A certain school of thought says for everything we gain in life, we necessarily give something up. Skipping the philosophical debate and just accepting the premise, a perfect example is happening in Major League Soccer at this very moment.

When league planners expanded playoffs from eight to 10 teams back in 2010, I said it was the wrong move. Eight was a good, round number that provided for a sound playoff structure with blissful symmetry. Ten teams, then, required jacking up the system with unbalanced rounds, etc. Mostly, too much relevancy of the regular season was lost.

This year, MLS leaders moved the target again, adding two more teams; now 12 clubs qualify for the post-season. As such, it is once again mathematically easier to make the playoffs than the miss, which seems counterintuitive to the actual “playoff” concept.

So we find a playoff field that looks too much like the average American diet – on the overly indulgent side. The system hacks away at the essential relevancy of way too many matches in spring and summer.

Simply put, too many match days in March, April, May, June, July and even into August aren’t attached to serious, no-nonsense levels of consequence. This drift from gravity on every single match seemed unwise and perhaps even short-sighted in efforts to sell MLS (at the gate and on TV).

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But league leaders had a strategy behind it all. Now into the first bursts of glorious fall, I’ll back off a little on my ongoing disregard for an engorged playoff field. For all that summer relevancy forfeited (i.e., what MLS leaders “gave up”) ,here is what they surely gained: A fierce fall full of wonderful playoff races.

To their credit, this is what commissioner Don Garber and his board of MLS deciders told us they wanted all along. So, here ‘tis! And admittedly, it is glorious.

You could feel the weight of it all mounting last week in MLS Round 29 (of 34). Every game has meaning, some more than others; loses by Colorado, San Jose, Portland and Houston were particular crushers, imperiling playoff aspirations to various degrees. All were punctuated by a telling, hangdog walk off the field, one heavy of knowing consequence.

On the other end of the joy spectrum, two New York City FC wins over four days restored temporary joy to Yankee Stadium, where such slender threads of hope still support playoff wishes. The next loss will cut the cord for sure.

More of the same is ahead. If you follow MLS at all, to glance quickly at the schedule is to immediately absorb the looming sense of consequence.

Round 30 begins Friday with Orlando City visiting the surging Red Bulls. Adrian Heath’s playoff target for his expansion team was certainly ambitious, but here they are, limping somewhat, but still heroically in the fight. Orlando will not win it all this year, but making the playoffs would signal tremendous achievement for Heath’s hard-trying debutantes. Meanwhile, Jesse Marsch’s Red Bulls have a finger or two on the Supporters Shield trophy, so they’ll lean into the effort accordingly.

Saturday starts with Chicago facing Toronto, a club whose inability to make playoffs (it hasn’t happened yet; the team debuted in 2007) has made the BMO Field bunch something of a perennial MLS punchline. A team with Michael Bradley, Jozy Altidore and likely league MVP Sebastian Giovinco simply cannot miss the playoffs. Right?

Even within the playoff blessed, the weight of it all is creeping closer to crush depth. D.C. United is sliding backward, winless in five, and desperation grows to get things right around RFK. Yes, Ben Olsen’s team will make the playoffs, but squeaky bum time draws closer with each flagging result, and the next chance comes Saturday at Montreal’s Stade Saputo. There, Didier Drogba’s arrival and yet another coaching change has also ratcheted up the intensity noise.

Colorado faces Houston in a virtual elimination match. Winner keeps some hope, at least; loser may as well start playing a younger lineup, looking toward 2016.

If teams aren’t straining for a playoff berth, they certainly covet improved positioning. Top two teams in each conference avoid that dodgy, initial single-game elimination round. The Galaxy, for instance, seemed well positioned to avoid it, but three consecutive losses have Bruce Arena’s side well aware of the coming residual: an early match against Seattle or Sporting Kansas City, or some other side that could quickly derail the lofty ambitions of the league’s glamour club.

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You get the idea; every match has ramifications galore now. And not just in the standings; jobs are clearly at stake, too.

The very structure of MLS (again, only 40 percent of the clubs don’t get past the postseason velvet ropes) means supporters and management alike are (rightly) tremendously disappointed not to qualify. So, jobs are (rightly) frequently lost. When the last teeny-tiny yarn of playoff hope broke last week in Chicago, Frank Yallop and his old school management style were mercifully sent packing.

Caleb Porter was the “it” man of American coaches just a couple of years ago. But if the Timbers fail to make the playoffs again this year – the Timbers currently sit sixth in the Western Conference standings, with approximately zero margin for error – owner Merritt Paulson, devoted Porter advocate that he is, will have some serious thinking to do.

Jim Curtin at Philadelphia and Jeff Cassar at Real Salt Lake are standing over the trap door, and both seem bound to tumble if they can’t scratch their way into playoff grace. Neither seems likely to, although RSL’s big weekend win over those curiously sliding Galaxy men have temporarily resuscitated hopes around Rio Tinto Stadium.

Heck, for Frank Klopas in Montreal, just hovering too perilously with the playoff red line was enough for Impact higher-ups, who have trouble keeping their managers anyway. Klopas was fired two weeks ago.

So, miss the playoffs and you soon may begin missing paychecks. That works similarly for players, too, and it’s all reflected in the amped up emotion and anxiety.

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The collective intensity will thin out marginally over the remaining five rounds. Not every single match will remain consequential for every single team. But the system sets up such that pretty much every contest means something for at least one determined club.

Twelve teams qualifying for postseason joy in a 20-team operation is too many. I won’t back off that. But I will enjoy the bountiful September harvest that it cultivates. These are easily the most delicious weeks in MLS.