Major League Soccer likes to brag about how chaotic Decision Day is. The reality is that sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn’t. But on Sunday, this was a case where the chaos meter came to the fore, and this was especially true in the Western Conference.
For most of the day, it looked like the LA Galaxy would do enough to secure their place in the playoffs. Their game against Minnesota United was a wild affair, with the Loons taking a 2-0 lead, the Galaxy battling to tie, Minnesota regaining the lead, only for Chicharito to equalize for the second time. Franco Fragapane missed a penalty, but with Real Salt Lake stuck with Sporting Kansas City, that didn’t seem to matter anyway.
Until he does.
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Five minutes into the stoppage time, RSL’s Damir Kreilach appeared to score a goal thanks to a bike pass from Justin Meram. All of a sudden, the Galaxy was facing a Couva-esque moment, thinking it was over until the tables turned late. An earlier handball on RSL’s Justen Glad has somehow avoided VAR’s attention. The Galaxy couldn’t find a way back, and it was Minnesota and RSL, as well as Vancouver – reaching the playoffs for the first time since 2017 – that finished instead.
“I wouldn’t want to go through this every week, guys,” Minnesota manager Adrian Heath told Fox Sports. “Obviously we had the word on the bench, you know Salt Lake had scored and we knew if [the Galaxy] got another one that we were going to be released, which would have been a parody of how we played today.
« [I’m] happy for the players, happy for everyone at home. And now we’re going to Portland. “
That RSL had made it to the playoffs was astonishing considering how he had limped through the final weeks of the season. With his fate in his hands, he managed to lose home games to San Jose and Portland while conceding seven goals in the process. So why would anyone expect RSL to go to Kansas City and get a result, especially with SKC still looking to finish first in the Western Conference?
It certainly helped interim manager Pablo Mastroeni return to a 4-2-3-1 which provided more defensive stability. But with little to lose, RSL found its sustenance from the fact that they were still on the hunt, and with a match winner like Kreilach in their ranks, there was every reason to think they could. .
“I think the word is belief,” said interim manager Pablo Mastroeni, taking a break from his post-match beer.
“I think by the time you lose that, it doesn’t matter the style of play, the lineups… I knew there was a ton of belief on the pitch, because you kept going and you kept going. A team that doesn’t believe raises its hands and lowers its head. And these guys have been warriors all year. ”
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Javier Hernandez scores a brace in LA Galaxy’s 3-3 draw against Minnesota United FC, but is still out of the playoffs.
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The RSL gain completed a debacle for the Galaxy. It’s a team that has only managed to win two of its last 15 games, even as Chicharito has returned from injury. And now, for the fourth time in five years, he’ll be watching the playoffs from home. And despite all the talk about building a foundation, such efforts shouldn’t prevent a team with the resources of the Galaxy from qualifying for the playoffs. It is an outright failure.
The Galaxy is not alone. At the start of the year, LAFC was part of the aristocracy of the league. The Colorado Rapids, while not entirely poor, were viewed as runners at best. After all, it was LAFC that had stars like Carlos Vela and Brian Rodriguez. Of course, Diego Rossi left mid-season, but he was replaced by Cristian Arango, who delivered 14 goals and two assists. Colorado and general manager Padraig Smith seemed adept at bringing together talented players like Kellyn Acosta and Michael Barrios, but it wasn’t a team that really scared opponents.
Still, on Sunday, the teams’ respective fortunes revealed a massive role reversal, as Colorado ripped LAFC 5-2. As the Seattle Sounders drew 1-1 in Vancouver, the Rapids suddenly found themselves first in the West, as LAFC missed the playoffs for the first time in its brief history.
The failure of the playoffs gives the impression that it is the end of an era for Black-and-Gold. Bradley and Vela are at the end of their contract. The manager and player have been the collective face of the franchise since its debut in the 2018 season. LAFC is certainly heading into the offseason with more uncertainty than ever before.
But the honor is due to the Rapids. In addition to Smith’s connections in the commercial market, Robin Fraser has done an outstanding job as a manager. It’s a team whose collective is certainly larger than the individual pieces. Does Colorado have enough to do a deep run? The advantage of playing at altitude won’t hurt, and Fraser has the managerial skills to do it. But at a minimum, the tectonic plates of the Western Conference are shifting.
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Fabio and Hany Mukhtar both score goals as New York and Nashville share the points.
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Red Bulls survive the “roller coaster”
Gerhard Struber sported a smile similar to that of a mad scientist whose mad experiment worked exactly as he had hoped. Frankenstein’s Monster, aka the New York Red Bulls, had just drawn 1-1 with Nashville SC, and when the rest of the music stopped in the Eastern Conference, RBNY was able to grab seventh and final place. in the playoffs at the expense of DC United, CF Montreal and defending MLS Cup champions the Columbus Crew.
They were also not a return to the playoff team. The Red Bulls went 7-1-4 down the home stretch, which over the same span was five points better than the crew, earned them eight points over DCU and 10 points better than Montreal.
For Struber, it was his team finally mastering their high press tactics. He called the first three or four months of the season a “roller coaster mountain”. Ahead of the team’s game against Miami on September 17, the Red Bulls’ odds of qualifying for the playoffs were estimated at 7%. But New York won that night 4-0, triggering a race in which the team’s play was more stable.
“What I want from them in every game is [now] more and more in their brain, ”he said of his players. “Now I think you can wake up at two in the morning and every player understands what we want, and I think that’s the biggest response for our style of play.”
For fans of chaos, Decision Day got off to a perfect start as Fabio led the Red Bulls 1-0 after a comfortable 38 seconds, collecting Christian Casseres’ cross and shooting past Nashville goalkeeper Joe Willis. Nashville responded later in the half with a free kick from Hany Mukhtar that took off from Fabio’s header. New York then had to resist a second half-barrage. DC United managed Toronto FC, 3-1, and if the Red Bulls had conceded it would have been Black-and-Red.
As for teams feeling the pain of missing the playoffs, Columbus deserves a special mention, not having qualified a year after winning the MLS Cup. It also continues a strange race for manager Caleb Porter whose teams have never reached the playoffs in consecutive years.
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Sebastian Mendez scores his first goal for Orlando City as he beats CF Montreal 2-0 to clinch a playoff spot.
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Yet it is Montreal that needs Novocain the most. CFM’s game against Orlando was essentially a win-win game, and Montreal was thought to have the advantage given that it was playing at Stade Saputo. Instead, it caused a collective collapse filled with missed opportunities and loss of discipline. Montreal was not lucky either. Already behind Sebastian Mendez’s marvelous goal in the 55th minute, an apparent count from Romell Quioto was wiped out for offside, even though reruns – albeit from sub-optimal angles – seemed to show he should have held up. The Montreal game fell apart from there. Rudy Camacho was sent off in the 79th minute and Daryl Dike sealed him seven minutes later with a goal on the clock.
If Montreal had reached the playoffs, it would have been an incredible achievement considering Thierry Henry stepped down as manager just days before the start of the preseason. In his place, Wilfried Nancy pushed his team forward and secured a huge season from Djordje Mihailovic with four goals and 16 assists. In the end, that wasn’t enough, leaving Nancy to try to start over for next season.
Castellanos takes the Golden Shoe
For a moment, it looked like DC United’s Ola Kamara would clinch the Golden Boot this year at the expense of NYCFC’s Taty Castellanos with two goals against Toronto FC. It seemed even more likely when the NYCFC fell to 10 players against the Philadelphia Union thanks to Gedion Zelalem’s red card in the 21st minute.
But then Castellanos conjured up a bit of magic, connecting to Maxi Moralez’s cross in the 53rd minute to not only tie the game but also level up with Kamara.
It turned out that both players finished with 19 goals. If Castellanos had finished more than his chances – his expected goals were 22.84 against 17.40 for Kamara – he would have won it on his own. It turned out that Castellanos’ eight assists against Kamara’s five gave him the tiebreaker and the official Golden Boot title.
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