New season, new changes coming to the pitch. MLS expands and changes playoff format

It will be all about changes in the MLS in 2019, including a new team in incinnati and a new playoff format.

The league announced Monday that it will expand it’s playoffs from 12 teams to 14 teams and make every match single elimination, starting in the 2019 season.

The new format will give the No.1 seed in each conference a first-round bye while the other teams will play single-elimination matchups. Under the previous format, the the non-MLS Cup rounds were two-match formats with a tiebreaker based on away goals. One interesting aspect to this is there will be no re-seeding of teams as the rounds advance. For example, if the team seeded sixth were to advance, they would still face the team in the No. 2 vs. No. 7 matchup.

The schedule also sees some massive changes as MLS Decision Day will be Oct. 6 and the MLS playoffs will be sandwiched in between FIFA’s October and November international breaks. The 2019 playoffs will begin Oct. 19 and culminate with MLS Cup 2019 on Nov. 10.