Away goals is the answer, or is it?

Soccer Betting Lines

10/29/2007 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Major League Soccer playoffs opened up this past week with less than spectacular results on the field.

In the first four games of the respective home-and-home, aggregate goal, conference semifinal series, a total of only three goals were scored, each in different games. Not exactly the kind of exciting soccer that will win over the American public.

How can the league correct this problem?

A simple format change could do the trick.

Change the tiebreaker rule in the semifinal series from an extra-time period and penalty kick shootout to away goals counting as double, as many European leagues do. That way the higher seeds will be more apt to opening things up in the first leg, searching for the pivotal away goal, instead of shutting things down under the current format like most higher seeds did in their respective openers this weekend.

"I'm not sure our playoff format encourages (teams to get defensive) any more than any other format," MLS Deputy Commissioner Ivan Gazidis said. "There are several formats you can look at, one is having away goals count double, that is certainly something we've discussed. One is having the higher seeded team go through if goals are tied in aggregate at the end of the series. All of these other formats have very similar challenges, frankly."

The current format has the higher seeds playing on the road in the first leg, then hosting the second leg. Meaning, a 0-0 tie in the first game is like a win. The higher seeds are confident that if they can return home for the final leg on equal ground, they can earn a win to advance. If the aggregate score is still tied after 90 minutes of regulation in the second leg, the teams play a 30-minute extra-time period, consisting of two 15-minute halves. If the score is still tied, the winner is decided by a penalty-kick shootout.

"It's the reason you position yourself (as the higher seed) to get that second game at home," New England goalkeeper Matt Reis said after earning a scoreless draw at New York Saturday. "We always seem to play more attacking soccer at home."

Gazidis also argues that if the away goals rule was put into effect, the home teams would be the ones shutting it down, so as not to give up the away goal.

"The away goals counting double was supposed to make road teams less conservative," he said of the European rule. "I don't think there is any evidence that it has actually had that effect or that it has increased the number of overall goals or chances or moments of excitement. In fact, what often seems to happen is the home team, because it doesn't want to concede that all important away goal, is more conservative than it otherwise might have been."

That said, the strategy of at least three of the four higher seeds this week was to play very conservatively, hoping to return home tied.

In the playoff opener on Oct. 25, the East's top seed, D.C. United, started its series against fourth-seeded Chicago at Toyota Park without its top two strikers - Luciano Emilio and Jaime Moreno - on the pitch because of ankle injuries. The team came out in a 4-5-1 formation with the obvious strategy of playing for a scoreless draw.

When Fire forward Chris Rolfe scored just 14 minutes into the contest, that plan was thwarted. United was forced to start Moreno in the second half and bring in Emilio in the 78th minute while switching to its more familiar 4-4-2 formation to try and get the equalizer, effectively opening up the game.

The Fire will take a 1-0 advantage to D.C. for Thursday's second leg.

In the other Eastern semi, second-seeded New England was dominated in the first half by third-seeded New York, but survived the push for a goal as the Red Bulls ran out of gas in the second half. The game ended in a scoreless draw.

"It was pretty obvious that New England came in here with a plan that a (draw) was fine and if a goal came, they would take it," New York coach Bruce Arena said. "They were hard to break down and they defended well tonight."

"The way they played, the demeanor, the way they were moving the ball around, they weren't trying to go for it at all so you could tell that from the beginning," New York's Jozy Altidore said. "But credit them, they did what they had to do."

That series is knotted at zero with the second leg at Gillette Stadium on Saturday deciding who advances.

"We are very excited to go home and make sure that we take care of our own business," Revs forward Taylor Twellman said.

In the Western bracket, top-seeded CD Chivas USA was in a similar position to D.C., with a number of its top offensive players banged up - particularly Ante Razov and Maykel Galindo. As a result, the Western champions played with a lone forward up top against fourth-seeded Kansas City.

"Their whole mindset was to come here and just defend, and they made it very difficult on us," Wizards coach Curt Onalfo said.

Despite that strategy, the Wizards broke through with a goal by Davy Arnaud in the first half, and currently lead the series 1-0.

The only series in which the top seed seemed to want to score was the other Western semi between second-seeded and defending champions Houston and third- seeded FC Dallas. FCD was outshot 15-9 by the champs, but still ended up getting the lone goal in the game by Clarence Goodson in the 23rd minute.

In this series, it was the home side that tightened up, especially after getting a goal, hoping to hang on, up 1-0, when it travels to Houston on Friday

"We limited their chances and they got their one goal, wasted time and got the result," Houston midfielder Richard Mulrooney said after the loss. "Thankfully, it's a two-game series and we go back to our place next Friday night and we're looking forward to it."

So while away goals would probably make the opening leg of the respective series more entertaining, it really serves a set-up game for the climactic second leg. All eight teams currently have a shot of advancing heading into the second legs of their respective series, with New England being the only higher seed not in a hole.

"I think (the second-leg games) are going to be very tense and very close affairs in every case, we don't have a lot to separate the teams," Gazidis said. "There is not a team going into the second leg that feels like it has a massive uphill battle to win. Every team has roughly a 50-50 chance of making it through so I think you can probably expect that the return legs are going to be very tense. The first goal is going to be very important in every case and fans are likely to lose a significant portion of their fingernails."

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SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.

Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"

A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."

Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.

In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.

"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."

Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.

But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"

Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.

This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.

Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.

In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.

No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.

And that's all any bettor can ask for.

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