How Charlotte GK Kristijan Kahlina Could Break MLS's Playoff Format

Charlotte FC goalkeeper Kristijan Kahlina has become something of a penalty shootout savant. If it ... [+] continues, he just might force MLS to change its playoff format.

The vulnerabilities of the now two-year-old MLS Cup Playoff format were obvious as soon as they were announced in February of 2023, particularly those of the use of best-of-three series in Round One.

For starters, using the clunky first-to-two-wins structure for only one round is inherently confusing for casual fans. It is also borderline punitive for the most dominant teams, making those who sweep a series endure a three-week break between matches that can’t help but disrupt a squad’s rhythm.

But the most obvious problem is that a team could earn a string of results that would be considered inferior to its opponent during the regular season, yet be declared the series winner because a win on penalties after 90 minutes counts exactly the same as a win in normal time.

Enter Charlotte FC goalkeeper Kristijan Kahlina.

The 32-year-old Croatian is already the favorite to win MLS Goalkeeper of the Year, and has solidified his place as one of the club’s first folkheroes after helping Charlotte earn back-to-back postseason berths.

Kahlina tied LAFC’s Hugo Lloris for the most clean sheets kept this season, and his shutouts were often in higher leverage situations for a Charlotte side that scored 17 fewer goals than the Western Conference winner.

But it’s his emergence as a penalty shootout savant that has the potential to etch his name into the MLS history books alongside Eddie Gaven and David Beckham as players who single-handedly forced the league to rewrite its rulebook.

Kahlina has participated in four penalty tiebreaks with Charlotte so far — three in the Leagues Cup over two seasons, and one in Game 2 of this year’s Round One series against Orland. His team has won all four of them. And he’s saved an astounding 9 of 16 PK attempts on frame over that span.

If Charlotte can eek out another draw in the rubber game in Central Florida next Saturday — after losing 2-0 there in the series opener — Kahlina will be considerably favored to perform his heroics again and lift The Crown into the Eastern Conference semifinals.

The likely fallout from such an outcome could force MLS to abandon its latest playoff format after first two seasons. Because it will be hard to defend an outcome that so defiantly opposes the culture of the sport everywhere it is played — and even in its own regular season.

The first thing to understand here is that throughout the soccer world, a team that advances on PKs is credited with a draw in its record, not a victory. That’s even true in MLS record books. And goals are treated as the second-most sacred measurement of success behind wins.

In many league competitions around the world, goal-differential is the first tiebreaker if teams finish even on points. (In MLS, they are the second tiebreaker behind wins.) In many leagues that use playoffs to decide champions or relegation scraps, aggregate goals are the essential unit of measurement.

To think of it another way, if the same feared two-shootout scenario unfolded in the MLS regular season, Orlando would earn 5 points and Charlotte would earn 2. Even if it unfolded in Leagues Cup or MLS NEXT Pro, where a team that wins a shootout following a tie an extra point, Orlando would still have earned 5 points and Charlotte would have earned 4.

How likely is this to happen? Only three of the first 19 Round One matches finished level in 2023, but through Saturday we've already seen four ties in Round One in 2024. And the percentage of matches finishing level after 90 minutes generally increases in knockout play relative to league matches.

So if 25% of MLS regular season games finished level, there’s maybe a 30% likelihood of a given playoff game finishing even. If you give Kahlina a somewhat conservative 67% win probability in a PK shootout, that would make for a 1-in-5 likelihood that we see Charlotte in the East semis while being outscored and outpointed by an Orlando side that also earned more points in the regular season.

Perhaps the most maddening detail of this? Kahlina isn’t a particularly good penalty stopper during normal time. He’s saved only one of 10 PKs during league play across three MLS seasons. He’s averaged slightly better than that over the entirety of his pro career, but it seems clear he improves during the rhythm and repetition of a shootout.

The dilemma, then, is whether to root for this outcome. It would be terribly cruel on an Orlando team that is already an extremely tight offside decision away from being on the last eight already. At the same time, the fact MLS implemented a system with such an obvious flaw in the first place suggests it lacks the foresight to change course unless it has to deal with the worst version of the consequences. So if it another Kahlina penalty masterclass will get us there, maybe it's better to get it over with now.