2011 Playoffs Set for NASL
Edited 9-26-11, 1:00 p.m. to include new playoff game information from NASL.com
The North American Soccer League concluded their inaugural regular season on Saturday evening with 3 interesting match-ups that all had playoff implications.
FC Tampa Bay defeated the Fort Lauderdale Strikers giving FC Tampa Bay 3rd place in the standings. The loss for the Strikers dropped them to 4th place but each team will get home field advantage for their first single-game elimination quarterfinal game.
The Carolina RailHawks had grabbed the #1 spot weeks ago. They finish the season with 54 points. The Puerto Rico Islanders finished 2nd in the league with 52 points. Both teams get a bye in the first week of the playoffs and will join in the second week as the teams remaining move to the semifinals, which are a home and away series.
The other two contests Saturday night saw the NSC Minnesota Stars defeat the Carolina RailHawks in Cary, N.C. and the Montreal Impact beat the Atlanta Silverbacks. Minnesota went into Saturday night’s contest one point ahead of Montreal in the standings. With both teams winning Minnesota retained their 6th place standing with 36 points and and sent Montreal packing (35 points) and eliminated them from the playoffs. The Silverbacks had been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs weeks ago.
FC Edmonton had finished their regular season play last week and ended up tied with Minnesota at 35 points. The first tie breaker for NASL teams is head-to-head competition. The Eddies had the better of the Stars’ with a 2-2-0 record so they finish in the 5th position.
So the playoffs look like this. In the quarterfinal single elimination game:
Third place FC Tampa Bay (11-8-9) will host the 6th place NSC Minnesota Stars (9-9-10) Saturday, October 1st at Al Lang Stadium with a kick off at 7:30 EDT.
The 4th place Fort Lauderdale Strikers (9-11-8) will play host to 5th place FC Edmonton (10-6-12) also on Saturday, October 1st at Lockhart Stadium with a kick off at 7:30 EDT.
Here are the NASL playoff dates:
Semifinal Round – Leg 1
Saturday, October 8
FC Tampa Bay, FC Edmonton OR Ft. Lauderdale at Puerto Rico – 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, October 8 or Sunday, October 9
Carolina at Ft. Lauderdale, FC Edmonton OR NSC Minnesota
(Ft. Lauderdale would host on Sunday, October 9 at 6:00 p.m., FC Edmonton would host on Sunday, October 9 at 7:30 p.m. and NSC Minnesota would host on Saturday, October 8 at 7:30 p.m.)
Semifinal Round – Leg 2
Saturday, October 15
Ft. Lauderdale, FC Edmonton OR NSC Minnesota at Carolina – 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, October 15 or Sunday, October 16
Puerto Rico at FC Tampa Bay, FC Edmonton OR Ft. Lauderdale
(FC Tampa Bay would host on Saturday, October 15 at 7:30 p.m., FC Edmonton would host on Sunday, October 16 at 4:00 p.m. and NSC Minnesota would host on Saturday, October 15 at 7:30 p.m.)
Championship Round – Leg 1
Saturday, October 22
TBD
Championship Round – Leg 2
Saturday, October 29
TBD
Each team hosts one leg in the Semifinal and Championship Rounds.
Semifinal and final rounds will consist of a traditional two-game, home and home series using aggregate goals to determine the winner.
All games will be streamed live on UStream with links found on the NASL site.
Regular Season Trophy Awarded
NASL Commissioner David Downs was on hand in Cary, N.C. on Saturday evening to award the regular season trophy to the Carolina RailHawks after their 2-1 defeat to the Minnesota Stars. Some of the 6,234 fans at WakeMed Park, the third largest crowd in RailHawks history, stuck around to watch the ceremonies.
The RailHawks finish the regular season with 54 points and a 17-3-8 record. The 17 wins are a new club record, one of the more than 20 records that fell over the course of this landmark season. They also scored a club-record and NASL-best 50 goals, and their 0.92 goals against average was best the league. In one stretch of the season Carolina won 10 straight and went unbeaten for 13 games in a row.
“I think it gives the organization something to build upon,” said RailHawks coach Martin Rennie. “Sponsors and fans like to be a part of a winning team, and we’ve provided that. We could have run away with it by a lot more points. In the end, we didn’t manage to do that. But when you look back on it, we won a regular-season title.”
Photo by Rob Kinnan - www.robkinnanphotography.com
Comments are closed.
so…
the railhacks and islanders haven’t decided what day they are going to host their playoff games yet? seems to me they would want to set these immediately to sell the most tickets possible, no?
That is pretty good thinking rookie. That does make sense, and you don’t need a set opponent to sell tickets either.
Important for the semifinals is that October 7th date. If either the Strikers, Rowdies, or both, advance, there is a USMNT game in Miami on the 8th that would kill supporter attendance in FTL and to a lesser extent TB if the home leg was played there at the same time.
GO STRIKERS!! BEAT THOSE EDDIES!!
Also BQ, I believe the first tie breaker is head-to-head points between the tied teams. You have it listed as overall record in the article.
bq- can you try to find this one out?
or, i will text kartic
@F-19,
Yes, you were correct. That should have been head-to-head. The article is now corrected.
The NASL is not yet ready to announce those dates from what I understand and I’m not yet sure when they will announce them but I would think they would want to get that information out ASAP.
That is a very titchy (small) trophy indeed.
Couldn’t NASL have sprung for something more grandiose??
Thought it was a bit, shall we say, interesting myself. Not sure what the significance of the small pitcher is. I will see if I can find out. I do know this, the NASL championship trophy is being created by Rich Levy who designed the NASL Logo, ball, Ft. Lauderdale Strikers logo as well as most of the MLS logos and slogans you’ve come to know. I’m interested to see what Rich has up his sleeve for this specially commissioned trophy.
@BQ – In keeping with the “American” spirit of sports, a regular season champion is “rewarded” by an advantageous draw in the playoffs, not necessarily a fancy trophy. I know some soccer purests would love to see playoffs eliminated in our leagues, but it’s what Americans are used to. With this perspective, I expect to see something much more eye-catching for the NASL Cup trophy. Mr. Levy has done a great job with everything he’s done for the league and teams so far, so I’m sure it will be well-received.
F-19 makes a great point about the date of the semi-final round games that I’m glad to see. His supporters group Flight 19, plus the Miami Ultras group as well, I know are planning to have a presence at that USMNT friendly on the 8th, so I’m very glad to see the league schedule around it. That is going to be one soccer-crazed weekend here in South Florida, as, sorry Eddies fans, we plan to be very much alive still at that point! Go Strikers!!!
Return-
Where have you seen/heard any info about the Oct. 8th weekend?
@superrookie – I was just going by what BQ has above. But the NASL.com site now has a schedule up and it looks slightly different. It shows that Puerto Rico is choosing to play the first leg at home, while Carolina is choosing to play away in its first leg. It looks like if the matchup is Strikers vs. Carolina, they’d play on Sunday October 9th, still avoiding that October 8th USMNT game, which is the right thing to do. Dolphins have a bye that week which helps as well with the Sunday game. Obviously we have to take care of business against the Eddies first, and then see what happens in Tampa.
Minnesota showed their possible date at home should they make it that far and they said the game would be on the 8th. Why? Why not the 7th?
@BQ – I would think they would want all the games on Saturday nights. I understand not wanting to have a possible conflict with the USMNT game at Sun Life on October 8th, but otherwise, you’d have to think Saturdays would be the way to go. Why would you want that semifinal game, if the Stars make it, to be on the 7th instead of the 8th? Is something going on in the area that night that would impact attendance?
Strikers Return,
To me the better question is why would you EVER want to book a game the same evening and time as your National Team is playing? In many countries the associations don’t even allow games to be played at the same time. They want the National Team to be the focus. I agree with that. Plus, there are plenty of soccer supporters who are hard enough to convince to come to a D2 game and it you pit that against at NATs game they will always choose the Nats. So why would you even consider booking a game at the same time if you have the option of booking it on a Friday night.
The NASL this season was a million times better than the USSF D2 last year. Kudos to NASL for a great year. Lots of hard work, etc. I cannot wait for the play-offs. COME ON YOU STARS!
@BQ – I can see your point. I guess, just from my perspective, I’d always choose the Strikers over a USMNT game. I know not everyone goes with club over country, but it’s a no doubter for me, especially a playoff game.
Thanks for the info BQ – Levy has done a phenomenal job on the NASL stuff (although I’d love to know which MLS logos he designed – just league stuff, or any club “crests”? There are some fantastic club logos and some real clunkers.). I’m sure the NASL champion will have a great trophy to celebrate, but if you can get more info or a large image of the Railhawks’ titchy trophy, that’d be cool. (That kind of info should really be on the NASL website….)
Look at the image here: it’s finely detailed but so small it’s laughable. I’ve been fantasy pools with better trophies than that.
http://www.carolinarailhawks.com/index.php?id=111&newsid=1339
One small point for StrikersReturn – definitely agree on keeping the playoffs, but the NHL has the President’s Trophy for the team that finishes with the best regular season record, and contending teams take it quite seriously. So there’s it’s not just a “Eurosnob” thing to want a lovely trophy to celebrate regular season success.
Sorry – I didn’t mean to type “so there’s it’s..” Too many half-finished sentences…too late at night to be posting!
The players’ faces in that picture are PRICELESS.
My question is, if the league doesn’t want to reward the regular season champion with serviceable hardware (a la Strikers Return’s comment), why give a trophy at all? It strikes me as a slap in the face to give someone a trophy that could just as easily be a participation award in a middle school pay-for-play tournament.
“…it’s finely detailed but so small it’s laughable. I’ve been fantasy pools with better trophies than that.”
-CasualSoccerFan
Can’t add too much to the above brilliant assessment. Not trying to pilie on but a glass plate with an 18″ radius and the words “2011 NASL Regular Season Champions” printed on it would have been a bit easier to see from the first few rows of the stands.