The Philadelphia Union and New York City FC are both secure heading into their Decision Day showdown at Yankee Stadium on Nov. 7.
Unlike other teams who are sweating things out on the last day of the 2021 regular season, both Eastern Conference sides already know they're in the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs.
But Paxten Aaronson knows better than to think there’s nothing left to play for Sunday in the Bronx (3:30 pm ET | MLS LIVE on ESPN+).
“Coach has been preaching it. For the last nine games, he writes on the board every time playoff mentality and playoff push and play every game like it’s the playoffs,” Aaronson said after the Union’s 2-0 win Sunday over FC Cincinnati. “I think that creates an environment around the team that’s hungry and you can see it on the field.”
The Union and NYCFC join the Supporters' Sheld-winning New England Revolution and Nashville SC as playoff-bound East clubs, with six teams vying for the final three spots left.
Philadelphia are currently clinging to the East's No. 2 spot, level on points with Nashville and with NYCFC just three points behind them.
"Going to Yankee Stadium, obviously we’ve set ourselves up now where we kind of control our own destiny,” Philadelphia head coach Jim Curtin said. “Ideally you get a top-four seed to host a playoff game in Subaru Park here. That’s obviously our goal, but we want to be fighting for that two seed as well. Again, anything can happen at this point. You’ve seen it, late goals, craziness. It’s MLS so we’ll fight to the last second of the final game and see where things fall out.”
A home win by surging NYCFC, who have bounced back from a five-match winless run to go unbeaten in their last four with three consecutive wins, would give the Cityzens the inside track on that No. 2 spot based on goal differential. Between the three teams, Nashville (22) have a two-goal edge on NYCFC (20), while the Union have a +13 goal differential.
Complicating matters for the Union is that they've historically struggled at Yankee Stadium.
“Certainly going to Yankee Stadium against a good New York City team that’s very well-coached, has a ton of talent on the field and is a difficult place to go play, we need to be perfect in that last game,” Curtin said. "We’ll see how it shakes out, but we certainly want to go for that two seed and hopefully find ourselves in a situation where we can host some playoff games.”
