Mls Cup Tickets

MLS Cup
Major League Soccer is the top-flight professional soccer league in the United States and was founded in 1996, after the country hosted the 1994 FIFA World Cup. It is sanctioned by the professional divisions of both the United States Soccer Federation (USSF or U.S. Soccer) and the Canadian Soccer Association (CSA), which are both members of FIFA.

MLS represents the top tier in the American Soccer Pyramid. The MLS Cup is awarded to the team that wins the final match of the post-season tournament in Major League Soccer. The trophy is called the Alan I. Rothenberg Trophy, after the founding chairman of MLS.

The 2007 MLS regular season begins April 7 and ends Oct. 21. The MLS Cup Playoffs begin Oct 27. The League's championship game, MLS Cup 2007, will be played November 18 at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in Washington, DC, home of D.C. United. The 13 MLS teams will play 30 regular-season games apiece. The 13 teams are split into two conferences - the Western Conference has six teams, while the Eastern Conference has seven, including the league's newest addition, Toronto FC.

The arrangement of the competition consists of each team playing 30 games, evenly divided among home and away matches. Each team will play every other team twice, home and away, for a total of 24 games. The remaining 6 games will all be intra-conference, with each club playing its fellow conference members. In the Western Conference, an additional game will be added to the above, highlighting a local or regional rivalry (Los Angeles vs. Chivas USA, Houston vs. Dallas, Salt Lake vs. Colorado). Eight teams will advance to the MLS Cup Playoffs. The top two teams in each conference, plus four "wild cards" with the most points after 30 games, regardless of conference, will qualify. The team that finishes with the most regular season points is awarded the Supporters' Shield and earns an automatic bid to the 2008 CONCACAF Champions Cup. This season seven of the 13 teams will play in soccer-specific stadiums that were custom built for MLS teams during the past six years. SuperLiga, a new MLS-Primera Division de Mexico competition, will also make up the 2007 season schedule, with most matches occurring midweek in July and August. FC Dallas, Los Angeles Galaxy, DC United and Houston Dynamo are expected to play at least three matches each. All MLS teams may also compete in the U.S. Open Cup (except Toronto), select international tournaments, and various exhibitions during the season.

For the 2006 season, MLS created their version of the scudetto (Italian: "small shield"), a symbol worn on the jersey by the team who won the previous season's Serie A (the top Italian league). The MLS scudetto is a curved, triangular badge featuring a backdrop of the American flag behind a replica of the Alan I.

Rothenberg MLS Cup trophy. The MLS scudetto is worn by the winning team the season following the victory. It is only during the subsequent season (two years after winning the championship), that the team adds a star - a common soccer signifier of titles won - above the team logo. The 2005 MLS Cup champion, the Los Angeles Galaxy, was the first team to wear the scudetto and now has a second star above the team shield on the jersey during the 2007 season.

More than 30 million fans have attended regular season games in MLS' 11-season history. The regular season games averaged 15,504 fans per game during the regular season and 21,330 during the post-season in 2006.