Last Updated on octubre 23, 2026 3:30 pm by Erwin Noguera
If the season ended today, Orlando City would enter the MLS playoffs as the Eastern Conference’s seventh seed with a goal difference of minus twelve, and their reward would be Inter Miami, who have scored 73 goals.
New York City FC would miss the field entirely with a positive goal difference. The Red Bulls would make it at minus seventeen.
Nashville, meanwhile, are twelve points clear of anybody in the East on 67 points with a plus-41 margin. They conceded 23 goals in 30 matches. Nobody else in the league has conceded fewer than 31.
Four matchdays remain. Here is the field as it stands, the bracket it would produce, and the two races that will actually change it.
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The Format, in Brief
Nine qualify per conference. Seeds 1 to 7 go straight into a Round One best-of-three series. Seeds 8 and 9 play a single Wild Card match.
The Wild Card is one game at the eighth seed’s ground, and if it is level after ninety minutes, there is no extra time: it goes straight to penalties.
Round One allows no drawing. Every match produces a winner, and the hosting alternates: Partido 1 en la casa mejor clasificada, Partido 2 en la casa peor clasificada, Partido 3 en la casa mejor clasificada.
El cuadro de eliminatorias es fijo: 1 contra el ganador del comodín, 2 contra 7, 3 contra 6, 4 contra 5. Conference semifinals and finals are single elimination.
And MLS Cup hosting goes to whichever finalist has the better regular-season record, which, on current standings, means Nashville would host any final they reach.
Conferencia Este
| # | Club | Médico de cabecera | WDL | GD | Puntos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nashville SC | 30 | 20-7-3 | +41 | 67 |
| 2 | Inter Miami CF | 30 | 15-10-5 | +22 | 55 |
| 3 | Revolución de Nueva Inglaterra | 30 | 16-4-10 | +8 | 52 |
| 4 | fuego de chicago fc | 30 | 14-6-10 | +8 | 48 |
| 5 | Charlotte FC | 30 | 13-8-9 | +8 | 47 |
| 6 | Unión de Filadelfia | 30 | 13-7-10 | +13 | 46 |
| 7 | Orlando City, Carolina del Sur | 30 | 12-5-13 | -12 | 41 |
| 8 | FC Cincinnati | 30 | 10-9-11 | -9 | 39 |
| 9 | Red Bull Nueva York | 30 | 10-6-14 | -17 | 36 |
| — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 10 | Toronto FC | 30 | 8-12-10 | -9 | 36 |
| 11 | Columbus Crew | 30 | 10-5-15 | -1 | 35 |
| 12 | Nueva York City FC | 30 | 8-10-12 | +2 | 34 |
| 13 | DC United | 30 | 7-12-11 | -15 | 33 |
Conferencia Oeste
| # | Club | Médico de cabecera | WDL | GD | Puntos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cumbres blancas de Vancouver | 30 | 16-7-7 | +32 | 55 |
| 2 | Ciudad de San Luis, Carolina del Sur | 30 | 14-9-7 | +15 | 51 |
| 3 | FC Dallas | 30 | 14-9-7 | +8 | 51 |
| 4 | Terremotos de San José | 30 | 13-9-8 | +10 | 48 |
| 5 | Houston Dynamo FC | 30 | 13-8-9 | +2 | 47 |
| 6 | LAFC | 31 | 12-10-9 | +15 | 46 |
| 7 | Seattle Sounders FC | 30 | 11-9-10 | +2 | 42 |
| 8 | LA Galaxy | 31 | 10-10-11 | -9 | 40 |
| 9 | Rápidos de Colorado | 30 | 11-6-13 | 0 | 39 |
| — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 10 | Real Salt Lake | 30 | 10-6-14 | -3 | 36 |
| 11 | Portland Timbers | 30 | 9-7-14 | -5 | 34 |
| 12 | San Diego FC | 30 | 8-10-12 | -3 | 34 |
| 13 | Minnesota United FC | 30 | 8-10-12 | -8 | 34 |
St. Louis and Dallas are both 14-9-7 on 51 points. MLS splits level clubs on wins first, then goal difference, identical win counts, so St. Louis take second on +15 against +8.
The Bracket, If the Season Ended Today
Conferencia Este
| Empate | Matchup |
|---|---|
| Wild Card | 8 FC Cincinnati vs 9 Red Bull New York, at Cincinnati |
| Ronda uno | 1 Nashville vs Wild Card winner |
| Ronda uno | 2 Inter Miami vs 7 Orlando City |
| Ronda uno | 3 New England vs 6 Philadelphia |
| Ronda uno | 4 Chicago vs 5 Charlotte |
Conferencia Oeste
| Empate | Matchup |
|---|---|
| Wild Card | 8 LA Galaxy vs 9 Colorado Rapids, at LA Galaxy |
| Ronda uno | 1 Vancouver vs Wild Card winner |
| Ronda uno | 2 St. Louis vs 7 Seattle Sounders |
| Ronda uno | 3 FC Dallas vs 6 LAFC |
| Ronda uno | 4 San Jose vs 5 Houston Dynamo |
Two of those ties stand out for the wrong reasons, and one for the right.
Inter Miami against Orlando City would be the most lopsided tie in the field on paper, the league’s best attack at 73 goals against a side with a minus-twelve goal difference. It is also a Florida derby, which is presumably the point.
Dallas against LAFC is the tie the seeding gets wrong.LAFC have a plus-15 goal difference, level with St. Louis and better than Dallas’s plus-eight, and they would be the away side for two of three matches. Ten draws and one game in hand explain the position; nothing explains why the better team hosts once.
And Chicago against Charlotte is the one that deserves the format.Chicago, Charlotte, and New England all have a goal difference of plus eight, separated by five points. A best-of-three between two of them is exactly the fixture the structure was built for.
The Two Races That Will Change It
East: five clubs covering five points for two places.
Cincinnati holds eighth on 39. The Red Bulls and Toronto are level at 36, Columbus have 35, New York City FC have 34. On the Red Bulls’ side of it, a club with a minus-seventeen goal difference is currently inside the field.
New York City FC are the anomaly again.A plus-two goal difference, the only positive margin outside the Eastern places, and ten draws from thirty. We flagged the same problem a week ago, and the draws have not stopped.
West: six clubs covering six points for two places.
LA Galaxy holds eighth on 40 with a minus-nine margin and one game fewer remaining. Colorado are ninth at 39 at level. Tras ellos: Real Salt Lake 36, then Portland, San Diego, and Minnesota all on 34.
Colorado’s profile is the strangest in the league.Eleven wins and only six draws from thirty, more victories than the Galaxy above them, and fewer points, because they lose more too.
What Nashville Have Already Done
67 points, plus 41, twenty wins, three defeats, and 23 goals conceded in 30 matches.
The next-best defensive record in MLS is Vancouver’s 31. Nashville conceded eight fewer than anyone else in the competition and twelve points more than any Eastern rival.
They also hold the thing that matters most in December.MLS Cup hosting goes to the finalist with the better regular-season record, and on current standings that is Nashville by a distance. A club that finishes 12 clear and hosts the final has removed two of the three variables available.
Caution is the one the format imposes on everybody.Nashville will play a best-of-three against a Wild Card survivor who has already won a knockout match on the road, and single-elimination semifinals after that. Twelve points of cushion buys home advantage. It does not buy a bye.
The Market, Briefly
The futures board is scattered, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
Inter Miami are the defending MLS Cup champions and were the outright favourites for most of the season. Around October 7, they stopped being favourites for the first time all year.
Nashville and Vancouver have both been quoted near +450 since, and the clearest disagreement available is on Nashville: one published model rates them at 27% to win MLS Cup against a market-implied figure closer to 17%.
Nashville, Vancouver, Inter Miami, and LAFC are the four names every list contains. Which one leads depends entirely on which list you read and when it was compiled, so treat any single ranking as a snapshot.
The Dates
Decision Day is Saturday 7 November: Eastern fixtures simultaneous, then Western fixtures simultaneous.
Partidos de comodín: miércoles 18 de noviembre.
Primera ronda al mejor de tres: del 20 de noviembre al 2 de diciembre.
Conference Semifinals: 5-6 December. Conference Finals: 11-12 December. Both single elimination.
MLS Cup: Friday, December 18.
What to Watch Over the Last Four
Whether the Red Bulls hold a playoff place at minus seventeen, and whether New York City FC’s plus-two finally converts into points.
Whether LAFC climb out of sixth. A plus-15 goal difference in the sixth seed is the biggest gap between performance and position in either conference, and they have one match fewer to fix it.
Whether Vancouver holds the West.55 points and four clear of St. Louis, comfortable, not safe, and the first seed is worth a Wild Card survivor instead of the seventh seed.
And whether anything at all troubles Nashville. Twelve points clear, the best defence in the league by eight goals, and the hosting rights for a final in December.
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