This Philadelphia Union season has been a forgettable one, as the greatest run in franchise history comes to a gradual and avoidable denouement. With four games left to play, they have nine wins, 12 losses, and nine draws, good for 36 points with a +10 goal differential.

Thing is, they’ve gone out and totally smoked their last two opponents, hammering NYC FC 5-1 at Yankee Stadium before blanking D.C. 4-0 on national television Sunday night.

By virtue of those clobberings, they are now above the playoff line. And if the postseason began today, they would be the 9th seed, playing a one-game Wild Card for the right to travel to Miami to square off against Lionel Messi and company in the opening round. It’s not ideal, but it would continue a six-year playoff streak that began in 2018 and featured an MLS Cup run that should have resulted in a trophy.

The difficulty is that the Union still have to play three teams currently in the playoff bracket and one that has not yet been eliminated. Atlanta is on 33 points and right behind the U ahead of this next game. Then the seasons wraps against Columbus, Cincinnati, and Orlando, who currently occupy the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th seed in the East.

If the Union do enough against those teams to get in, then they’re carrying momentum into the postseason. They need to make up 5 points on NYC or Charlotte to avoid the Wild Card game, and Miami, but if they play the way they played in these last two, it’s not out of the realm of possibility.


For what it’s worth, no team seeded lower than 5th has gone to MLS Cup in the last 10 years. That was the 2018 Portland Timbers. It’s uber-rare that any team beyond the top four in each Conference even make it to the semifinals. So no, the prospects don’t look great for the Union, even if they do make it in.

But even then, does it mean anything? We can say the playoff streak is alive. Maybe that’s twisted into some turd-polishing narrative for 2024, which the “sell the team” portion of the fan base would argue is a bad thing. The Union are on 1.2 points per game now and haven’t finished with a number that low since 2015, when they lost 17 games and finished -13 in goal differential.

It’s just one of those things where you feel it. You feel yourself being sucked back in. They pick themselves back up and do enough to get you interested again, only to flatline and continue the vicious cycle. Is this the same thing? Or are we feeling a miracle playoff run, ala the 2010 Philadelphia Flyers?