Major League Soccer is the premier professional soccer league in the United States and Canada. As of

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretariat; The global monkeypo ...

, it consists of 28 teams: 25 in the United States and 3 in Canada. The league has played since 1996. Each year, it plays a league which determines entry into the

playoffs The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eit ...

. The league is divided into two

conferences A conference is a meeting of two or more experts to discuss and exchange opinions or new information about a particular topic. Conferences can be used as a form of group decision-making, although discussion, not always decisions, are the main ...

, the Eastern Conference and Western Conference. In 2000 and 2001, there was also a Central Conference. The team with the overall best regular-season record is awarded the Supporters' Shield, one of three major domestic trophies in North American soccer (the others being the national championships—the U.S. Open Cup or the Canadian Championship—and the primary trophy: the

MLS Cup The MLS Cup is the annual championship game of Major League Soccer (MLS) and the culmination of the MLS Cup Playoffs. The game is held in November and pits the winner of the Eastern Conference Final against the winner of the Western Conferen ...

league championship). In 2010 and 2011, the league played as a

double round robin A round-robin tournament (or all-go-away-tournament) is a competition in which each contestant meets every other participant, usually in turn.''Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1971, G. & C. Me ...

, with each team playing each other team one home and away—creating a balanced schedule. With an unsuitable number of teams beginning in 2012, the league has moved to an unbalanced schedule weighted towards a team's respective conference. The postseason consists of a 14-team, four-round knockout. The top team in each conference enters in the overall quarterfinal round, while the remaining teams from each conference playoff for a spot in that round. The

is a single match final with the winner becoming league champion of the year. Seven times a team has won the league double: winning both the MLS Cup and the Supporters' Shield in the same season. In 2017,

Toronto FC Toronto Football Club (commonly known as Toronto FC or TFC) is a Canadian professional soccer club based in Toronto. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Eastern Conference. The team plays its home matches at BM ...

became the first team to win a

domestic treble A treble in association football is achieved when a club team wins three trophies in a single season. A ''continental treble'' involves winning the club's national league competition, main national cup competition, and main continental trophy. A ...

. The

MLS Golden Boot The MLS Golden Boot (currently commercially termed "Audi Golden Boot") has been awarded since the 2005 season to Major League Soccer's regular–season leading scorer. The award replaced the MLS Scoring Champion Award that was awarded since the le ...

is awarded each year to the player with the most goals in the regular season, and the best overall player is awarded the Landon Donovan MVP Award.

List of seasons

The following is a list of all MLS seasons. It contains the number of teams, the number of regular-season games played per team, the champion—winner of the MLS Cup, the winners of the regular-season Eastern Conference, the Western Conference, and for 2000 and 2001, the defunct Central Division, the winner of the Most Valuable Player Award (MVP), the top scorer(s), and the regular-season average attendance.

References

{{Major League Soccer seasons

Seasons A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and po ...

List of seasons

See also

References