Montreal to start play when?

Any chance of Adu coming to play for the Sounders. He would be a damn fine replacemnent for Evans I think.

Montreal will have to come in sooner or later (preferably sooner), but 21 teams is too many. IIRC, FIFA is pushing a mandate to limit the size of first/premier divisions to 20 teams, in order to limit the combined number of games players would play between League and National Team duty.

The key is that in MLS they have only played 28-34 matches.

That can be done with any size league considering the playoffs.

FIFA actually thinks the ideal # is 18, and want the leagues with 20 to shrink.

The problem that I see with reducing teams in leagues and therefore, league games is money. Playing more games means more gate revenue for the club.

So, less games means less revenue and clubs are less able to make profits, pay expenses, salaries, etc.

I’m a big Real Salt Lake fan. I think before we look at expansion again we should look at upgrading the players in the league.

That would be really cool if they expanded. If they did they should get rid of the playoffs and just like all the other leagues, whoever sits atop the table at the end of the season is the champ. They should also have lower divisions like the USL where they could relegate teams and promote teams, that way they could reach more fans.

There will never be pro/relegation. Roth/Allen/et al would never vote in favor of losing money.

When you say “all other leagues” in reference to the playoffs, you do realise that you are ignoring Scotland, Switzerland, Mexico, Brasil, Australia and many more?

Actually, Brazil hasn’t used playoffs since 2003. The Brazilian League is now a home-and-away, top-of-the-heap competition like the major European leagues. The state tournaments have playoffs, but that’s because they’re tournaments.
I personally don’t like playoff because they always inevitably devalue the regular season. Mediocrity is acceptable during the season because you can always go on a tear during the playoffs and win the whole thing.
By the way, did you guys hear that USL is for sale? If I had a huge pot of cash I would buy it and build out the pyramid from the second level down to be a full promotion/relegation system. It would take a lot of doing, but my eventual goal would be that a bunch of beer buddies could start a team and a couple decades later, after a couple dozen promotions, that team could be celebrating a national championship.

I stand corrected on the playoffs in Brazil. I know Argentina had a playoff for last year, but only because after the 4th tiebreaker there will still three teams tied.

No fan of promotion/relegation have ever been able to explain to me why a majority of owners of the current league (MLS) would ever vote in favor of losing their own money.

Roth/Hanauer/Carey have spent at a minimum 40M$. Why would they vote in favor of the chance to get sent down?

AEG owns two teams, and has owned as many as six. They have probably already lost 100M$ so far in this endevour.

The list goes on.

Now, I would be thrilled if the next version of the USL did this, except that I have a feeling that the new USL will eliminate a division and become regional. 1&2 likely need to combine. But they may make a Pro-PDL and Amatuer PDL