Indoor Soccer Mini-games

Indoor soccer’s first-ever mini-game came to us from the folks who first used it in outdoor soccer: the original North American Soccer League. The Memphis Rogues beat the Minnesota Kicks 1-0 on Tuesday, February 26, 1980 when Tony Field scored nine minutes into the mini-game for what turned out to be the decider in the Cinderella Rogues’ series victory. That was the first of what – by my count – have been a total of 41 Division I ¹We can argue – and we have – about what constitutes Division I in indoor soccer when there is no clear direction and not 100 percent agreement from the few historians in this space. But the AISA in 1987 was definitely not it. indoor soccer playoff mini-games in history. Home teams are now 23-18 all-time in these affairs.

In the current league, the MASL, home teams now have a 12-11 edge in 23 mini-games. Home teams had a record-long streak of six straight home wins (which ended when Milwaukee won at Utica on April 16) after a stretch where home teams lost seven of eight, so while it can be streaky, there’s no evidence of a major advantage in having that tiebreaker at home.

(DIGRESSION: From 2006-2009, the second MISL and the NISL – which became the third MISL – used a variation of the mini-game format which was sudden death. That happened seven times in four seasons, with the home team winning four and losing three. So overall, home teams are 27-21 in 48 tiebreakers. And, if you’re curious, two of the three non-Division I mini-games took place on the same day, April 5, 1987. Home teams – the Tampa Bay Rowdies and Toledo Pride – both lost, to the Memphis Rogues and Chicago Power, respectively. The other was in the 1998 EISL playoffs, won by the home team Mississippi Beach Kings over the Huntsville Fire on Aug. 2, 1998.)

Here’s the list, updated through April 21, 2023:

Now let’s look at the even-worse-than-a-mini-game scenario, the Golden Goal. Here’s a list of the seven instances between 2006 and 2009 where teams split the two games and a 15-minute sudden death period followed:

The mini-game is not particularly well-liked in some quarters, but the economics of the situation make it unlikely it’ll be done away with anytime soon. We have not had a best-of-three or best-of-five with full games since the 2003 MISL II Finals, and with good reason:

• The prospect of trying to schedule a third game on short notice with MASL teams not having control of their venues is problematic. We’ve already seen the Milwaukee Wave have to cool their heels for a week because of arena availability, and event congestion would threaten to extend the playoffs even more.
• Just as important, trying to sell a short-notice third game presents a big challenge. The “but it’s an important game” idea doesn’t really work as well in this sport as in some others. It’s not likely that third game would generate enough ticket revenue to pay expenses.
• A third game would require short-notice travel, which isn’t cheap.

It’s far more likely we’ll see at least one more mini-game in this year’s playoffs than it is that we’ll see it done away with. (And since I wrote that, we’ve seen two more and still may see as many as another two.)