MLS
What is the MLS Wild Card match?
Straight knock-out? Extra time? Home advantage? Everything you need to know about the new elimination round of the MLS Cup playoffs.
Last weekend’s Decision Day fixtures brought the 2023 regular season to a close, confirming the identity of the the 18 MLS teams making it to the post-season.
This year’s MLS Cup playoffs features an extra round, the single-match Wild Card fixtures between the eighth- and ninth-best teams in both conferences. The winners of each of the two Wild Card games will proceed to the best-of-three Round One matches; the losers will see their playoff dreams ended before they had even began.
MLS Wild Card schedule
The newly-introduced Wild Card games will be played back-to-back on Wednesday 25 October. First the eighth-best team in the Eastern Conference will host the ninth-best; followed by the same in the West.
Wild Card fixtures
- New York Red Bulls vs Charlotte FC, 7:30pm ET - Red Bull Arena
- Sporting Kansas City vs San Jose Earthquakes, 9:30pm ET - Children’s Mercy Park
The two victorious teams will then have a few days to recover before their first Round One fixture. The winner of NY Red Bulls and Charlotte will take on Supporters’ Shield winners FC Cincinnati. Sporting KC and San Jose are fighting to face Western Conference winners St. Louis City SC.
Is there extra-time in the MLS Wild Card games?
The additional Wild Card stage is all about excitement and teams will be playing a single 90 minute match, followed by a penalty shoot-out if the game if the scores level at the end of normal time. There will be no extra-time in the Wild Card games.
The four teams involved will have just 90 minutes to win their place in Round One, before facing the agony of a penalty shootout.
Who are the favourites for the MLS Wild Card matches?
The Eastern Conference Wild Card game features two teams with vastly different records in the post-season. The Red Bulls scored a 94th-minute winner against Nashville on Decision Day to snatch a playoff place. That secured their league-record 14th straight season in the post-season.
In stark contract Charlotte’s 1-0 victory over Inter Miami ensured that they would be playing playoff soccer for the very first time in their history. NYRB will go into the game as favourites but the likes of Karol Swiderski and Kristijan Kahlina showed their quality for Charlotte last weekend.
In the Western Conference the Wild Card clash is between Sporting Kansas City and San Jose Earthquakes. Sporting endured a terrible start to 2023, failing to win any of their opening ten games, before the mid-season return of Alan Pulido pushed them to the playoffs.
San Jose’s season has been the opposite, starting well before tailing off to win just three of their final 17 MLS matches. In Pulido and Christian Espinoza both teams have prominent goal-scorers, but Sporting’s form and home advantage should see them through to Round One.