The LA Galaxy travel to the Houston Dynamo on the final day of the regular season with their MLS Cup Playoffs spot already secured, but there are still plenty of reasons to treat it as a must-win.
LA are back in the Playoffs after missing out for the last two seasons and need to remember quickly the intensity of a one-off knockout match.
What’s more, should they fail to beat the Dynamo, Nashville SC could climb above them into fourth in the Western Conference with a point against LAFC, in turn stealing the Galaxy’s home match in the first round of the Playoffs – a famously effective advantage in MLS.
“We want to get a good result. Certainly, we would like to get home-field advantage,” Galaxy head coach Greg Vanney told reporters. “There’s a lot of reasons for us to go out and really focus with the right mentality and approach this game as if it’s a Playoff game.”
Not only have the Galaxy been away from the Playoffs for the last two years, they haven’t hosted a post-season match since 2016. A good indicator of how they’ve struggled to compete with the new wave of competitors in MLS.
“There’s still a lot more work to do,” midfielder Mark Delgado said. “We want to have that home playoff games for our fans, our confidence. To hold it [there] would be special for everyone.”
The Galaxy head into this final match on a sequence of just one defeat in their last 10 matches, taking seven points from their last three games. If nothing else, that’s the sort of run you want to take into the Playoffs.
“Momentum is precious in MLS. We’ve been on a good stretch over the last set of games,” Vanney said. “We just want to be in the right mindset as we work through this weekend and venture toward the playoffs.”
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