By Robbie Butler

The 25th season of Major League Soccer will kick-off at the end of next month and will include David Beckham's new franchise Inter Miami CF and Tennessee franchise Nashville SC. This will bring the total number of teams to 26 – the highest to date.

Inter Miami will form part of the Eastern Conference, while Nashville SC will join the Western Conference. This, despite the fact that the Nissan Stadium, home of Nashville, is more easterly than Soldier Field, the home of Chicago Fire who play in the Eastern Conference. The arrival of the new franchises, and the division they play in, got me thinking about the distances these teams must travel weekly in order to fulfill fixtures.

I recall Steven Gerrard’s time with LA Galaxy and comments by the former Liverpool player that the travel involved playing MLS was exhausting. This is especially true when one compares it to the Premier League in England.

In early January, Liverpool played Everton in an FA Cup 3rd round game. During a stoppage in play, a drone above the stadium moved slightly northwards, and Everton’s Goodison Park came into view. There is less than 1 mile between the two stadiums. For newly recruited players of Inter Miami, their 'derby match' with Orlando City SC will require a 205-mile journey north. This is just shy of Liverpool visiting a London club, which is hardly a derby.

The distances a franchise will travel in the MLS arequite something. In this post I considered only the Eastern Conference. The Western Conference would appear far worse. New players for Inter Miami have some serious travel ahead, given Miami’s location. After Orlando, the next closest venue is the 580-mile trip to the magnificent Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta, a round trip of nearly 1,200 miles. This is like Liverpool heading to Cologne in Germany.

Inter Miami players will have at least seven trips in the Eastern conference that exceed 1,000 miles one way! The longest being the 1387-mile distance to play Montreal Impact – the greatest distance between two franchises in the Eastern Conference. Liverpool to Rome is almost the exact same distance.

Considering all franchises for the conference, there is probably just one derby, by European standards that is. The 20 miles separating the Yankee Stadium from the Red Bull Arena in New Jersey, homes of the New York City and New York Red Bulls.

Travel distances can be found to have significant impact on performance. I will consider the impact this has on match outcomes in the MLS in a future post. For new recruits of Inter Miami, they better be ready to travel. Although, Nashville SC will make this look short. More to follow on this. 

By Robbie Butler,

On the 14th of November I wrote about the 2018 MLS season, and the rise of Atlanta United. The piece was in the context of competitive balance in Major League Soccer, and the fact that 12 franchises had won the US title, making it more competitive than any major European league over the past 23 years.

We can make that 13. Atlanta United were crowned MLS Champions on Saturday evening at around 10pm EST.

The remarkable thing about the "The Five Stripes" is that they are playing in just their second season of the Eastern Conference. In total the franchise has played under 80 games in its entire existence, yet is now the number 1 US football team.To put this into context, it is great to compare the closed system in the US, to the oldest set of interconnected leagues in the world in England.

It is difficult to know how many tiers there are in England (there could be up to 22) but it is safe to assume that there are at least 8 interconnected divisions. These range from regional leagues at the lower end, to the Premier League at the top, and are list below. 

Assuming Atlanta United were an English club, and had won promotion in Years 1 and 2 of their existence, the club would be heading into the National League South (given Atlanta's location in the US we will assume South rather than North). From a starting point in this league, it would take a minimum of 6 seasons before the club could even challenge for the Premier League title.

​The current dominance of the big six clubs in England's means they have little to fear from the remaining Premier League clubs (Leicester City may obviously disagree), never mind clubs in the lower tiers of English football. The rise of Atalanta United is not something you can expect to be replicated in England anytime soon, if ever. 

Just another example of how the structure of the same sport on either size of the Atlantic is different, and can result in very different outcomes.  

By Robbie Butler

Major League Soccer (MLS) will complete its 23rd season on the 8th of December 2018 when the MLS Cup Final is held. The competition is currently in the semi-final stage with Atlanta United FC, New York Red Bulls, Portland Timbers and Sporting Kansas City all still standing in the competition.

For those unfamiliar with the MLS, the competition design is somewhat different to European soccer leagues. For one the top domestic prize is referred to as a "cup". This is effectively akin to winning the league, but mirrors that of other popular US sports in that there is a regular season, followed by the playoffs. The upside of this approach is that teams finishing as low as 6th in either conference (split east/west) can be crowned winners of the MLS Cup.

This approach has similarities in Europe. The Champions League can be won by finishing as low as 4th in one's domestic league, and second in the qualifying group. The Championship Playoffs in English League Football involve teams placed 3-6 (or 4-7 in League 2) battling it out for promotion. Rugby league's Super League is the closest competition design I can think of in a European context to mirror the soccer in the United States.

Whether you are for or against this competition design, one cannot but marvel at the opportunity for franchises to succeed. Atlanta United are in just their second season of the Eastern Conference of Major League Soccer, yet "The Five Stripes" are within touching distance of a place in the MLS Cup Final. Only New York Red Bulls stand in their way. 

The closed system that is MLS, and most of US sport, somewhat facilities this. Maybe this is the reason why the 23 franchises in the league this year will become 24 once FC Cincinnati join in 2019, and 26 by 2020 once Inter Miami and Nashville join the league. And their chances of success are much higher than in top European leagues. The figure below presents data on the number of league winners in each league since the first MLS season in 1996, and the number of league wins accumulated by the most successful club. 

Major League Soccer is more competitive than any of the top European leagues. As the theory would suggest, open systems with promotion and relegation, tend to foster inequality among teams. Winning the league title may be of far less concern to clubs who fear the threat of relegation. 

On the other hand, in a closed system (such as the MLS or Major League Baseball), in theory each team has equal probability of success (winning the Championship) at the start of the regular season. Maybe this why there have been 12 different MLS Cup Champions since 1996, and just 5 different champions in England, Spain and Italy. 

The system in the US might be much different to Europe but there are certainly things that could be learned. ​I'm sure fans of German and Italian soccer, other than Bayern Munich and Juventus supporters, would agree as the former look to win their seventh title in a row, and Juventus their 8th title on the spin.