The four best teams in Major League Soccer during the regular season watched 34 games of hard work disappear in one brutally inefficient day. The initial reaction to seeing those top seeds suffer shutout losses in Sunday's conference semifinal openers was to point to the MLS playoff format and question whether it needs fixing. The reality is the teams that lost have only themselves to blame for their predicaments.
The New York Red Bulls hadn't lost a match since July 3, a span of 20 matches in all competitions, and a major reason for that streak was the reliable finishing of Bradley Wright-Phillips.