The Seattle Sounders beat Los Angeles 2–1 in the final round of the MLS regular season to advance to the Wild Card game, where they will face Real Salt Lake. LAFC finished sixth and will play St. Louis City in the first round of the playoffs without home-field advantage.
Seattle Sounders Reach the MLS Playoffs: Win over Los Angeles Opens the Road to the Cup
The Seattle Sounders clinched a berth in the Audi MLS Cup 2026 Playoffs—and did so in a manner befitting a team accustomed to relying on grit and determination. On Saturday night local time, the Sounders beat Los Angeles 2–1. Combined with favorable results elsewhere around the league, the win secured them the eighth seed. Seattle will host Real Salt Lake in the Wild Card game on November 19 at Lumen Field. The winner will face the top-seeded Vancouver Whitecaps in a best-of-three first-round series.
The match against Los Angeles began almost perfectly for the hosts. Just 52 seconds in, Cristian Roldan intercepted an errant pass deep in the opposition’s half and set up Albert Rusnák, who finished from close range. The early goal set the tone and forced the visitors to open up. Seattle doubled its lead in the 31st minute when academy graduate Sebastián Gómez finished off a move with a precise shot, assisted by Rusnák, who had already scored himself. Los Angeles revived the contest only in the 82nd minute, when Eddie Segura headed home a set-piece delivery from inside the six-yard box. The visitors could not find another goal.
Seattle now faces a challenging road ahead. The MLS playoff format requires lower-seeded teams to go through an extra round—the Wild Card game—where one mistake can end a season. As the eighth seed, the Sounders did not earn a direct place in the main playoff bracket, but hosting Real Salt Lake gives them an important home-field advantage. The winner of the matchup will go straight on to face the Vancouver Whitecaps, the best team in the regular season. In a best-of-three series, there is little room for error: losing the first game would leave a team on the brink of elimination.
A few points are worth explaining for readers who do not follow MLS closely. A Wild Card game is an additional qualifying match between teams that finish eighth and ninth—or in equivalent positions, depending on the conference—that have not qualified directly for the main bracket. The winner advances to the first round, where series are played to two wins. A team that loses the first game must win the next two, creating enormous psychological pressure. The eighth seed awarded to Seattle is determined by regular-season points and other tiebreakers; in this case, favorable results by its rivals worked in the club’s favor.
Albert Rusnák was the key figure in the match. The Slovak midfielder scored once and then assisted Gómez, contributing directly to both of his team’s goals. Cristian Roldan, meanwhile, showed the value of an aggressive press: his interception in the opening minute set up the early goal, which dealt a psychological blow to Los Angeles. This is not Seattle’s first playoff appearance in recent years, and the club has traditionally been one of the league’s most consistent teams—a reputation reinforced by this year’s qualification. But the biggest challenge lies ahead: a short tournament in which the quality of the opposition rises sharply and a single mistake can end a season. The club’s official announcement of its playoff berth was published on its website. Now fans must wait until November 19, when the match at Lumen Field will determine whether the Sounders’ quest for the MLS Cup continues.
Defeat in Seattle: LAFC Misses Out on Second Place and Faces a Tough Playoff Draw
In the final round of the MLS regular season, Los Angeles FC lost 2–1 away to the Seattle Sounders. The defeat proved decisive for the Black and Gold’s final standing: they finished the regular season sixth in the Western Conference with 47 points (12 wins, 11 losses and 11 draws). In the first round of the playoffs, a best-of-three series, LAFC will face third-place St. Louis City. The series will begin on November 20 or 21, with LAFC hosting the second match at BMO Stadium over the weekend of November 27. Exact dates and kickoff times will be announced on Sunday.
For Seattle, the match was crucial in the race for the final playoff spots. The Sounders opened the scoring in the first minute: a poor pass near their own penalty area gave the ball to Cristian Roldan, whose cutback was finished by Albert Rusnák. Significantly, the hosts took the lead not after a sustained siege, but because of an individual error by their opponents—a typical scenario in matches where everything is on the line.
Despite conceding, LAFC created chances. In the 25th minute, a fast transition involving Armindo Sieb ended with a close-range shot by Son Heung-min, which Seattle goalkeeper Andrew Thomas saved. Sieb’s follow-up went just wide of the post. But in the 31st minute, the hosts doubled their lead: a deflection off Sebastián Gómez wrong-footed LAFC goalkeeper Cabral Carter, and the ball went into the net. In soccer, a deflection is a change in the ball’s direction after it touches a defender or another player. In this case, the change of trajectory confused the goalkeeper, leaving Seattle 2–0 up at halftime.
Thomas came to the Sounders’ rescue again in the second half, saving a one-on-one chance for Son Heung-min inside the six-yard box in the 55th minute. A one-on-one is a situation in which an attacker is left facing the goalkeeper with no defenders nearby; such chances are considered among the most dangerous. LAFC dominated the second half and pulled a goal back in the 82nd minute. Leo Välta delivered a free kick from near the goal line, and Ryan Porteous headed the ball toward the six-yard box. His central-defense partner, Eddie Segura, won the aerial duel against Seattle’s defenders and headed it into the net. The goal line is the boundary of the field at either end; the move developed from the flank through a series of aerial challenges.
Despite several late attempts to equalize, Thomas kept Seattle’s goal intact until the final whistle, earning his team three points and a playoff berth at the very last moment—on the day MLS holds Decision Day, the final round of the regular season, when all playoff places are decided simultaneously.
Seattle goalkeeper Andrew Thomas was a key factor in the match. His two saves against Son Heung-min, in the 25th and 55th minutes, effectively decided the outcome. Another pivotal moment was the goal conceded in the opening minute, which forced LAFC to chase the game from the outset and, in turn, open up—leading to a second goal before halftime. Finally, the misplaced pass in LAFC’s own penalty area was a direct result of Seattle’s pressure in what was a must-win game for the Sounders.
The defeat also had strategic consequences. Sixth place means LAFC will not have home-field advantage throughout the first round, but will host only the second match of the series. In a best-of-three format, all three games may be played, with the first taking place at St. Louis, the higher-seeded third-place team. As the club’s official recap reports, losing to a direct rival in the final round was more than a loss of points: it significantly complicated LAFC’s path through the playoffs. For Seattle, by contrast, a final-round win over one of the league’s strongest clubs is a sign of playoff readiness, and the team enters the postseason on a high.
Seattle Beat Los Angeles in a Match That Decided Both Teams’ MLS Playoff Fates
The final day of the MLS regular season, known in North America as Decision Day, was unusually dramatic this year for two California clubs. The Seattle Sounders hosted Los Angeles in a match where everything was at stake: the home team needed a win to avoid missing the playoffs, while the visitors needed one to improve their place in the bracket and secure home-field advantage in the first round. The Sounders won 2–1, reshaping the standings in the Western Conference. According to the Los Angeles Times, Seattle ultimately finished eighth in the West and will face Real Salt Lake in the Wild Card game, while Los Angeles finished sixth and will meet third-seeded St. Louis City in the first round, without home-field advantage.
The star of the match was Albert Rusnák, who opened the scoring after just 51 seconds. He received a pass from Cristian Roldan and scored Seattle’s fastest goal of the season. It was Rusnák’s fifth goal and Roldan’s sixth assist. The goal was the fourth-fastest in Decision Day history; the record belongs to former Sounders midfielder Nicolás Lodeiro, who scored 24 seconds into a match in 2022. In the 31st minute, Rusnák turned provider, setting up 20-year-old rookie forward Sebastián Gómez, whose goal was his third of the season. It was only Gómez’s seventh start in 20 league appearances.
The match came back to life near the end. In the 82nd minute, Los Angeles defender Eddie Segura headed in a goal to cut the deficit, his first of the season. Ryan Porteous, recording the second assist of his career, and Leo Välta, with his first in his fifth league appearance, set him up. But the visitors could not rescue the game, largely thanks to Seattle goalkeeper Andrew Thomas, who made seven saves. His most impressive came in the 54th minute, when Son Heung-min shot from close range with the score at 2–0. LAFC’s rookie goalkeeper, Cabral Carter, made one save in his second start and third appearance of the season. The hosts suffered a setback when Jordan Morris left the field in the 24th minute with a quadriceps injury.
The context makes the win especially valuable for Seattle. The club has missed the playoffs only once since joining the league in 2009, and this was only the second time its playoff fate had come down to the final matchday. The Sounders will now host Real Salt Lake in the Wild Card game. The winner will travel to face the West’s top team, the Vancouver Whitecaps, in a best-of-three first-round series.
Here is a brief explanation of some of the terms used. Decision Day is the final round of the MLS regular season, when all conference matches are played simultaneously so that no team can adjust its approach based on the results of other games. A Wild Card game is a playoff qualifying match between teams just outside the automatic qualification places; the winner earns the right to face one of the conference’s top seeds. A best-of-three format means a series is played until one team wins twice, while “seeding” refers to teams’ ranking based on points, which determines who plays at home and who faces whom. Finally, in North American sports, a “rookie” is a player in their first professional season.
The key takeaway from this match is simple: Seattle seized its chance and turned a season that was hanging by a thread into a playoff berth, while Los Angeles missed the opportunity to climb higher in the bracket and must now begin the postseason away at St. Louis. Rusnák’s early goal set the tone, while Thomas’s saves—especially against Son Heung-min—effectively preserved the Sounders’ two-goal lead at the most dangerous moment. Segura’s goal may offer Los Angeles some consolation, but in the playoffs the team will face a more serious challenge: winning without the support of its home crowd.
