The Daily Dirt, October 31: Home Sweet Home

Happy Halloween, DSSers.

While you were out yesterday buying all your candy and getting your decorations set up there was a quadrupleheader of MLS conference semifinal playoff matches happening. In all four matches, the home team shutout the higher ranked seed. While some were narrow victories like LA Galaxy and Montreal Impact winning 1-0, Toronto FC and Seattle Sounders were able to put up a decent sized cushion (2-0 and 3-0 respectively) heading into the decisive leg.

So, if you’re keeping track at home, that means that the teams with better regular season record are now tasked with coming from behind in the second leg to be able to advance. I just don’t see much of an “advantage” for the higher ranked teams in this scenario, thus asking the question is it best to have your home leg second?

Obviously if any of the road teams last night had won or even drew they’d be in great positions coming home and there’d be no need for debate, but that’s not the case.

Playoffs are a tricky scenario and usually are no way indicative of a team’s regular season success no matter how much MLS wants them to be. In reality, with a two-legged format, there’s really no advantage to playing your home leg last.

Domestic

Goal of the day:

Assist of the day:

International

Flawless Chelsea demolish Southampton’s unbeaten home run (We Ain’t Got No History)

Mario Balotelli leads Nice to top of Ligue 1 table (ESPNFC)

Local

Read up on Sydney Hunte’s recap of Mercer’s women’s team advancing to the SoCon semifinals