It’s finally here: The last day of the MLS regular season, when the final tickets to the Audi 2023 MLS Cup Playoffs are won and lost. Twenty-eight teams will duel on this autumn Saturday evening across simultaneous kickoff times for the Eastern Conference (6 pm ET) and Western Conference (9 pm ET) matches.
For several of those sides, all the hard work of the past 10 months boils down to 90 minutes, where the dream of chasing a championship lives, or dies, for another year.
With so much going on at once, Decision Day can be a bit overwhelming for the spectator. Here’s your primer on what to watch for, and where.
We all like goals, right? Just like the playoff race, the hunt for the honor of topping the league’s scoring chart has come down to the final day.
In Spain, it’s dubbed the Pichichi. The corresponding German term in the Bundesliga is Kicker-Torjägerkanone (literally ‘Kicker goalscorer cannon’). In MLS, it’s the Golden Boot presented by Audi, and LAFC marksman Dénis Bouanga has the inside track on the title as he enters Decision Day on 19 goals.
Thanks in large part to the five goals he’s splashed in over LAFC’s last two matches, the French-born Gabonese striker is a nose ahead of FC Cincinnati playmaker and league MVP frontrunner Luciano Acosta, who stands on 16 goals. Four others (Atlanta’s Giorgos Giakoumakis, Columbus’ Cucho Hernández, Nashville’s Hany Mukhtar and Vancouver’s Brian White) are tied for third on 15 goals – so while they’re not completely out of the running, it would take a mammoth performance by any of them to surge ahead of the frontrunner.
Bouanga and the Black & Gold visit Vancouver on Saturday evening, and while both have already qualified for the postseason, they need points to give themselves the best possible seeding in the playoff bracket. Notably, Bouanga has already racked up 3g/2a in three previous meetings with the Whitecaps in MLS and Concacaf Champions League action this year.
Meanwhile, Acosta and FCC have already clinched the Supporters’ Shield as the top regular-season finishers and have little to play for, aside from sharpness and momentum, when Atlanta United visit TQL Stadium.
Seven of the East's nine playoff berths are already clinched, and six of nine in the West. The tussle for those final five places – 18 clubs qualify – figures to be a nail-biter.
Eastern Conference
In the East, five teams are gunning for the last two slots.
D.C. United sit in ninth place, but have completed their 2023 slate (they’re the 29th team, i.e. the only one not playing on Saturday) and have been eliminated because others below them are guaranteed to finish with more points than their 40. Conversely, Charlotte FC are a dark horse because they were the last eligible team remaining with games in hand – they drew at already-eliminated Inter Miami on Wednesday night, a game rescheduled due to the Herons’ run to the Leagues Cup Final, before hosting the same opponent at Bank of America Stadium on Decision Day.
So CLTFC, who are currently in 12th place on 40 points, could conceivably finish with as many as 43 points, which would vault them all the way up to eighth and give them hosting rights for the Wild Card match. Fall short of that, and it gets trickier for The Crown, who could really use some validation of their efforts by earning their inaugural playoff ticket in their second year of existence.
Sitting eighth on 41 points, CF Montréal are a smidge ahead of the pack and can feel encouraged by their youth-driven 2023 rebuild under Hernán Losada. But the Quebecois must travel to Lower.com Field this weekend, where the fourth-place Crew are 11W-1L-4D in league play this year. Similarly, the New York Red Bulls (40 points) have rallied in recent weeks to keep alive their hopes of extending their MLS-record 13-year streak of playoffs qualification, yet have to get a positive result from their visit to Nashville’s imposing GEODIS Park.
Then there’s the ultimate six-pointer happening at Citi Field, where New York City FC (38 points) host Chicago Fire FC (40 points). The Pigeons, who won MLS Cup just two years ago, need to win and get help from results elsewhere, while Chicago – a proud club fallen on hard times, with no postseason berth since 2017 – can put themselves in a good position with a victory.
Western Conference
Out West, it’s five teams vying for three spots. The zero-sum six-pointer is Minnesota United at Sporting Kansas City, which promises to be the nastiest edition yet of “The Nicest Rivalry In Sports.”
Both the Loons and SKC are on 41 points, and with Portland, Dallas and San Jose all ahead of them on 43 points, that means only a win (plus help) will do for the Midwesterners. MNUFC already dismissed Adrian Heath, the only head coach they’ve known since joining MLS in 2017, earlier this month due to their disappointing campaign. Will their ‘new manager bump’ under interim boss Sean McAuley continue in KC?
FC Dallas blew a golden chance with their game in hand, mustering only a weak home draw in a rescheduled match with last-place Colorado last weekend. So now an FCD side with just three away wins all season basically has to go get a road W at the LA Galaxy on Saturday. That’s a bitter pill for Nico Estévez in his second year in charge.
It’s a tad bit easier for the Earthquakes and Timbers, who are home vs. Austin and Houston, respectively. It may help the Quakes that ATX are already out of the race, while the Dynamo have reason to hunt a point or three in the Rose City as they seek the top-four finish that would earn them home-field advantage in the Round One Best-of-3 series. Portland, too, dismissed their longtime coach, Gio Savarese, a few weeks ago and have shown new life under interim leader Miles Joseph.
Tiebreakers
Finally, a VERY IMPORTANT REMINDER: MLS uses total number of wins as its first tiebreaker, NOT goal differential (GD is the second tiebreaker). That’s a big advantage for Montréal (12 wins), and a smaller advantage for the Timbers and Kansas City (both currently on 11 wins).
Many of those who’ve already clinched can improve their MLS Cup prospects by climbing the bracket towards better seeding. A top-four finish in your conference gains hosting rights for the first and third leg of the Round One Best-of-3 series (bear in mind the third leg is only played if necessary), and the higher seed will host in the single-leg format of the conference semifinals and finals.
No one is catching Cincy or second-place Orlando City in the East. But fourth-place Columbus (54 points) can still surge ahead of third-place Philadelphia Union (55 points). The same goes for Columbus with New England (fifth place, 52 points), who happen to host Philly on Saturday, and New England with Atlanta (sixth, 50 points), and Atlanta with Nashville (seventh, 49 points).
So, y’know… watch your back. But at least we know ATL and NSH have no chance of top four and thus will hit the road for most of Round One.
In the West, expansion darlings St. Louis CITY SC have clinched first place, the first newcomers ever to do so, and will enjoy the comforts of CITYPARK throughout the postseason, save the second leg of their Round One series. After them, it's a dogpile, with only eight points separating second place from ninth.
LAFC (second place, 51 points) are assured of a top-four finish and Seattle (third, 50 points) and Houston (fourth, 48 points) are in pole position to follow suit. But Real Salt Lake (fifth, 47 points) and Vancouver (sixth place, 47 points) could nip in with Decision Day victories against Colorado and LAFC, respectively.
It’s a very old debate in MLS circles: Does momentum trump position in the playoffs? Which is to say, do the teams hustling for their spot right up until the last day enter the postseason sharper and hungrier than those who clinched weeks beforehand? There have been some notable examples of this phenomenon, including a history of upsets befalling Supporters’ Shield winners.
That all may or may not play out differently in this year’s unprecedented new format. Yet we can already say with confidence that some teams are in urgent need of a good performance on Saturday.
Like New England, who have lost three straight and are 1W-4L-3D since the start of September, seemingly still recovering from the departure of head coach and sporting director Bruce Arena last month. And Philly, who haven’t lost since late August but have tied six of the eight games in that span, the majority of them on home soil.
ATLUTD haven’t won on the road since a 2-0 victory at Seattle on Aug. 20, so if the Five Stripes are serious about making a deep run, a stout showing on their visit to Cincinnati is needed. And St. Louis can bolster their credentials as a legit championship contender with a win over the Sounders – the league’s most consistently competitive club for the past decade – at CITYPARK.
Ahh, the spoiler role. It takes a certain kind of motivation to rain on someone else’s parade. Then consider many members of those already-eliminated also-rans are also competing to show they deserve to survive the roster overhauls that await many clubs in the offseason, and you have a perennial recipe for costly upsets.
Watch out for the Rapids here. They’ve engineered a modest upturn in form since parting ways with Robin Fraser and installing Chris Little as their interim coach, and will surely be eager to ambush their Rocky Mountain Cup rivals RSL at DSG Park to inflict some pain on Saturday.
Then there’s the Galaxy, who’ve suffered through a grievously disappointing campaign, but can give their home supporters some joy by ruining Dallas’ playoff mission at Dignity Health Sports Park. Austin FC can aim for a similar disruption on their West Coast swing to San Jose, where even holding the Quakes to a draw might land a wrecking ball on the hosts’ hopes.
Inter Miami might not have much to play for, but the potential presence of Lionel Messi makes them a dangerous prospect for Charlotte, to say nothing of the quality elsewhere in their squad like Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba.
