Does the MLS playoff system make any sense at all? You have to wonder, and no doubt there is a great deal of wondering and pondering and probably even despairing going on right now at MLS headquarters. The eight MLS playoff games played so far have been anything but satisfactory. The level of play, for starters, has been poor. So too has the excitement level. The weather hasn’t exactly helped, either – Saturday’s game in Foxborough between the New England Revs and the MetroStars was played in driving sleet.

But the weather cannot be used as an excuse for the generally low level of attendance. Even accepting the optimistic figures posted on the MLS Web site, the average of 13,273 for eight games is nearly 2,000 fans below the MLS regular season average of 15,108. It is that phrase – regular season – that exposes the real problem here. The 2005 MLS playoffs, rather than providing a climactic final to the regular season, have instead made a mockery of the six-month season and its 192 games.

That lengthy season ends up eliminating only four of the league’s 12 teams – the bottom two in the Eastern and Western conferences. The top four from each conference advance to the conference semifinals, a home-and-home series, with the aggregate score of the two games defining the winner. The higher-ranked team gets to host the second game of the series, which is supposed to confer an advantage. The thinking is that, should the second game end with the aggregate scores tied, then the advantage of playing at home will work for the higher-ranked team during the 30 minutes of overtime.

The theory is already rather suspect, as there are plenty of coaches who claim they’d rather host the first game. And, over the past two weekends, the practice has been a fiasco.

In the Western Conference, the season has been upended: The San Jose Earthquakes, runaway winners in the regular season, have been eliminated by the no. 4 finishers, the Los Angeles Galaxy. And the no. 2 finishers, FC Dallas, have been beaten by the no. 3 Colorado Rapids.

Things are not much better in the Eastern conference, where first place New England has survived, but second place D.C. United – the defending MLS champions – were soundly beaten by the third place Chicago Fire.

You could say that these are all heartwarming examples of the underdogs coming through, but you can’t deny that it makes a travesty of the regular season. In particular, because a generous eight out of 12 teams make the playoffs, it greatly reduces the importance – and therefore the competitiveness – of regular season games. MLS urgently needs to find a way of making its regular season more meaningful. Reducing the number of qualifiers and giving a more tangible playoff advantage to the higher-ranked teams are possible ways to accomplish that.

It needs emphasizing that there was nothing absurd about this weekend’s playoff results. The teams that won deserved to win. The Revs staged a splendid second-half comeback after falling behind the MetroStars 2-0 – but only after coach Steve Nicol overcame his reluctance to put Uruguayan playmaker Jose Cancela on the field. Cancela entered the game in the 62nd minute, scored the Revs’ first goal six minutes later, then assisted on the tying goal five minutes after that. Khano Smith scored the winner, and the Revs pulled off a famous victory in front of their own fans.

In the other three games, home fans were not so well treated. In Washington, the biggest crowd of the playoffs so far, 20,089, watched in shock as the Chicago Fire romped to a 3-0 halftime lead over D.C. United. Total disaster struck 10 minutes into the second half when United’s Argentine playmaker, Christian Gomez, was ejected for spitting at Chicago’s C.J. Brown. Jesse Marsch underlined the Fire’s superiority with a magnificent volleyed goal to make it 4-0.

Another sizable crowd – 17,824 – gathered in San Jose hoping to see the Earthquakes overcome the 3-1 deficit from the first-leg game against the Los Angeles Galaxy. It looked possible when Brian Ching headed one home after 42 minutes, but Ned Grabavoy’s neatly taken tying goal for the Galaxy effectively quashed the Earthquakes’ chances.

In Frisco, Texas, attendance at Pizza Hut Park – the newest of MLS’s soccer-specific stadiums – to see FC Dallas take on the Colorado Rapids was decidedly poor: only 10,104. But Dallas coach Colin Clarke had not helped matters by playing with dour defensive caution in the first game in Colorado. The result was an appallingly boring 0-0 tie, which brought no apologies from Clarke, who said he was satisfied with a tie on the road, and anyway, “That’s playoff soccer.”

Not exactly. But it is what a home-and-home series invites: tie on the road, win at home. It’s traditional soccer wisdom. Something that should give a strong hint to MLS that it should replace the semifinal series with single winner-take all games at the field of the higher-ranked teams.

Traditional soccer wisdom didn’t work for Clarke anyway. Carlos Ruiz did his best for Dallas with two superbly taken goals, but the Rapids replied through Jeff Cunningham and Ritchie Kotschau. It came down to penalty kicks, and when Rapids’ goalie Joe Cannon saved Roberto Mina’s effort, FC Dallas were out. What made it more humiliating for Dallas was that, following the ejection of Alain Nkong, the Rapids had played most of the second half and all of the 30-minute overtime period with only 10 men.

Thus, the single-game MLS conference finals will see the Chicago Fire at the New England Revs and the Los Angeles Galaxy at the Colorado Rapids.

The Dallas defeat was hardly good news for MLS. The grand finale of the season, MLS Cup 2005, will be played November 13 in Pizza Hut Park, a pre-decided neutral venue. But having the home team FC Dallas as one of the finalists would have been a major plus for attendance, enthusiasm, and atmosphere. As things stand, if there are to be passionately committed fans at the final – and a climactic game deserves and needs them – they will have to travel from Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, or Denver. They will not be coming in droves, you can be sure of that.

A couple of off-season tasks for MLS: how to remodel the playoff structure to stop it devaluing the regular season; and how to stage a final in an atmosphere that has the raw excitement of sports competition, rather than the bland chumminess of a stage-managed event.

pgardner@nysun.com