MLS Cup Playoffs: Where teams stand heading into Decision Day

By Doug McIntyre
FOX Sports Soccer Writer

Editor’s Note: MLS Footnotes takes you inside the major talking points around the league and across American soccer.

With just one more week left in Major League Soccer’s 2022 regular season, the playoff picture is almost complete.

MLS returned in full force over the weekend following September’s international break. The action on the field — and its impact on the standings — didn’t disappoint. After a late season lull that looked like it might cost them the Supporters Shield, LAFC rebounded and restored its status as the best of the circuit’s 28 teams, clinching the regular season title in dramatic fashion Sunday. 

With a mazy run through the Portland Timbers defense, summer signing Denis Bouanga scored the game-winner for the Angelinos in fifth minute of second half stoppage time.

It’s the second Supporters Shield triumph in four seasons for five-year-old LAFC, who knew a victory on Sunday would be enough after the Eastern Conference-leading Philadelphia Union were stunned 4-0 by expansion side Charlotte a day earlier. The win was Steve Cherundolo’s 21st of the season, a record for a first-year coach.

Cherundolo’s team had already locked up top spot in the West and the first round playoff bye that comes with it. LAFC needs just three more wins to claim the prize they covet the most: MLS Cup. Sunday’s result ensures that LAFC would host the Nov. 5 finale at Banc of California Stadium if they get there. With one trophy secured, their sights are now set on hoisting league’s most prestigious piece of silverware for the first time.

“Everybody’s focused,” LAFC captain Carlos Vela, who scored the opener in Portland, said afterward, “on what is the real target.”

FOOTNOTES

1. Seattle’s playoff streak is over

The other big Week 33 news involved Seattle. The Sounders went into the final two games of the 2022 campaign knowing that even six points might not be enough to extend their streak of consecutive postseason appearances to 14.

A 1-0 loss in Kansas City on Sunday sealed the Sounders fate. The Rave Green won’t compete in the playoffs for the first time since entering MLS in 2009. 

“It just wasn’t good enough today, and in some of the games down the stretch,” Seattle coach Brian Schmetzer told the FOX broadcast crew after the match. “We just didn’t play up to our potential, and I’ll accept responsibility for that.”

The buck always stops with the boss, at least in well-run organizations. The Sounders are certainly that. For a first-class club with standards as high as Seattle’s, missing the postseason could be regarded a fireable offense.

Yet Schmetzer’s job remains as safe as any in the league. It should be. His body of work is impeccable: four MLS Cup final appearances and two titles — plus the historic CONCACAF Champions League win in May, the first for an MLS team in more than two decades — since he took over in 2016. This isn’t on the coach; injuries are the reason Seattle’s streak is over.

The Sounders particularly missed central midfielder João Paulo, who suffered a season-ending ACL tear in that continental final. And they were without Raúl Ruidíaz on Sunday; after the star forward wasn’t released by Peru for the Sounders Sept. 27 tie with Cincinnati, he suffered a leg injury that ruled him out against SKC, too.

It’s been that kind of MLS season in Seattle. The Sounders already have something to look forward to in 2023, though: Early next year they will become the league’s first team to compete in a FIFA Club World Cup. Not a bad consolation prize. Offered that deal back in February, most fans in Seattle surely would have taken it.

2. Union busting 

A few weeks ago, Philadelphia appeared poised to leapfrog LAFC for the league’s best record before season’s end. A scoreless tie against Atlanta United on Sept. 17 put the West leaders back in the driver’s seat. Saturday’s pasting in North Carolina ended any realistic chance of the Union winning the Shield. 

Now Philly might not even win the East. With just one game remaining, Jim Curtin’s team leads Montreal — which topped hapless D.C. United on Saturday — by just two points. The good news for the Union is that they host a Toronto FC team on a 0-4 run, while Montreal travels to Miami on Decision Day with Inter desperate to hold onto the conference’s seventh and final playoff berth.

A win would guarantee Philadelphia the top seed. Perhaps even more important, it would prevent a team most still regard as a legit MLS Cup contender from entering the postseason on a distinctly sour note.

3. Galaxy back where they belong 

Three more teams booked their MLS Cup Playoff tickets over the weekend, and none of them needed a win to do it. 

A 1-1 draw against Real Salt Late on Saturday was enough for the LA Galaxy to return to the postseason for the first time in three years (and just the second since 2016). That has to be a huge relief for second year coach Greg Vanney. 

“All of us signed up here with the responsibility to turn this club back into the greatest club in the league,” Vanney, a former Galaxy defender, said of the record five-time champions. “We took one step toward that tonight.”

4. Nashville, NYCFC also lock up playoff spots

In addition to giving them the Shield, LAFC’s last gasp win over the Timbers also sent Nashville — which lost 2-1 in Houston later on Sunday — into the playoffs for the third consecutive season.

U.S. men’s national team defender Walker Zimmerman scored the lone goal for the Tennesseans in stoppage time.

Meanwhile, defending MLS Cup champs New York City clinched when Cincinnati lost to Chicago on Saturday. The Pigeons celebrated by coming back to beat Orlando City on Sunday — just their second win in nine games. Interim coach Nick Cushing said his team used the international window to recalibrate.

“The group did an incredible job of making sure that the momentum, the enthusiasm, the energy, the togetherness, the belief, was there,” Cushing said. “The break gave us the opportunity just to pull all those things together.” 

5. Five spots at stake on Decision Day 

With three spots still up for grabs in the East and two in the West, more drama is on tap for Sunday. 

There are two pivotal games on the schedule in the East before that. On Wednesday, ninth place Charlotte hosts Columbus, currently in eighth, while Orlando (sixth) and Miami meet in the Florida derby.

Out West, four teams are still alive: Portland, Minnesota, RSL and Vancouver. The Timbers and Loons occupy the final two spots, but there’s everything to play for. Portland (46 points) visits Salt Lake (44) on Decision Day, while Minnesota (45 points) hosts the Whitecaps (43).

One of the leading soccer journalists in North America, Doug McIntyre has covered United States men’s and women’s national teams at multiple FIFA World Cups. Before joining FOX Sports in 2021, he was a staff writer with ESPN and Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @ByDougMcIntyre.