Talk:2020 Major League Soccer season

Schedule

Hi 87Fan (talk · contribs), just wanted to discuss this. You recently added "For the first time in MLS' history, each team will not play 3 opponents from the opposite conference in regular-season play" to the introduction of the page. I know this is a major bit of news but this is also already covered in the format section within the article. I think it is fine to just have it there instead of the introduction. Thoughts? --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 18:38, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Actually, scratch that. After the re-wording I think it fits. Again though, thoughts? --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 18:41, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Howdy ArsenalFan700 (talk · contribs)! I think that it's appropriate to have it in both places; people who read the lead will want the 'highlights', so to speak, and the fact that this is the first season with a truly unbalanced schedule is notable. Having more details in the schedule section is also appropriate. I could be wrong, of course, but looking back at previous seasons, the leads there do tend to note things like schedule changes, CBA agreements, etc. Right now I like the balance of information in the lead, it feels right. 87Fan (talk) 18:47, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Ledes are summaries of the full prose. If it's notable enough for the lede, it should be mentioned in both places (and sourced in body.) Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:39, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

In the introduction, it states, "In a proposed schedule that was sent to MLS clubs last week, the league is targeting a July 9 start date, sources tell CBS Sports." It is not clear which week is "last week". Does anyone know a more precise date to put here? Iwentdwarfing (talk) 16:13, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

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Fixture and Results Table

I'm wondering if this is worth keeping for this season. It will almost certainly be mostly empty, and I know at least for Columbus that they will be playing Cincinnati three times total, so I don't know how you represent that in this table. Thoughts? Jay eyem (talk) 04:32, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

I know nobody has yet responded to this, but I have a proposal for how the matches can be listed instead: since there is no balanced table and there are multiple instances where teams play three or more times (see the Canadian teams), why not use something like this? It will incorporate all of the matches while not forcing the issues of a cross table graph. It isn't as pretty, but it's much more effective. Jay eyem (talk) 17:50, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree with your suggestion. I thought about a results section per conference, although that would not solve the problem of more than three matches between Canadian clubs and the matches between Nashville and Dallas Martijnvdam97 (talk) 22:56, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Attendance section - what do we do with '0' games?

I see zeros starting to appear in the attendance list. I realize that, for most teams, '0' will be the low for their attendance. For example, Seattle played to an empty stadium last night. However, I think this means we'll see a bunch of 0s, when this information isn't particularly useful. to use Seattle's example, they had a previous low of ~31k (one of the last games before the pandemic shut everything down). I think we should modify this list to show the lowest that explicitly aren't 0 for each team. We can acknowledge which teams have played to empty stadiums, and which ones played with fans, and not just 0 everything out. I think that it will be interesting to track teams that never play to fans (Nashville, for example), so I'm mostly just thinking about how we change the way we show low attendance in the table for this season. Thoughts? 87Fan (talk) 15:57, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I am a little unclear on what you mean. Are you proposing to exclude games with 0 attendance? I don't agree with this personally. Especially since there are other teams that have had attendances, but with limited capacity in the low hundreds or thousands due to the pandemic. I think this is just a year that we'll have to chalk up as an exceptional year and just make sure there are clear notes indicating that the low attendance is due to the pandemic. Jay eyem (talk) 16:53, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

@Jay eyem: I'm proposing that, for the low-water mark for a team this season, we show the lowest non-0 attendance and note that there were also games played without fans. We could show the lowest non-0 attendance and add a hat note that says "Some games were also played without any fans in attendance." Because what is interesting is how many people made it to games even during the pandemic, not that sometimes there were no fans there. In my opinion. 87Fan (talk) 17:31, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Ok that's what I thought. I can kind of see what you are getting at, but as the table is concerned, I think it would be weird for some teams to have average attendances where the 0s are excluded (e.g. Seattle) while still including the teams with significantly reduced attendance (e.g. Dallas). Maybe more prose could be added to that section to make clarifying statements? Or a separate section for attendance excluding 0s or before the pandemic started? I personally don't really like the idea of including pandemic attendance for some teams and not others (assuming some teams never re-open) unless they are clearly separated in some way. Jay eyem (talk) 17:40, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't think it's interesting enough to split out into separate tables. I just thought it would be nice to have a lightweight way to show the impact on attendance without making everything 0 everywhere. I get your point, not sure there's a solution. Happy to keep things the way they are if there's nothing simple to be done. It may be too nuanced a point to make in a table format. Thanks, 87Fan (talk) 17:49, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Should we start to show the tables using PPG for playoff positioning?

The MLS Competition Guidelines state the following: "In the event that all 26 teams do not end the season with the same number of matches played, qualification for the Audi 2020 MLS Cup Playoffs will be determined by points earned on a per match basis, or points per game." It is fairly clear that the league will not make up all of the postponed matches involving Colorado, as an example, so we will end up with not all teams playing the same number of matches and as such PPG will be the way to determine who will make the playoffs. As such it seems the tables should be adjusted to reflect that. Add a PPG column and/or adjust the color coding and qualification column to actually reflect who will be in the playoffs. Abomb8888

Only if/when MLS announces they are using PPG to determine playoff spots, but not before then. Jay eyem (talk) 19:44, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

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Abbreviations

Shouldn't the LA Galaxy be LAG and LAFC be LAFC? Currently in the side chart, LAFC is LFC which my brain says is Liverpool. --MattBinYYC (talk) 08:36, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Furious

Wondering the roster for 2020-2021 soccer season!!?? 2600:8804:1603:D000:2C75:1C86:C774:BADF (talk) 15:13, 3 January 2023 (UTC)