man U to come over because they make their money touring and having a lot of games. Perhaps the answer is the friendly week and then SUM organizing other teams touring to play them like the current WFC sans MLS sides.

menefreghista
07-28-2011, 07:53 AM
I think starting the league the first weekend of March and ending the last weekend in November is the most feasible. Anything longer than that and you are pushing it.

As for the scheduling, I'm sure that if this league ever gets to over 20 teams it will move to an unbalanced schedule.

brad
07-28-2011, 08:02 AM
Part of the problem with accommodating friendlies in advance is that the Euro clubs don't have their pre-season schedules down before the MLS schedule comes out.

brad
07-28-2011, 08:06 AM
How about abandoning piece of shit friendlies where you embarrass your league and your supporters?

$$$$$ is all they care about.

For the All-star game, they full well know they are going to get pummeled when they book a team like United as the opposition. If it was about promoting the league, they would not be bringing in a side that like which will further enforce the euro-elitism attitudes that need to be eroded for this league to grow.

Also, on February - wonder how Garber feels about his NY team (and maybe teams) playing to an empty stadium. NY isn't that nice in Feb.

Pookie
07-28-2011, 08:21 AM
Accomodate the all-star game and friendlies? How about acting like a proper league and accomodating the FIFA calender...

In a gate driven league with weekend matches, I'm sure going up directly against the NFL (NBA and NHL) would work out well.

Pookie
07-28-2011, 08:25 AM
If you read the original article, the interesting undertone to it is that Garber is suggesting that the reason that they lost to Man United was due to "schedule congestion" and having Montero or Shea would have altered the results.

:facepalm:

brad
07-28-2011, 08:30 AM
If you read the original article, the interesting undertone to it is that Garber is suggesting that the reason that they lost to Man United was due to "schedule congestion" and having Montero or Shea would have altered the results.

:facepalm:

Of course he is going to try and spin it - that's his job. He's never going to come out and say the truth - we were schooled by a team far superior to us in every way.

ensco
07-28-2011, 08:39 AM
Football is a summer game. I understand the problem in Spain and Italy, but they play in August there too. I wonder why England and Germany ever started playing on the FIFA calendar in the first place.

Fort York Redcoat
07-28-2011, 09:17 AM
Absolutely push the calendar....

....for international dates and tournaments you idiot Garber.

Oldtimer
07-28-2011, 09:52 AM
Football is a summer game. I understand the problem in Spain and Italy, but they play in August there too. I wonder why England and Germany ever started playing on the FIFA calendar in the first place.

In England it was due to avoiding going head-to-head against cricket, which is the traditional summer sport.

__wowza
07-28-2011, 10:04 AM
i've said it before and im currently writing an article for the bleacher report about it (titled: "why the following things won't work in the MLS").

if we do move to an english schedule, the league will fail. mark my words. there's a time to consider it, and that time isn't in the next decade.

ag futbol
07-28-2011, 10:21 AM
^ Yeah, let's get serious there. The way MLS is currently laid out we basically have to worry about MLB and that's it. Good luck going head-to-head with the NFL, NBA, and NHL.

BTW, money or not I think all these friendlies serve to do is remind people that MLS isn't as good as these foreign leagues. If I were Garber I'd stop peddling them so much and degrading my own product.

sashavukelich
07-28-2011, 10:26 AM
The FIFA calendar does not work in our climate. how on earth is montreal supposed to play in -10 weather? ridiculous.

March to November works bests. And i agree, the schedule needs more structure, and its' really ridiculous how some teams have 2-3 games in hand some weeks. This has to be improved upon.

CoachGT
07-28-2011, 10:54 AM
February at BMO = a whole new meaning to home pitch advantage.

Canary10
07-28-2011, 11:00 AM
At least he didn't mention considering a relegation format. In our current state, that would be disaster!

Greatest Ripoff
07-28-2011, 11:03 AM
When people say they want MLS to go to the fifa calendar they don't mean playing over the winter. They are talking about not playing on the dates fifa has set aside in the calendar for international events. MLS could still run a summer schedule and adhere to the fifa calendar. It would just mean not playing matches around fifa international dates.

Fort York Redcoat
07-28-2011, 11:20 AM
When people say they want MLS to go to the fifa calendar they don't mean playing over the winter. They are talking about not playing on the dates fifa has set aside in the calendar for international events. MLS could still run a summer schedule and adhere to the fifa calendar. It would just mean not playing matches around fifa international dates.

Damn. Totally missed that was happening here.

Yeah the fifa calendar is breaks throughout the year

http://www.fifa.com/aboutfifa/calendar/events.html

A fall to spring schedule is far away from being seriously considered now that the US won't be hosting the next 3 WC's.

jimiv
07-28-2011, 12:09 PM
February games = roof

Oldtimer
07-28-2011, 12:25 PM
February games = dome

FYP :D

Cas87
07-28-2011, 12:35 PM
http://www.goal.com/en-us/news/1110/major-league-soccer/2011/07/27/2593987/mls-commissioner-don-garber-plans-on-altering-the-league

So TFC gets to start with a 10 game road trip every year?

Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal would all play in cavernous stadiums until the weather improves

MTL vs. TFC in Rogers Centre ... YES PLEASE!:scarf:

TFCin110
07-28-2011, 12:39 PM
I don't see what the big deal is with the whole FIFA calendar thing.

Russia, Norway and a bunch of other countries play the same time we do - for the same reason we do. Snow/cold

I think by FIFA Calender people are referring to respecting international dates and halting league play while international matches are taking place.

Fort York Redcoat
07-28-2011, 01:39 PM
I think by FIFA Calender people are referring to respecting international dates and halting league play while international matches are taking place.

Yes.

That is the big step. To acknowledge the rest of the world.

menefreghista
07-28-2011, 01:41 PM
MLS scheduling is annoying. TFC can have an 11 day break in July for no real reason, yet there are league games on FIFA dates.

RPB_RED_NATION_RPB
07-28-2011, 02:11 PM
First thing MLS should worry about is the CAP....Garber has big dreams about MLS....and is unwilling to shell out $$ for quality players!

6mill a team is not an unrealalistic start!?

jabbronies
07-28-2011, 02:26 PM
MLS scheduling is annoying. TFC can have an 11 day break in July for no real reason, yet there are league games on FIFA dates.

This may have been done on purpose. The chance of TFC making it into the group stages of CCL was very high. Which means more games in this stretch. so they lighten the schedule to ease the burden.

rocker
07-28-2011, 08:30 PM
I would just hope that when all the stadiums are built and everything is settled with this league, we can have all teams playing every week and the games played #'s equal after each week. I'm sick of teams having 3,4,5 games in hand. It makes looking at the standings an exercise in interpretation, which it shouldn't be. I'd also like the league to better balance home/away for teams, so that some teams don't get these massive home or away deficits (I know this has to do with KC's stadium opening in mid-season this year.... although by the looks of it only 4 teams really had to play many more games than other teams... they were the ones to sacrifice.).

The thing I didn't understand with the 11-day break for TFC is why they couldn't use some of those off-days and spread them out early in the season. I posted a count earlier this month that showed TFC had the lowest number of off-days of any team in the east -- and it was a great difference between TFC and some of the other teams. Since TFC is always gonna be involved in the Voyageurs Cup, they need to tell the league to use that 11 day gap during a period when the NCC is scheduled....

Shakes McQueen
07-28-2011, 08:44 PM
Get rid of the mid-season friendlies, unnecessary breaks in the schedule, and honour international dates. Problem solved. You can even keep the pointless All-Star Game, if you insist.

Starting in February is going to do nothing but ensure teams like TFC probably start every single season with a multi-week road trip, because it'll be too cold to play in Toronto. I hate this phrase, but that's bush league.

We are always going to have our season opposite most of Europe, because of the realities of our climate. There's nothing wrong with that. That doesn't mean we can't honour FIFA dates, and not book carnival sideshows in the middle of the season.

- Scott

GuelphStorm2007
07-28-2011, 10:18 PM
I say start the season in early March and complete by Mid November. Obey the FIFA calender dates like most leagues in the world. AS a TFC fan if you add all games in MLS the CCL and of course Champs league that is plenty of games. I do not get the All star game concept we have here in North America No matter the Sport or league they are always a big waste of time. As far as internationals go I do not wish to see TFC involved they really do not interest me any more.

PAOK17
07-28-2011, 10:52 PM
First I find it strange that Garber expects his All-Stars to be competitive against a team like Manchester United. Even with United being in pre-season form and not really caring about the result we're talking about them playing against a team that has maybe one practice together. So what if Beckham and Henry played for the All-Stars last night. That's the first time they've ever played together.

Also I really do hope they don't have more than 20 teams in this league. Talent is diluted as is. No top league has more than 20 in its top division. I'm really hoping they find a way to make promotion relegation working. They just need to find an economic way to do it.