Well, the Verde and Black somehow pulled out a win on Saturday night with the second best comeback of the season, and officially eliminated Sporting Kansas City from finishing above Austin FC. We have avoided ending up with the Anthony J. Precourt Memorial Wooden Spoon (yes, that’s its real name) for another season!
I still consider the DC comeback on the road to be a larger comeback since the first goal didn’t start until later and Pollo, but coming back from 2 down after 60 minutes to get all 3 points is absolutely wild. However, I would be lying if I weren’t concerned about conceding 10 goals in the last 3 home matches. That will cause an early playoff exit if not remedied in the coming weeks, and the last time I checked Rigoni isn’t a defender.
MLS Elimination Magic Number Table:
| Team | Magic Number |
| Sporting Kansas City | ELIMINATED from finishing above Austin (No Wooden Spoon!!!) |
| San Jose Earthquakes | 4 |
| Houston Dynamo | 5 |
| Vancouver Whitecaps | 10 |
| Portland Timbers | 10 |
| Nashville SC | 10 |
| Seattle Sounders | 12 Clinch Playoff Birth |
| Colorado Rapids | 14 |
| LA Galaxy | 16 |
| FC Dallas (Frisco) | 16 Clinch Home Playoff Match |
| Real Salt Lake | 17 Clinch US Open Cup Bye |
| Minnesota United | 18 Clinch 2 Seed (Potential Second Home Playoff Match) |
| LAFC | Needs 22 points to eliminate us |
Next week, we have the potential to eliminate both the San Jose Earthquakes and the Houston Dynamo. If the Earthquakes do not beat LAFC at home, then we will own the tiebreaker over them (Austin has 14 wins and they only have 5) so their magic number would drop by another point. The Dynamo travel to Colorado in their match next weekend. They would need to lose, and we would need to win in Minnesota to eliminate them in 5 days.
Finally, I’ll have another brief update on Thursday after some midweek matches as we have LAFC playing DC United on Tuesday night and then Frisco hosting Eastern Conference leaders Philadelphia Union and a Western conference alpine water fight north of the border between the Whitecaps and the Rapids.