Sweeney: How can the MLS compete with Liga MX in the CCL? A few ideas

Another year, another shutdown of Major League Soccer clubs by Liga MX in the CONCACAF Champions League.

If you haven’t been paying attention this week, here’s a quick rundown of the goings on: MLS supporters have seen several of the Revolution’s rivals bid adieu to the continental competition in the last couple of days. Reigning MLS Cup champion Atlanta United were the latest to bow out, thanks to a 3-1 aggregate defeat — that’s a scoreline spread out over two matches, by the way — at the hands of Monterrey on Wednesday. The night before, both Houston and New York Red Bulls found themselves knocked out by Tigres and Santos Laguna, respectively.

That leaves one MLS club in the competition, and that’s Sporting Kansas City, which takes a 2-1 deficit into the Blue Hell of Children’s Mercy Park against Panama’s Independiente de la Chorrera on Thursday evening. Should SKC advance, the new club of former Revs Kelyn Rowe, Krisztian Nemeth, and Seth Sinovic would then play Monterrey in the CCL semifinals in three weeks’ time.

And given what we’ve already seen this week, we’re pretty sure we already know that result.

The talk amongst the US soccer media and fans over the last few days has centered around MLS’ ineffective play against some of the best club football squads in our general region. While Atlanta and New York are two of the best MLS has to offer and are two incredibly talented squads, Liga MX has proven over the last decade that it is just that further ahead. And as has been beaten to death, MLS commish Don Garber has repeatedly stated that he wants MLS to be not only the top league in CONCACAF, but a top league around the world.

In order to do that, MLS clubs need to beat — regularly — the established Mexican powerhouse teams in the continental competition.

So how does that happen? The answers are not necessarily easy, and each has a challenging situation attached.

Here are two:

The first, of course, has to do with money — in other words, the payroll.

While having about the same number of players on their roster, Liga MX clubs traditionally have larger payrolls than the average MLS squad; Ives Galarcep pointed out Tuesday night that Tigres, for example, has the equivalent of eight MLS-type designated player salaries on its wage sheet (MLS clubs are allowed a maximum of three DP’s), along with eight other players whose contracts would be paid down by Targeted Allocation Money. And with some MLS clubs in the competition spending around $10 million to $16 million — Toronto FC spent $26 million in 2018, and the Reds made the CCL Final, against eventual champion Guadalajara — those clubs are generally built for the domestic league.

MLS investor/operators have also tried to keep their costs down; this year, the league’s on-budget salary cap is a little over $4.03 million. MLS clubs would have to inflate that significantly — double, or even triple — in order to compete with their Mexican counterparts.

Unless that’s something the players demand in the next round of CBA talks between the MLS Player’s Union and the league — we’re in the final year of the current CBA — that might be a pipedream.

The second has to do with the schedule, and it needs to be fixed.

Due to certain factors (the climate across the United States, the amount of days off players need as per the CBA, and the amount of weeks between the MLS Cup Final and the start of preseason, for three), MLS starts its regular season in March and ends it in October.

Liga MX? Its Clausura — the spring season — begins right after the start of the new year. Costa Rica’s Clausura isn’t much long after that, and the same for Panama’s spring slate; entering Thursday, Independiente has already played six matches in the league, plus three CCL tilts. Mexico teams are 10 matches into the Clausura as they entered the CCL quarterfinal round.

MLS? It is entering Match Day 3, having started preseason in the second or third weeks of the other countries involved’s spring campaign. And with 11 teams currently north of the Mason-Dixon Line or at elevation (Colorado, Real Salt Lake), switching to a January start would not be feasible (unless you want to put PlexiGlass retractable roofs on their existing stadiums to control the ambient temperature inside like a greenhouse would, which ain’t happening).

Of course, Liga MX and the other leagues have a pretty important advantage over MLS: their climates (#CloserToTheEquator) are much more favorable to football in January and February than it is to a team in New York, Toronto, Montreal, or even the Revolution. When the Revs competed in the 2006 CCL, they had to play their scheduled February home match of the competition … in Bermuda.

The reasoning? The Revs were in training camp, and the neutral site was chosen to avoid adverse, unfavorable weather conditions in Foxborough; and remember that back in February 2006, Gillette had a natural grass surface -- for about seven or eight more months.

There is, of course, a yin to the yang: when the Revs played — and beat — Mexican sides in the 2008 North American SuperLiga, the club’s second championship after the 2007 US Open Cup win, those matches were played during July, three-plus months after the season started. In addition, those Mexican sides were in the preseason for the Apertura, the fall season; they stop league play at the end of May due to much warmer conditions than are acceptable to play football in those locales during the summer.

So ... how do we fix it? Again, tough to do -- but everyone needs to get on the same page.

Quite possibly, the only way to make things equitable for the Americans and Canadians at our higher latitudes would be to start the CCL Round of 16 in the first mid-week of April, which would give the MLS sides, at the very least, five matches to get up to speed. In addition, the four rounds could be played before Memorial Day Weekend, all at midweek, with weekends devoted to the league matches.

It would, however, give Liga MX, Costa Rican, and Panamanian sides (and Honduran, El Salvadorian, and Guatemalan, etc) that much more time to prep for the competition.

Yet MLS could conceivably, in the future, help out its own cause if CONCACAF were to grant the extra time to the Americans and Canadians. At present, the 24 MLS clubs play a 34-match fixture slate, which features 22 home-and-away ties against teams in their own conference, plus one crossover match against the 12 clubs from the other conference.

In time, the league is expected to balloon to 28 teams within the next three years, and quite possibly even more: Garber said during the December State of the League address prior to the MLS Cup Final that he believes the league can support more than 28 clubs.

If that does happen, the 34-match fixture slate would need considerable tweaking, given that more teams — plus the various international competitions which harm the month of June’s playing ability — would create more congestion in an 8-month regular season calendar. More teams under the current set-up would mean more mid-week league matches; the Revolution are slated for six league fixtures at mid-week, plus the Chelsea friendly as well as at least one US Open Cup match for this season.

That’s 36 fixtures. For the Revs to win the US Open Cup, or to just be finalists, they would have to play an additional four matches.

In the current era of expansion, the Revs' mid-week tilts over the last four seasons have been as follows:

2018: Four mid-week
2017: Five mid-week
2016: Three mid-week
2015: Three mid-week

(Note: Does not include US Open Cup matches)

It is entirely possible, however, that with more teams in the league, it could conceivably cut out the cross-conference play — i.e. the Revs and Galaxy, or Toronto vs. Vancouver — and like Major League Baseball did before interleague play, save it for the playoffs. A 32-team league could conceivably see twin 16-team conferences, meaning 30-match slates, home and away, against teams in your conference.

A 30-match slate, presuming MLS wants to continue playing the start of the season in early March, would allow the potential of ending the regular season in the middle of September, or even earlier. It would also allow for no mid-week matches, save CCL and US Open Cup -- with the US Open Cup Final played before the first playoff games.

And it could also open the door to a secondary and even a third continental competition, to give more MLS clubs the ability to compete against the second- and third-tier clubs in our region — and to give MLS investor/operators those additional mid-week gates.

It's not perfect -- but neither is the way it's done now. And the way it's done now harms MLS.