Ever since I helped design the AAXI I’ve had blog envy. See, that website looked so much better than this one. I had been frustrated by the old template for some time anyway. I thought it was cluttered and hard to read, and there were design limitations with the template that irked me. Two column designs are less cluttered and easier to read. Though, truth be told I actually considered a new three column design because I still like the architectural look, and may give it a whirl again if this design doesn’t grow on me. As it stands now, I don’t know if everything is completely optimized. I think it all works in Firefox (which you really should be using) and I’ve verified that it looks alright on Safari (whether it all works is a different matter). The IE rendering is a little off, but I think that’s the fault of IE, not the fault of my coding. IE has issues.

I don’t remember much of those days long past when it seemed like the only source of timely soccer information in the United States were those old guys of ambiguous ethnic extraction who hung out down at the corner.

Yes, I’m sure they had great information, and I’m sure those “when I was a boy we didn’t have old guys to tell us about soccer” stories were really first rate. But the development of my appetite for soccer news happily coincided with the development of the internet. Let’s face it, the internet is a big improvement over a bunch of creepy old guys.

While I don’t remember much from the “dark ages” when US soccer fans had to scrape together information from whatever irregular sources they could manage, I do remember those early days when the growth of the internet sparked something of a soccer enlightenment in this country. Email lists. Can you imagine!

Today I think we’re quite used to seeing the USMNT on television. But back in the day national team telecasts were a rarity. Until the internet there often wasn’t any way to follow the game in real time. I can remember “watching” matches on the internet even before MatchTracker. You had to hit refresh manually! And all you got was the score.

Streaming audio was a major breakthrough, and I can remember listening to World Cup qualifiers on the internet. Often the broadcasts weren’t even in English. Today fans would be up in arms about such a thing. And they were certainly up in arms back then too. (Some things never change.) But, at least after we sobered up and calmed down, we could admit it was something of a miracle that we could follow a game on the internet in real time at all.

So here I am following the USA play Canada in a friendly down in San Diego. It’s not on TV. But I’ve got my streaming audio – in English, no less! And I’ve got my BigSocer in one window, and I’ve got my AIM chat in another.

It’s just like old times.

… the server is pretty funky today.

I’m led to believe it’s a temporary condition.

So I’ve been away from the blog for a few weeks. Well, a month. What can I say? I got busy.

Like I said when this blog started, I intended this to be an off-season project that’d be up and running around about now.

For all my readers who’ve continued to peruse this blog despite the absence of new posts, all half dozen of you poor, lost folks who randomly end up here each day - my “core” audience - thanks for your patience.

I’ve avoided posting all week because I knew I’d end up writing about the playoffs. And judging from what I see around the internet there seem to be three, and only three, perspectives that one can take on the matter, none of which are particularly seemly.

First, you can be a good MLS soldier, ready and able to rise to the defense of the playoffs as they currently exist. These are the people who use terms like “chess match” to describe the tedious and under-attended 0-0 draws we saw last weekend.

Second, you can strap a single-table cross on your back and walk through the streets of Major League Soccer preaching against playoff heresy and bewailing the reward the Earthquakes and the Revolution received for seasons well-played: playing from behind in a must win game.

Third, you can engage in the MLS equivalent of fan-fiction and concoct all manner of elaborate alternative playoff schemes that are both better than what MLS offers and without any hope of practical realization.

I don’t care to associate myself with any of these perspectives.

The good soldiers blithely discount the fact that problems do exist. To name two, with notable exceptions, many MLS playoff games are lousy and suffer from poor attendance. (Of course, some of the poor attendance is the fault of an MLS marketing strategy that seems to concentrate on the idea that MLS games are “events” to which to take your “group,” at the expense of building a devoted fan base that shows up no matter what. But that’s a discussion for another time.)

The single-table preachers are annoying because they have a point. The current system does not adequately reward teams that do well in the regular season. But the purported universal righteousness of a single table is not gospel truth, and in their preaching (or is it kvetching) they ignore the variety of impracticalities and problems that a single table would pose for MLS.

The fan-fiction folks are simply utopian. They are more interesting than the alternative types, but they suffer from the idealistic notion that every problem MLS faces meets its solution with one or another structural change. If only they’d change the playoff format, if only they’d change the roster rules, if only, if only, if only … then all would be better. It wouldn’t.

As far as I’m concerned the playoffs are what they are and when MLS grows to 18 teams they’ll be more interesting and exciting. When fewer than half the teams in the league make the playoffs the post-season will more readily guarantee high quality games between high quality teams.

But that improvement will come at a price. With 18 teams the bottom of the table affairs in the second half of the regular season won’t be very compelling. If you think today’s single-table preachers are bad, just wait until the promotion and relegation preachers experience those doldrums.