Withholding Supporters’ Shield Would Make MLS Fans Look Selfish And Petty

On Saturday, with little warning and roughly three weeks remaining in the MLS regular season, the fan-operated Supporters’ Shield Foundation announced that its namesake, the MLS Supporters’ Shield, would not be awarded to the team with the best regular season record in 2020. By Monday, and after tremendous blowback coming from contending teams like Toronto FC and the Philadelphia Union, it appeared the trust was reconsidering its position.

If there is any common sense involved in the second discussion, the original decision will be reversed. Otherwise, there is only one fair conclusion: that the league’s most ardent fans and supposedly their teams’ fiercest advocates are actually petty and selfish people who either can’t see outside themselves, or don’t care to try.

“You have a large group of players, of coaches, of executives on the teams, at the clubs, in the league who are pouring their hearts and souls into this league and trying to grow the league and trying to improve the league, and trying to every year take it a little bit further,” said Toronto captain Michael Bradley after Sunday’s 1-0 win over Atlanta United, which increased TFC’s lead at the top of the MLS overall table. “And when you have a decision like that that gets made three weeks before the end of the season, it’s hard to … it comes across in a really, really bad way.”

First, some background: Unlike most other North American leagues where the only title that matters is awarded in the postseason, the Supporters’ Shield is actually a pretty big deal for MLS teams. This is partly because in most other leagues around the world, the team with the best regular season is actually crowned champion without any postseason play. (There are typically separate, singe-elimination cup competitions that run concurrently to the regular season.) And it’s partly because the winner gets prize money and, in the case of all the non-Canadian clubs, a spot in next year’s Concacaf Champions League.

There would have been some merit to canceling this year’s trophy had such a decision been more transparent and announced at a far earlier juncture. While the MLS season is never perfectly balanced, it is true that the Covid-19 pandemic has forced a far more unbalanced 23-game schedule than the 34 games teams play in a normal year. It’s also fair to note the plight of the Colorado Rapids and their virus outbreak, and the reality that not every team may finish the 23-game schedule. Earlier this year, MLS Commissioner Don Garber even left open the possibility that standings and playoff places might have to be decided on a points-per-game basis if some teams had multiple postponements.

But this late in, such a sudden change of course requires asking this question: Who will such a move help, and who will it hurt? The answers are that it will help almost no one in a meaningful way, and that it could emotionally harm every player, coach and staff member on a contending club, during a season when every man and woman involved has made enormous sacrifices just to resume play.

“The legacy of a club, the legacy of a player, the legacy of a team and fans is how many trophies you lift,” Toronto manager Greg Vanney said. “And so to find out with five games that a handful of people decided there is no trophy for whatever group wins it — and right now we’re in pole position — for me it’s really kind of disgraceful. It’s losing the plot of what professional sports is all about, and it’s really pulling the rug out from a bunch of professional players who really play for those kinds of things. For trophies and the emotion that that brings.”

You can take issue with the idea that a season should’ve been played at all, given the continuing level of virus spread in the U.S. But the concessions remain real. Every player took a financial hit in extremely contentious labor negotiations just to get the season restarted after the pandemic halted play in early March. Three teams have absorbed virus outbreaks since July, and three Canadian teams have set up temporary home bases south of their national border just to make sure they can complete their schedule, including Toronto.

Perhaps it won’t be the most fairly awarded trophy. But it’s impossible to imagine that any future reflection on this season will come without the context of just how unusual 2020 has been for everyone. And even within the trappings of this bizarre year, the initial decision was so sudden and ill-timed that it strained credulity.

“I thought it was a joke,” said Philadelphia Union manager Jim Curtin a 2-1 win over New England on Monday night helped his team keep pace with Toronto. “So again, I don’t even know how to really react. It obviously is real. So now, we’re going to still try and push for the best record in our league, just like Toronto is. If we need to call it something different, then we should do that.”

Credit the Supporters’ Shield Trust for at least reconsidering, and even moreso the pledging to seek out every possible last point when they’re already shoo-ins for the MLS Cup Playoffs. This includes Toronto, which has the least to play for down the stretch with no silverware on the line. As a Canadian club, the only route to continental football is through a separate competition, the Canadian Championship. Not to mention how little homefield advantage in the playoffs might mean if you can’t actually play at home.

“If we win this thing, we’re going to lift a trophy,” Vanney said defiantly of trying to finish with the best record, regardless. “I told the guys we would go get a manhole cover and we’d spray paint it silver and gold and we’re going to lift that damn thing if we have to lift it all of us together. But we’re going to lift something at the end of this if we win it, and we’re going to celebrate. They can’t take that away from us.”

Hopefully it won’t come to vandalizing public works, and more sane heads will prevail. Because, in addition to all those who believed they were in contention for the Supporters’ Shield, there are so many American and Canadian fans out there who love this game and this league selflessly. They don’t deserve to be associated with such short-sighted and small-minded decision.