It seems as if every single season there is an ongoing debate on whether the Supporters’ Shield means more than the MLS Cup. For those of you that don’t know, the Supporters’ Shield is an award that is given to the team with the most points during the regular season.

It began as an idea among fans to award a “championship” in the vein as most European leagues. In Spain, England, Italy and most everywhere else around the World, except for nations like Mexico, Australia, and a couple of others, a champion is not decided via a playoff system but by which team ends the season with the best record.

There are usually other “championships” that hold less importance that can be decided by playoffs or knockout game for example, FA Cup, Coppa Italia, and Copa de Rey, but those are usually seen as secondary titles that don’t mean as much as the regular season championship through points. This is obviously not the way American sports usually award championships, the NBA title doesn’t go to the team with the best record but to the team that manages to get through a few series of best of games.

Major League Soccer adopted the American way instead of the European style in order to be more accommodating to casual fans in the United States. Until this day Major League Soccer still advertises the MLS Cup over any other game in the league with probably the exception of the All-Star game.

Now here’s where the issue arises, which championship means more? Is the title that awards a team’s full season performance, albeit a title not “officially” recognized, more meaningful than MLS Cup, a trophy that awards a hot streak at the right time?

According to DeAndre Yedlin, member of the Seattle Sounders – winners of the Supporters’ Shield as of yesterday – he values it more than MLS Cup:

“I honestly think the Supporters Shield is more important than an MLS Cup championship. In terms of the best team, this is the best team over a full season.”

Now, I’m going to make a few points why I don’t honestly believe that he thinks this and is either running a great public relations scheme or trying to ease pressure off of himself and the rest of the team as they enter the MLS Cup playoffs.

First of all, if this championship is more important, does that mean they won’t go all out for the MLS Cup? I mean, who cares if they got the important championship already, right? Second, will Seattle start next season with an extra star above their crest, the star that represents a league championship? Nope, they won’t, and they’ll also not hold a parade for winning the Supporters’ Shield but will hold one if they ever win MLS Cup.

I’m not in anyway stating that I don’t value the Supporters’ Shield, because the truth is that I want the Houston Dynamo to win it and prefer it over the MLS Cup. That’s only because the Dynamo have already won the Cup twice in my lifetime, and I kind of want to celebrate a new type of trophy. However, that’s my personal preference and it wouldn’t be the case if we hadn’t already won the Cup.

Last year, when I was in New York for the Houston Dynamo vs. New York Red Bulls Eastern Conference semi-final second leg, New York were the current holders of the Supporters’ Shield. They had won it just a couple of weeks prior, and many people from their fan base considered it a title that finally ended their championship drought.

However, one thing that I noticed when in the stands was that as soon as the Dynamo scored and tied the game up to push the series towards extra time, everybody was talking about their title hopes fleeting due to the Curse of the Caricola. When Houston finally scored in extra time, people around me were in tears, frustrated, and cursing quite profoundly.

These fans didn’t look like they were a fan base that had already clinched or won a championship a couple of weeks before, they looked like a fan base that saw the MLS Cup slipping from their hands. Another observation is the fact that thousands of L.A. Galaxy fans didn’t travel to Seattle for the final regular season game that decided whether L.A. or Seattle would clinch the Shield.

The way this season worked out, the winner of that match would clinch, so it was as close to a final as the Supporters’ Shield can experience. By contrast, when the Houston Dynamo have made it to the MLS Cup thousands of fans have traveled to Dallas, Washington D.C., and to Los Angeles twice.

The thing is that I understand why some people may not see the Shield as a viable option for the season championship, and that’s because the MLS currently has an unbalanced schedule that sees some teams facing other teams more than others. In the playoffs, at least you’re divided by conference, have games that include aggregate scores, and the MLS Cup is held among the winners of their respective conferences. It seems more chaotic, but at least it is a chaos that makes sense and has already been accepted in other sports that American watch.

Truth is that any stat that I give you is meaningless compared to the fan base reaction I mentioned earlier. There weren’t thousands of fans travelling for the final regular season that decided the winners of the Shield, and in the end that’s who really decides which championship is more important.

It often times seems like only the winners of the Supporters’ Shield tend to argue the loudest about how much more important it is than MLS Cup, but when it comes down to it, if they don’t win the MLS Cup they’ll be more disappointed than they’ll let on. All you have to do is ask the New York Red Bull fans that shed a few tears and found no solace in their Supporters’ Shield.