Major League Soccer is shortening its season by a month, going to single-elimination playoffs and scheduling the 2019 MLS Cup final for Nov. 10 in its earliest finish since 2002.
The league announced the change on Monday and will have an all-knockout postseason in place of a two-leg format for the conference semifinals and finals. MLS had started using a two-leg, total-goals format in 2003.
After then-U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann criticized the league’s season as being too short, MLS stretched its schedule into December each year starting in 2012. Klinsmann was fired in November 2016.
MLS says the new format will reward teams with top regular seasons with greater home-field advantage. The league expands to 24 teams with the addition of Cincinnati next year, and 14 teams will make the playoffs. Each of the two conference winners will get first-round byes and be joined in the conference semifinals by the winners of the three first-round series.
The league will finish before the November international break — and before the start of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar that Nov. 21. The October break will be between the end of the regular season and the start of the playoffs.
Opening day will be March 2 next year, and the regular season will end Oct. 6.
The league said the changes resulted from discussions throughout the year with team owners, general managers, television partners and other officials. The changes were ratified last week.
Source: IbrahimovicStaying With Galaxy
Zlatan Ibrahimovic is staying with the LA Galaxy. A person with knowledge of the deal confirmed the 37-year-old striker will play next season for the Major League Soccer team. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the Galaxy had not yet formally announced it.
Ibrahimovic had 22 goals in 27 games last season, his first with the team. He dropped a video on social media on Monday morning with the words, “MLZ I’m not done with you yet.”
There had been persistent rumors linking him to European clubs, including one of his former teams, AC Milan, but Milan confirmed last week that a deal for a loan could not be struck.
FC Dallas Hires Coach
Frisco, Texas
Gonzalez replaces Oscar Pareja, who left after five seasons and became coach of Tijuana in Liga MX.
The only younger MLS coach is 37-year-old Anthony Hudson of Colorado in 2002.
Gonzalez starred at Southern Methodist before joining Dallas’ academy in April 2012 as the under-18 coach. He became academy director in 2015 and has coached the under-16 team for the past four years. Dallas has signed 15 homegrown players coached by Gonzalez.
Gonzalez made eight appearances for San Jose as a rookie in 2002, then left for Bodens of Sweden’s second division, where he had eight goals and four assists in his first season. In 2004, he signed with Peru’s Sporting Cristal.
He returned to MLS in 2005 with Colorado, moved to Miami in the third tier United Soccer League in 2007 and ended his career with the USL’s Minnesota Thunder in 2009.