USL, apparently hearing enough of our complaints about how late they always release their schedule, has sped up their time-warp machine and dropped it on us a full six weeks earlier than usual. This season will be 33 weeks long and feature more than 600 games, all of which will be on ESPN+. As expected, each conference will feature a true balanced schedule with home and home games for the first time in league history.
What’s unexpected, though, is the change to the playoff format. The past two seasons, the playoffs have been single elimination with only one round of seeding dependent on the top eight teams’ position in their conference table. The new format will expand the playoffs to 20 teams, ten from each conference. The bottom four seeds will have to qualify for the conference quarterfinals via a play-in game, sort of like the NCAA basketball tournament or the old MLS playoffs.
Interestingly, the 7 and 10 seeds will play for the right to face the top seed in the conference, while the 8 and 9 seeds will face the second seed. While I understand the mechanics, it doesn’t seem like an advantage to the No. 1 seed to have a 50% chance to play a better team (the 7) than the No. 2 seed, who would at worst have to play the 8. I’m mostly okay with this format, but am not a fan of letting more than half of the league’s teams qualify for the playoffs, as it cheapens the regular season somewhat. Oh well, this is America, where we still struggle to soccer right.
Louisville City’s 2019 schedule can be found in full here. Some highlights:
- Just one midweek game, at home for some reason, and probably thanks to baseball or something.
- Home Opener vs. Hartford Athletic on March 23, followed a week later by visiting Birmingham Legion
- The Kings Cup returns on May 18 when STLFC visit Slugger
- No game on Derby Day, as we’ll be away to Swope Park the following Sunday that week.
It’s been a pretty busy day. Let’s see what else happens before 5:00.
