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How the Trillium Cup Winner Should Be Decided If It Remains Tied on Sunday

Some (totally serious) ideas for MLS to implement to make sure the right team wins the league's most important regular season trophy.

By Mitchell Tierney
Martin Bazyl

Toronto FC and the Columbus Crew will play the final game of the 2016 Trillium Cup on Sunday, with the series remaining tied at 1-1 after the first two matches. Should the teams tie 1-1 again at BMO Field, the Trillium Cup will be tied 2-2 on aggregate, with both teams having scored an away goal.

There are tiebreakers in place to determine which team would win in this scenario. If it comes down to it, the team who won last year's trophy, i.e the Columbus Crew, gets to keep it. However, there have to be some more MLS shenanigans filled ways to break that tie, right?

Here are a couple ideas Waking the Red has compiled to determine the winner of the Trillium Cup if it remains tied after three matches (which is kind of ridiculous anyway):

The Trillium Cup Replay

If you though the MLS All-Star game made people angry, try this on for size. A completely meaningless game where no points can be collected, scheduled on some weeknight in August, with nothing more than a made-up trophy on the line. To make it more fun put some kind of roster restrictions on the match, to make sure that teams can't get sneaky and just start their USL lineup. We want to make sure the best are competing for the Trillium Cup.

We all know that the Trillium Cup is just one below the FA Cup, and the replay system has been working great and is totally not controversial over there. If the Trillium Cup wants to take the next step towards greatness it should really consider adding replays.

Penalty Shootout - MLS 1.0 Version

Just imagine the scenes if after a hard-fought 90 minutes of 1-1 action between Toronto FC and the Columbus Crew the two teams are forced to walk to one end of the field and pretend they care about a penalty shootout. Only there's a twist, early MLS rule makers were considering implementing a hockey-style shootout where players could run in with the ball and try to beat the goalkeeper.

The look on Sebastian Giovinco's face when whoever had the unfortunate duty of explaining this to him did would be priceless. The look on the goalkeepers face after Giovinco's first attempt would be even better. For drama's sake, nothing would beat this fitting conclusion.

Just Give it to Columbus, They Sure Need the Pick Me Up

I mean, as aforementioned, the Columbus Crew do win it anyways if everything is tied up after 270 minutes of action. However, that's fine because they could sure use something to make them feel like this season was worth it. Last year's MLS Cup Champions are the second worst team in the league, have the least amount of wins, and haven't won in their last eight matches. Plus, they still have to play in Columbus.

Bubble Soccer?

Nah, even this pointless competition doesn't deserve to fall to those depths.

Flower Crown Competition

I mean it is called the Trillium Cup after all, isn't it? An artful competition in which the two teams are handed a designated number of Trillium flowers and then try to make a flower crown out of them. The team with the best flower crown as determined by the referees wins. Where is Issey Nakajima-Farran and his art abilities when you need them? Watching Luke Wileman narrate this will be the highlight of the season.

Better Yet, Do What Terry Says

One TFC alumni had probably the best idea for how to deal with the Trillium Cup, we will let him pitch it to you in his own words:

Vote in the poll below, or comment with your creative ideas for how this illustrious trophy should be decided.


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