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Q: Garber on the length of Major League Soccer’s season:

A: If I could wave a magic wand we’d prefer to not have our MLS Cup in the middle of December. The last four MLS Cups have been in Kansas City, Columbus, Toronto and Toronto — northern cities where the temperatures have been hovering around (freezing). It speaks to how complicated building a soccer league in North America is because you have so many pressures on the schedule and weather changes and challenges with the travel that we end up producing the best possible schedule with all of the other factors that weigh into our competitive format … It’s going to be very difficult to do anything more than tweak it around the edges unless we dramatically change our format — that could be a split season or having enough southern cities as we expand and can play in February or early March in those cities and load their home games so that you can come into your northern cities in the spring. But where we are now we’re doing the best we can.

Q: Garber on Major League Soccer’s playoff system:

A: I think the playoff format has been good. Our television ratings and our attendances were record-setting this year. People are getting used to it. I still hear concerns from the none-core soccer fan about the away goal rule. I think if you’re going to play the game the way the world plays it then you have to play it that way. That said, if we were to go to a single-game series I wouldn’t be opposed to (losing the away goals rule). But I also believe our fans deserve to host a playoff game if they get there. It’s another example of conflicting pressures. Ultimately you make the best possible decision. The bottom line is that our ratings were up and our attendance was up dramatically … I would give a couple of fingers off my hand to eliminate that November (FIFA) break. I don’t believe they’re changing it. The question is: Can we end our season before it? That would require us to have fewer games or change our format or start at a time of the year that’s unmanageable.