{"id":69457,"date":"2026-03-19T13:55:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T18:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/19\/the-mls-sprint-season-explained-14-games-playoffs-cup-qualifiers-and-more\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T13:55:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T18:55:12","slug":"the-mls-sprint-season-explained-14-games-playoffs-cup-qualifiers-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/19\/the-mls-sprint-season-explained-14-games-playoffs-cup-qualifiers-and-more\/","title":{"rendered":"The MLS \u2018sprint season\u2019 explained: 14 games, playoffs, cup qualifiers and more"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>\n<p>2027\u2019s short season will precede <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2025\/nov\/13\/mls-calendar-fall-spring-europe-schedule-format-owners-vote\">full calendar switch<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Five Concacaf Champions Cup berths will be awarded<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>No inter-conference play until MLS Cup<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The typical cliche for a regular season is that it\u2019s a marathon, not a sprint. In 2027, Major League Soccer will be the exception.<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday, MLS revealed how its short 2027 \u201csprint season\u201d will be formatted as it nears <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/news\/mls-to-align-calendar-with-top-leagues-around-world\">flipping its schedule<\/a> to a fall-to-spring format next year. The competition\u2019s structure will be familiar in many ways, with the regular season table seeding a postseason bracket and culminating with MLS Cup. Lasting just under three months, it\u2019ll proceed at a breakneck pace that could be an enthralling departure from the league\u2019s usual flow.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2026\/mar\/19\/mls-2027-sprint-season-explained\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2027\u2019s short season will precede full calendar switch Five Concacaf Champions Cup berths will be awarded No inter-conference play until MLS Cup The typical cliche for a regular season is that it\u2019s a marathon, not a sprint. In 2027, Major League Soccer will be the exception. On Thursday, MLS revealed how its short 2027 \u201csprint &#8230; <a title=\"The MLS \u2018sprint season\u2019 explained: 14 games, playoffs, cup qualifiers and more\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/19\/the-mls-sprint-season-explained-14-games-playoffs-cup-qualifiers-and-more\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about The MLS \u2018sprint season\u2019 explained: 14 games, playoffs, cup qualifiers and more\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}