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What's up for grabs on MLS Decision Day 2024
Inter Miami forward Lionel Messi. Kevin Sousa-Imagn Images

What's up for grabs on MLS Decision Day 2024

By Alyssa Clang  |  Last updated Oct 18, 2024 2:59 PM ET

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. 

Seven teams — Miami, Columbus, Cincinnati, Orlando, NYCFC, Charlotte and the New York Red Bulls — have confirmed their spots in the Eastern Conference playoffs. Still, the final two slots remain up for grabs. 

D.C. United (expected MLS Golden Boot winner Christian Benteke) and CF Montréal (former Miami star Josef Martinez) are in pole position to take them. However, if results work in their favor, the Philadelphia Union and Atlanta United could snatch them away on Decision Day. 

D.C. and/or Montréal must lose, but if they do — and Philadelphia and/or Atlanta win — the teams will swap places in the table.

Western Conference

We've already locked down the nine teams heading to the Western Conference playoffs; no teams below the qualifying line can leapfrog another on the final day of competition. But there's plenty to be determined out west, and no question looms larger than this: Which Los Angeles team will walk away with the No. 1 seed?

The L.A. Galaxy entered Decision Day first, and it is the most memorable and consistent team in the conference. But LAFC has bounced back from a poor start to creep within three points of its local rival. 

If the Galaxy lose against the Houston Dynamo and LAFC wins against the last-place San Jose Earthquakes, they'll close out the season with identical records and points tallies. The tiebreaker will come down to goal differential, and there's just a two-goal swing separating the teams as we head into the season's final game.

The MLS playoffs will begin with the Eastern and Western conference wild-card play-in games on Tuesday.

Alyssa Clang

Alyssa is a Boston-born Californian with a passion for global sport. She can yell about misplaced soccer passes in five languages and rattle off the turns of Silverstone in her sleep. You can find her dormant Twitter account at @alyssaclang, but honestly, you’re probably better off finding her here

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