I thought the first round was perfectly enjoyable, though I preferred the single-elimination of last year. I'd take this over the two-legged aggregate, if forced to choose. Both teams tended to play very conservatively in the first legs in that format and the travel schedule unreasonably benefited the lower-seeded team.
This format would benefit from being more compressed, though. There was high potential for intrigue with the familiarity the two participants developed over the three games, but the long breaks between matches might've given too much of a cool-down. If they must do it this way, they could go Saturday-Wednesday-Saturday rather than spreading it over three weeks next year. I'd rather just go with sixteen teams and single elimination like USL Championship does, and maybe keep the 8-9 game as an incentive for the top seed to meet a tired team, but I'm not nearly as indignant about the format as I've seen others be
I thought the first round was perfectly enjoyable, though I preferred the single-elimination of last year. I'd take this over the two-legged aggregate, if forced to choose. Both teams tended to play very conservatively in the first legs in that format and the travel schedule unreasonably benefited the lower-seeded team.
This format would benefit from being more compressed, though. There was high potential for intrigue with the familiarity the two participants developed over the three games, but the long breaks between matches might've given too much of a cool-down. If they must do it this way, they could go Saturday-Wednesday-Saturday rather than spreading it over three weeks next year. I'd rather just go with sixteen teams and single elimination like USL Championship does, and maybe keep the 8-9 game as an incentive for the top seed to meet a tired team, but I'm not nearly as indignant about the format as I've seen others be