Bracketology check-in: A tough first round

Last week, the writers at Stumptown Footy decided they’d try their hand at making a bracket for the 2020 MLS Cup Playoffs. Since Round 1 has officially ended, it felt like a good time to check in and see how our brackets looked. After examining everyone’s brackets, let’s just say things are ... not going great.

For starters, we’re a combined 16-16 right now, so we are technically .500. However, we all had the Timbers making it to the MLS Cup Final. Call us homers if you want, but we were all pretty confident, even though fan confidence doesn’t translate to wins. Finally, all of us had the Philadelphia Union winning the whole darn thing. They just lost in the first round to the New England Revolution last night. Overall, it has not been exactly a successful MLS bracketology season for Stumptown. Let’s take a look at the records so far and judge our own performances.

Sam Svilar’s Bracket Record: 3-5

Sam’s hopes for San Jose madness were dashed when the San Jose Earthquakes lost handily in PKs to Sporting Kansas City. That was a bit of a bummer, as I also had San Jose causing some chaos. His best pick was definitely Nashville over Toronto FC, which in hindsight was probably the most logical pick considering the top two seeds both lost in the East. Always choose chaos. Otherwise, the Colorado Rapids fell to Minnesota United and Orlando City beat New York City FC, which all hurt Sam. At least he got his Columbus Crew and Seattle Sounders picks right.

Timm Higgins’s Bracket Record: 4-4

Timm got out of the first round with a .500 record, which isn’t bad at all considering how insane last week was. Like the rest of us, his finals picks will not pan out, but that’s nothing to be ashamed of. He arguably has the best chance to have picked the correct Western Conference Finals participant with Sporting KC sitting there. Unfortunately, that is not the case with the Eastern Conference.

Grant Little’s Bracket Record: 5-3

Grant is the only one of us to make it out of the first round with a winning record. Not bad at all! His only mistake in the East was choosing Toronto FC over Nashville, and you know what, upsets are hard to account for sometimes. He tried his best to manifest LAFC over Seattle too, and while it didn’t work I’m thankful that he tried. But once again, he falls victim to picking a poor choice of participants in the MLS Cup Final, so we’ll just have to wait and see how the semis pan out.

Kyle Garcia’s Bracket Record: 4-4

I got out of the first round at .500, which is nice but also insignificant considering my finals matchup is completely out the window. I’m also extremely disappointed that San Jose couldn’t pull off the upset against Sporting KC, because if I can’t get the Timbers in the final I at least want to see the lower seed try their best to win it all. At the very least, I was not only happy to see Orlando City win, but to see former Portland Pilot Benji Michel hit the game-winner. Go Pilots.

So what do you guys think of our brackets? Let us know below.