The Club World Cup is slated to cease to exist within its current format after this year. Just like the World Cup the Club World Cup is set to move to a wider team format. Actually it will take on the 32 team format that the World Cup has had since 1998. This means that Seattle Sounders were the last Concacaf team to play within the tournament’s current format. Just like a lot of Concacaf teams before them, they were a massive disappointment at the Club World Cup.
Seattle Sounders lost their first match of the tournament against Al Ahly with a goal in the 88th minute of the match. This means that Sounders will miss out on the opportunity to play Real Madrid in an official tournament. If we’re being honest most players aren’t exactly too excited to play the Club World Cup in the first place. However, since the MLS had gone so long without having a representative in the tournament this underwhelming performance by Seattle is quite a let-down. It can bring back questions about MLS scheduling that have existed for years.
Sounders’ Planning Was Extremely Poor
Once the dust had settled and Seattle Sounders were effectively eliminated from the tournament a set of journalists including ESPN’s Roberto Abramowitz came out and excused the poor performance saying that it had only been 15 days since Seattle was essentially back at work. This after an extremely long hiatus that stemmed from their last appearance in the MLS which dated back to early October! As we mentioned it’s understood that players aren’t necessarily thrilled to get a chance to play in the Club World Cup. Also, MLS teams may structure their contracts differently, so essentially they didn’t want to put in extra game checks for players to report early to training.
If it was a money thing or a planning blunder we may never know. The fact remains that the team hadn’t played a game since October before their match against Al Ahly and it showed. To be fair to the Seattle Sounders multiple Liga MX teams have seemingly had way better planning and still went out in the first round of the Club World Cup. Therefore, playing more games was not a guarantee for success. The optics though are terrible, there’s no way around that. The team knew well ahead of time that they were going to be taking part in this tournament. Yet, they refused to adjust their schedule to ensure that the squad they put out on the field was at least better prepared.
Should The MLS Think About Adjusting Their Schedule?
This debacle at the Club World Cup brings an age old question back to the forefront. Should the MLS try and adjust their schedule to make sure that it matches those of other leagues across the world? Of course, the main challenge that the league would face is that domestically they would have to compete for viewers with other top American sports. These days though most MLS squads have their own stadiums, so the stadium space issue isn’t as big today as it once was.
To be 100% honest there doesn’t seem to be a right answer. It sort of comes down to what MLS’ plans really are. Would they be content to present themselves as a bit of a summer league filling up certain dates in which competition in most leagues across the world has finished? That commercially does look like the best move both on the local and international level. In a sense though it is an admission that the MLS is always going to be a second tier product. That’s something that just doesn’t sit well with American businesses that typically want to be known as the best. We got all that from a boring game lost by an average MLS team!
