Florida has been a prospective target site for the restart of many sports seasons, while Orlando specifically has garnered a lot of interests. Not only has the NBA discussed Orlando as the best site to continue its season but now the MLS has joined in on that thought as well.
The plan to restart the season in the form of a mini-tournament would call for three groups of six teams and a fourth group with the remaining eight teams with games being played at Walt Disney World’s Wide World of Sports. The hope would be that each team plays a minimum of five games before the top two seeds of each group advance to a knockout round. LAFC would be one of those top-seeded teams. While these group games would count words the teams’ regular-season record, the knockout games would not.
What to do after such a tournament is completed is still up in limbo. The talk has been that the league could have teams play eighteen more games but only intra-conference matchups and the top nine teams from each conference would qualify for the playoffs.
Player’s have taken well to the idea of going to Orlando for a mini-tournament for the reason that they would have to be quarantined away from their families. LAFC star Carlos Vela was one of those players who came out against the plan. His wife is pregnant with their second child so Vela doesn’t see it possible that he could just drop everything and take off to Orlando away from his family for months.
The pandemic at hand has made it difficult across all major sports. The idea of athletes having to be away from their families for such a long time seems to be a deal-breaker for most and Vela is no exception.
Let’s hope they come to a better plan to restart the MLS season.
