The Major League Soccer regular season ends Saturday after eight months and 34 games for each team. Twenty-eight of the league’s 29 teams will compete to determine which teams will make the playoffs and which will end their seasons early.
The seven games in the Eastern Conference will kick off simultaneously at 6 p.m. ET; the seven in the Western Conference will follow suit at 9 p.m. ET.
This annual tradition of last-game synchronized play is known as Decision Day, and it is one of the hallmarks of MLS competition.
Nine teams from each conference qualify for the playoffs, but where each team finishes among those nine is consequential. The top four will receive home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, while the top seven will qualify for the playoffs directly.
The eighth and ninth seeds will face one another in a wild-card play-in match to determine which of the two will round out the playoffs.
There are plenty of storylines for Decision Day. Here are the biggest:
Eastern Conference
Inter Miami has already confirmed its top seeding for the MLS playoffs, but it has a chance to take things one step further in the season’s final match.
If Inter Miami beats the New England Revolution at home in Fort Lauderdale, Miami will set a league regular-season points record with 74. The 2021 New England team holds the league record with 73 points.