San Jose coach Frank Yallop described his side’s game on Friday evening as having "a bit of a playoff feel". As the game ended 0-0, we can only hope that he turns out to be wrong.

To put Yallop’s quote in context, he added that this was because "both teams did not want to give up much". So we know that at least one MLS coach does not view the forthcoming playoffs as an end of year soccer showcase, where the months of regular season toil will culminate in spectacular knockout matches brimming with skills, thrills and moments of dazzling individual magic.

Like all his fellow coaches, Yallop’s priority will not be to entertain the public and the media. No complaints there, as you can’t fault these men for doing their job. The pressure of the playoffs will likely dictate that the games will at least start out as cagey, nervous affairs with both teams not wanting to "give up much". Circumstances may push one or two teams towards daring, attacking play, but there’s no guarantee.

This leaves the spectator thinking: we didn’t see that many thrilling games during the regular season, and it seems we’re unlikely to see that many during the playoffs. So where and when, exactly, do MLS fans get their thrills?

The Washington Post published one of its typically snidey comments aimed at MLS a couple of weeks back (not by one of its regular soccer writers) about how the regular season has gone on for eternity. Bristling defensively at any slight against a minority sport that receives way too little coverage to start with - I’m still waiting for The Post’s match report on DC’s road game in LA last month - I sat down at my keyboard ready to rant. Until I realised that they were right.

We’ve been waiting for the post-season for weeks. All teams and fans have been focusing on nothing but a specific number of points they need to make the playoffs. It’s been like watching stragglers reach the line in a marathon long after the winners have showered and gone home. Most of the runners will make it eventually (even DC can’t fail to take a point from its final two home games, and I predict a 2-0 win over the Crew next Sunday), but a couple will drop out and stagger off before they reach the end. And then, thank heavens, the course marshals can finally clear the course and pick up the last empty water bottles.

The soccer itself has been a side issue. Let’s take a look at this weekend’s sorry selection of games. Or rather, let’s first take a look at the official MLS account:

"Three saved penalty kicks in one game, two golden goal match-winners - and two teams still battling for the one final place in the MLS Cup Playoffs - the countdown toward the end of the 2003 MLS regular season reached critical [sic] on Saturday with just two weekends remaining." (mlsnet.com)

That’s a very plucky interpretation. But how about:

"There were just six goals in five MLS games at the weekend, including two OT goals and two penalty kicks. This paucity of scoring reflected the fact that due to suspensions, injuries and various international call-ups and tournaments, most teams are exhausted with playing on plastic gridiron surfaces and are trying to save something for the games that actually matter." (miseryfan.net — my future website project.)

And look what the schedule has thrown up for LA and San Jose. As well as meeting each other in the playoffs, they face off in the last two completely meaningless regular season games. So they will play each other on four successive weekends. When they organised the fixture list, did it occur to no one at MLS that this might happen? Why arrange back-to-back fixtures at all? What, for example, is the logic behind DC playing the Metrostars twice in three days every September, especially given the chance that they too could meet in the playoffs just a few weeks later?

We all realise the limitations placed upon the MLS format by having just ten pro teams and no prospect of relegation. Yet setting aside the issue of whether or not the eastern and western conferences should be merged into a single division, the league seems to shoot itself in the foot by choosing the most awkward way possible to stagger its fixtures and ensure that some teams will play each other no less than six times a season.

For example, once DC qualifies it will be playing Chicago, New England or the Metrostars twice over again on top of the previous four meetings, yet will probably end up having played LA only twice all year. These teams all know each other well by now and, to return to the Yallop diagnosis, they won’t be giving up much. Especially when they can so easily pinpoint how to negate the opposition’s strengths.

Between the European 2004 qualifying matches, MLS and the Women’s World Cup Final, I watched way too much soccer this weekend, so forgive the disgruntled tone of this column as the ramblings of a man saturated by too many bad passes and poorly executed shots. Out of all these games, only the wonderful, flowing, skill-crammed game between the German and Swedish women will stay for long in my memory.

This wasn’t an exhibition match, either. It was the World Cup Final. There hasn’t been a half-decent men’s World Cup finale since 1986. It’s also been over a decade since there was a worthy English FA Cup Final, while last year’s MLS Cup showdown between LA and New England was one of the dreariest games ever played. It seems that just when everyone is watching and the game needs to make its greatest impression, the pressure to win strikes out all quality because of nerves and nullifying tactics.

I hope and pray that I am proven irrevocably wrong, and that the post-season rewards us with positive, invigorating soccer. And then the phrase "a bit of a playoff feel" will come to mean packed soccer stadia exulting over the best in skill that the US professional game has to offer. The coaches may have other ideas, but it’s a fan’s prerogative to dream, after all.