Wednesday's headline games confirmed six playoff teams, and they are covered in our main wrap of the night. But a fifteen-game slate leaves a lot of soccer behind, and six more finals landed alongside the clinchers — a six-goal draw in Toronto, a three-goal ambush in Chicago, a two-goal lead defended for twenty frantic minutes in the capital, and a point stolen in the fourth minute of stoppage time in Utah. None of them decided a playoff place on the night. All of them will matter when the last places are handed out. Here is the rest of Wednesday.
Six goals, no winner, in Toronto
Toronto FC 3, Orlando City 3, and somehow both teams left BMO Field feeling robbed. Lewis Morgan's header put Toronto ahead on 26 minutes, rising to meet the moment a home crowd had been waiting for, and Martín Ojeda's penalty leveled it in first-half stoppage time. Theo Corbeanu restored Toronto's lead four minutes after the restart, finishing the half's early pressure, and at 2-1 the game looked like it would settle into something sensible.
It did not. The last quarter of an hour went silly: Antoine Griezmann leveled on 76 minutes, Daryl Dike put Orlando in front on 83 with the kind of late goal that usually ends arguments, and just as the home crowd had accepted defeat, Matheus Pereira struck on 89 to make it 3-3. Three goals in thirteen minutes, two leads for Toronto, one for Orlando, and a point apiece that helps neither team's playoff arithmetic. For two clubs trying to chase down the places above them, a draw in a game both sides led is the result that looks worse the longer you stare at it — even if, as entertainment, it was the best game of the night that nobody will remember as a classic, because classics are supposed to have a winner.
Philadelphia flip it in Chicago
Chicago led at half-time through Maren Haile-Selassie's 44th-minute goal, scored at exactly the moment a home team wants one — close enough to the break that Philadelphia had to sit in the locker room and think about it. Whatever the visitors thought about clearly worked, because they came out and scored three times in eighteen minutes. Milan Iloski equalized on 49, before most of the crowd had settled back down, and Bruno Damiani then scored on 55 and again on 67, a twelve-minute personal burst that turned a deficit into a two-goal cushion.
The Fire's half-time lead did not so much slip away as get taken away. At 3-1 down with twenty-odd minutes left, Chicago were chasing shadows, and Philadelphia saw the game out the way experienced road teams do. It finished 3-1, and the Union's second-half ambush was the most ruthless twenty minutes played anywhere on the slate outside of Nashville.
D.C. build a cushion and defend it
D.C. United did their work early against the New York Red Bulls, and then spent the end of the night proving it was enough. Tai Baribo converted a fifth-minute penalty to settle United into the game, and Silvan Hefti's header in the fifth minute of first-half stoppage time — the second gut-punch goal New York conceded at the worst possible moment — doubled the lead before the Red Bulls had a chance to regroup.
Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting pulled one back on 71 minutes, and the last stretch was all about whether United's defense would bend. It held. A 2-1 win, built on two first-half blows and twenty minutes of stubborn defending, keeps D.C. in the thick of the East's remaining race — and leaves the Red Bulls looking at the table and doing the kind of math nobody enjoys in mid-October.
The draws: two in the mountains, one stalemate
Colorado led twice at home and still drew 2-2 with Minnesota United. Darren Yapi scored a minute into first-half stoppage time, Kelvin Yeboah answered seven minutes after the restart, and Georgi Minoungou's volley restored Colorado's lead on 74 minutes — a finish worthy of winning a game. It didn't, because a Loïc Williams own goal seven minutes from time handed Minnesota their second equalizer of the night. Two leads, two answers, and a home crowd that watched three points become one in the space of nine late minutes.
In Sandy, the ending was even later. Luc de Fougerolles scored on 79 minutes and thought he had won it for Real Salt Lake — eleven minutes plus stoppage time is a long time to protect a lead, but Salt Lake were nearly there. Jack Jasinski's volley in the fourth minute of stoppage time said otherwise: 1-1, and a point San Jose carried out of Utah like it was made of gold. For the Earthquakes, a draw snatched at the death on the road; for RSL, the particular frustration of a win that existed until the 94th minute and then didn't.
The quiet one came in St. Louis, where City SC and Vancouver played out the slate's only goalless draw. There were fifteen games on Wednesday and fourteen of them produced goals — fifty of them across the fifteen games — but this one never found one. Context explains some of it: both clubs woke up Thursday among the six teams whose playoff places are confirmed, per USA Today's roundup of the night, and a midweek stalemate between two sides already in is the most forgivable result on the board.
What it leaves behind
The regular season ends in early November, six playoff places are spoken for, and the pile of remaining spots shrinks every time a slate like this one lands. Toronto and Orlando took a point from a game each of them led; Chicago took nothing from a game they led at the break; Salt Lake took a point from a game they led in the 94th minute. October soccer is cruel that way. The full picture — who is in, and who is running out of road — is in the main wrap.
- Toronto FC 3-3 Orlando City — Morgan 26', Corbeanu 49', Pereira 89'; Ojeda 45+1' (pen), Griezmann 76', Dike 83'
- Chicago Fire 1-3 Philadelphia — Haile-Selassie 44'; Iloski 49', Damiani 55', 67'
- D.C. United 2-1 NY Red Bulls — Baribo 5' (pen), Hefti 45+5'; Choupo-Moting 71'
- Colorado 2-2 Minnesota — Yapi 45+1', Minoungou 74'; Yeboah 52', Williams OG 83'
- Real Salt Lake 1-1 San Jose — De Fougerolles 79'; Jasinski 90+4'
- St. Louis City 0-0 Vancouver
