Country United States
Canada Defending champions Sporting Kansas City Runners-up New England Revolution | Teams 10 Champions LA Galaxy (5th title) | |
Semi-finalists New York Red Bulls
Seattle Sounders FC | ||
The 2014 MLS Cup Playoffs was the nineteenth post-season tournament culminating the Major League Soccer regular season. The tournament began in late October and culminated on December 7, 2014 with MLS Cup 2014, the nineteenth league championship for MLS.
Contents
- Format
- Knockout Round
- Conference Semifinals and Conference Finals
- MLS Cup
- Qualification
- Eastern Conference
- Western Conference
- Conference Finals
- References
The 2014 playoffs was the first time that the away goals rule was applied to the home-and-away, aggregate-goal series. The first series impacted by the rule was a Western Conference semifinal that saw the Seattle Sounders advance past FC Dallas when the first match (held in Dallas) ended 1–1 and the second (held in Seattle) ended 0–0.
LA Galaxy defeated New England Revolution 2–1 after extra time in the MLS Cup 2014, thus earning a spot in the 2015–16 CONCACAF Champions League.
Sporting Kansas City were the defending champions, but they were eliminated in the Eastern Conference Knockout Round by New York Red Bulls.
Format
The top five teams from both the Western Conference and the Eastern Conference qualified and are seeded in the MLS Playoffs in order to determine conference champions. The two conference champions will face off in the MLS Cup.
Knockout Round
The fourth and fifth seeds in each conference play a single match hosted by the fourth seed. The winners advance to the conference semifinals.
Conference Semifinals and Conference Finals
In the conference semifinals, the first seed in each conference plays the winner of their conference knockout round match. Also in the conference semifinals, the second and third seeded teams in each conference play one another. The teams winning the conference semifinal matches advance to their respective conference final.
In these two rounds, all matches are played in home-and-away aggregate-goal format. The lower seeded team hosts the first leg of the series and the higher seeded team hosts the second leg. The first leg lasts the usual 90-minutes and can end in a tie. In the second leg, if the two teams are tied after 90-minutes (180-minute total) then the team that scored more goals away from home advances to the next round.
If there is still a tie after the away goals rule is applied, a 30-minute overtime period (divided into two 15-minute periods) is played followed by a penalty kick shootout, if necessary. The away goals rule does not apply to goals scored in the overtime period.
MLS Cup
The two conference champions face one another in the MLS Cup. The MLS Cup is a single match hosted by the team with the stronger regular season record.
Qualification
Qualification for the 2014 MLS Cup Playoffs was based on the results of the 2014 Regular Season. The five teams from each conference with the highest point totals were seeded into their conference playoff bracket.
The 2014 regular season ran from March 8, 2014 to October 26, 2014. Teams played 34 games total, 17 at home and 17 away and were awarded three points for a win, one point for a tie (draw), and zero points for a loss. When two or more teams have the same point totals, the following tiebreak rules were applied:
- Total number of wins
- Goal Differential
- Goals For
- Fewest Disciplinary Points in the official points table
- Road Goals Differential
- Road Goal For
- Home Goals Differential
- Home Goal For
- Coin Toss (2 clubs) or Drawing of Lots (3 or more)
Eastern Conference
New England Revolution won 7–3 on aggregate
New York Red Bulls advanced 3–2 on aggregate
Western Conference
Los Angeles Galaxy advanced 5–0 on aggregate
Seattle Sounders advanced on an away goal
Conference Finals
New England Revolution advanced 4–3 on aggregate
Los Angeles Galaxy advanced on an away goal