After years of struggling to deal with an international window during the middle of their playoffs, Major League Soccer announced drastic changes to the 2019 playoff schedule on Monday afternoon. Starting next year, MLS will wrap up the regular season on the first Sunday of October, and then take a break for FIFA’s October international window. The MLS Cup Playoffs will then commence at the conclusion of that break, on October 19, culminating on November 10th, the date of the MLS Cup final.
There’s also been a significant change to the structure of the playoffs. Next year will feature seven teams from each conference, one more than the six that have qualified in recent years.