Minnesota Beat San Jose 3–1 on Decision Day — and Miss the Playoffs Anyway

Minnesota United knew the deal before kickoff on Saturday: beat San Jose at Allianz Field, then hope results elsewhere broke their way. They delivered their half of it, coming from a goal down to win 3–1 in front of 19,714 on Decision Day. The other half never came. The Loons closed the season on a seven-match unbeaten run and still missed the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs by a single point.

The team sheets carried the stakes. Minnesota went 4-4-2 — Drake Callender in goal; Valerius, Díaz, captain Morris Duggan and Markanich across the back; González, Gene, Triantis and Chancalay in midfield; Yeboah and Pereyra up top. San Jose answered 4-2-3-1: Gunn behind Kikanovic, Munie, Roberts and Ricketts; Vieira captaining from the base of midfield; Werner, Tsakiris and Bouda behind Judd. It was 50 degrees at kickoff at Allianz Field, referee Alexis Da Silva in charge — a cold Saint Paul night for the warmest kind of chaos.

For a while it looked worse than that. Preston Judd put San Jose ahead in the 45th minute, finishing from the centre of the box off Niko Tsakiris's through ball, with Timo Werner on the secondary assist. It was Judd's 17th league goal of the season — a career high, and tied for the third-highest single-season total in Earthquakes history. Minnesota went in at half-time a goal down and, on the live table, out.

The comeback started on 57 minutes. Joaquín Pereyra broke forward on the counter and set up Tomás Chancalay, who finished into the bottom right corner — Pereyra's 15th assist of the season. Minnesota pushed the game after that: 14 shots to San Jose's eight, six on target to three, eight corners to two.

The goalkeepers shaped the night before the goals did. Gunn was saving headers inside three minutes — Duggan's, from the right side of the six-yard box, pushed away from the top centre — and he denied Pereyra on 37 minutes and Díaz's header on 62, low to his right, as Minnesota turned the screw. Callender's work came in quieter moments: Tsakiris's attempt held in the centre of the goal on 27 minutes, and Vítor Costa's header saved on 86, when San Jose were chasing the game at 2–1 and any equaliser would have flipped the West's table again. Yeboah had missed the night's clearest early chance on 32 minutes, close but wide from the centre of the box. Decision Day rarely turns on one save. This one turned on several, and then on a bounce off a post.

The winner, on 82 minutes, was the strangest goal of the day. A Minnesota corner reached substitute Marcus Caldeira at the back post; he laid the ball off at the top of the box, and Nectarios Triantis struck it left-footed. The shot hit the post — and bounced in off San Jose goalkeeper Angus Gunn. An own goal in the official record, a winner in every way that mattered to the home crowd.

The middle of the game was a scrap, and the book filled up accordingly: Vieira cautioned just after the restart, Gene and Duggan for Minnesota either side of the equaliser, Ricketts and then Judd himself for San Jose. The benches churned — Aziel Jackson on for Minnesota on 63 minutes; Harkes, Jasinski and Leroux all on for San Jose across the 70th and 71st; and then, on 79 minutes, the double change that produced the winner, Marcus Caldeira for Yeboah and Carlos Harvey for Gene. Three minutes later Caldeira was controlling a corner at the back post and laying it off for the strike that came back off the post and in off Gunn. Vítor Costa replaced the booked Ricketts straight after the goal, Chancalay was cautioned on 86, and Jovanovic came on in stoppage time — but the game had already been decided twice over.

Triantis got his own name on the scoresheet in the fourth minute of stoppage time, finishing from the centre of the box off Morris Duggan's assist to make it 3–1. Two goal involvements, one winner that will never carry his name, and a celebration that had to carry a season's worth of what-ifs.

The individual lines deserve their footnote. Tsakiris's assist on it was his team-leading 13th of the year. And Minnesota's win was their third straight to close the season — the kind of run that, in a kinder week, is remembered as the charge that carried a team into the postseason.

Because Decision Day always writes two stories at once. Minnesota finished 10th in the West on 44 points — one behind Real Salt Lake for the final wild-card spot, kept out by results elsewhere, Seattle's win over LAFC among them. It is the Loons' first playoff miss since 2023, and it lands after a closing run of four wins and three draws that would have been enough in almost any other week.

And the losers left happy. San Jose finished fourth in the West on 52 points — the club's highest total since 2012 — and, despite the defeat, locked up home-field advantage in Round One, where they host Houston in a best-of-three. It will be the first postseason home game in PayPal Park's history. Minnesota won the night. San Jose won the table. Both things are true, and only one of them gets a banner. Follow every kick in the Game Center.