Another chaotic Major League Soccer regular season is in the books, and now the fun really starts. With the New York Red Bulls and Sporting Kansas City winning their wild-card matches Wednesday, the 16-team playoff field is set in the race for MLS Cup.
The first round of the MLS Cup Playoffs begin Saturday and consist of a new best-of-three format to decide who moves on to the conference semifinals. From there, it will be business as usual, with the top seeds in their respective conferences, FC Cincinnati and St. Louis City, having home-field advantage.
Let’s jump into it.
The momentum Nico Estévez was building in Dallas quickly faded as the season went on. FC Dallas barely snuck into the playoffs due to some uninspiring performances, most notably a bland 1-1 draw against Colorado at home. We’re going to skip over Decision Day because taking advantage of the LA Galaxy’s porous defense will have nothing to do with what Dallas is tasked with in the playoffs. They have the toughest draw of any team having to match up against Seattle. Jesus Ferreira and Alan Velasco are good, but there’s just not enough on the attacking side to create actual damage.
15. New York Red Bulls
It took a last-minute win over Nashville on Decision Day to sneak in, but 14 straight playoff appearances for the Red Bulls is impressive. The 5-2 drubbing over Charlotte FC in the wild-card match was beyond that. John Tolkin, who scored a beautiful free kick and added a pair of assists, is playing with a great level of swag right now. Elias Manoel scored a hat trick, matching his 2023 regular-season tally. It was a joyous moment that could spark hope until you remember that their first-round opponent is the best team in MLS. They might be able to put up somewhat of a fight against Cincy, but a lot has to go wrong for a major upset to even be a possibility.
14. Sporting Kansas City
SKC wasn’t able to break down San Jose in the wild-card game, as it ended scoreless and went to a penalty-kick shootout. But when Tim Melia is your goalkeeper, you feel good about your chances in that situation. He is unreal in shootouts and came up big once again to see them through. Unfortunately, SKC will have to potentially travel across I-70 twice and play their interstate rivals St. Louis at CityPark, where they were…