2014 MLS Cup Playoffs
 |
|||
| Country | United States Canada |
||
|---|---|---|---|
| Teams | 10 | ||
| Defending champions | Sporting Kansas City | ||
| Champions | LA Galaxy (5th title) | ||
| Runners-up | New England Revolution | ||
| Semi-finalists | |||
| Matches played | 15 | ||
| Goals scored | 42 (2.8 per match) | ||
| Top goal scorer(s) |
 Charlie Davies Bradley Wright-Phillips(4 goals each) |
||
|
|||
The 2014 MLS Cup Playoffs (branded as the 2014 MLS Cup Playoffs presented by AT&T for sponsorship reasons) was the nineteenth post-season tournament culminating the Major League Soccer regular season. The tournament began in late October and culminated on December 7, 2014 with MLS Cup 2014, the nineteenth league championship for MLS.
The 2014 playoffs was the first time that the away goals rule was applied to the home-and-away, aggregate-goal series. The first series impacted by the rule was a Western Conference semifinal that saw the Seattle Sounders advance past FC Dallas when the first match (held in Dallas) ended 1–1 and the second (held in Seattle) ended 0–0.
LA Galaxy defeated New England Revolution 2–1 after extra time in the MLS Cup 2014, thus earning a spot in the 2015–16 CONCACAF Champions League.
Sporting Kansas City were the defending champions, but they were eliminated in the Eastern Conference Knockout Round by New York Red Bulls.
The top five teams from both the Western Conference and the Eastern Conference qualified and are seeded in the MLS Playoffs in order to determine conference champions. The two conference champions will face off in the MLS Cup.
The fourth and fifth seeds in each conference play a single match hosted by the fourth seed. The winners advance to the conference semifinals.
In the conference semifinals, the first seed in each conference plays the winner of their conference knockout round match. Also in the conference semifinals, the second and third seeded teams in each conference play one another. The teams winning the conference semifinal matches advance to their respective conference final.
In these two rounds, all matches are played in home-and-away aggregate-goal format. The lower seeded team hosts the first leg of the series and the higher seeded team hosts the second leg. The first leg lasts the usual 90-minutes and can end in a tie. In the second leg, if the two teams are tied after 90-minutes (180-minute total) then the team that scored more goals away from home advances to the next round.
...
Wikipedia