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MLS notes -- season starts March 10th

Chris Harmon

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Staff
Aug 15, 2002
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The 2012 Major League Soccer season is the upcoming 100th season of FIFA-sanctioned soccer, the 34th with a national first-division league, in the United States and Canada, and the 17th season of Major League Soccer. The season, which is slated to run from March through October, followed by the 2012 MLS Cup Playoffs, will feature 19 total clubs, 16 in the United States, and three in Canada.

The 2012 MLS season will feature several significant on- and off-field changes from 2011:

-The Montreal Impact will enter the league, replacing a similarly named Montreal club that previously played in the North American Soccer League. The Impact will become the 10th team in the Eastern Conference; the Western Conference will remain at 9 teams.

-Each of the 19 teams will play a 34-game regular season schedule, one that will employ a new unbalanced format. Western Conference clubs will play each conference rival three times, and play one game against each Eastern Conference club. Eastern Conference clubs will play seven of their conference rivals three times, the remaining two conference rivals two times, and each Western Conference club once. The span of the regular season will be the longest in MLS history, beginning with 5 matches on March 10 and ending with 3 matches on October 28.

- A change to the Designated Player Rule regarding international players will take effect. Starting with this season, the salary cap charge for international designated players (i.e., players not from the U.S. or Canada) will depend on the players' ages:

age 20 and younger: $150,000
ages 21 to 23: $200,000
over 23 years of age: $350,000

- The league will have a new U.S. TV partner in NBC Sports, whose 3-year deal was announced in August 2011, replacing expired deals with Fox Soccer and Fox Deportes.[5] The new deal will see three regular season and two playoff matches on NBC (the first time since 2002 for this many MLS games to be broadcast on English-language network television), as well as 38 regular season and 3 playoff matches on sister channel NBC Sports Network; both networks will also air United States men's national soccer team matches (2 on each network). Previous deals with U.S. partners ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, and Galavision will continue in 2012, as will deals with Canadian partners TSN, TSN2, and GolTV.

- The MLS Cup Playoffs setup will undergo several changes, as will the Championship Game, which will be played on its latest date ever, December 1.

International competitions

CONCACAF Champions League

Prior to the start of the MLS regular season, Toronto FC and Los Angeles Galaxy will play against each other in the quarterfinals of 2011?12 edition of the CONCACAF Champions League. Also, Seattle Sounders FC will face Mexican side Santos Laguna in the quarterfinals. The winners of Toronto FC/Los Angeles Galaxy and Seattle Sounders FC/Santos Laguna will play each other in the semi-finals of the competition.[11]

For the 2012-13 CCL, Los Angeles Galaxy, Seattle Sounders, Houston Dynamo and Real Salt Lake have earned group stage spots (the preliminary round has been eliminated). The Canadian representative will be determined by the 2012 Voyageurs Cup.

Domestic competitions

Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup

For the 2012 tournament, U.S. Soccer is expected to increase the main tournament proper from a 40-club tournament, to a 64-club tournament; and likely assemble the competition in which all Major League Soccer clubs based in the U.S. qualify.

Canadian Championship

The three Canadian-based MLS clubs, Toronto FC, Montreal Impact and Vancouver Whitecaps FC, along with NASL club FC Edmonton, will compete for the Voyageurs Cup, Canada's national championship trophy. The tournament is organized in a knockout format with two-legged ties in both the semifinals and final, with the away goals rule in place.

League Competitions

MLS Cup

The MLS Cup playoffs will take place after the conclusion of the regular season. For 2012, the playoff structure will undergo several changes:

- The playoffs will no longer feature wild cards and the possibility of "crossovers" (i.e. teams from opposite conferences playing in the early rounds). Instead, the top five clubs in each conference's standings will qualify for the playoffs and will play in the following manner:

The 4th place team will host the 5th place team in a single "play-in" match, with the winner advancing to the conference semifinals.

The Conference Semifinals will again be a two-game aggregate goal setup as before. The 1st place team will play the winner of the 4th/5th game, while the 2nd and 3rd place teams play each other.

The semifinal winners will play each other in the Conference Finals, which will be altered to a two-game aggregate series (before this year, this round was a single-game format).

The Conference Final winners will advance to the MLS Cup Championship Game, which for the first time will be played at the home stadium of the finalist with the better regular season point total; before this season, the game was played at a predetermined site.

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