Griezmann's Orlando and Solans' Salt Lake Get One Night to Survive

The MLS playoffs do not ease in. They open on Thursday night with two games where a season can end in ninety minutes — or in a shootout, because there is no extra time in the Wild Card round. Win, and you get a best-of-three series against the best team in your conference. Lose, and you are done until February.

First up is Orlando. Orlando City host FC Cincinnati at Inter&Co Stadium (7:30 p.m. ET, Apple TV), a game between two teams who finished level on 46 points and defend like it is optional. Orlando conceded 78 goals this season, the most in the Eastern Conference. Cincinnati conceded 75. Something has to give, and it will probably give at both ends.

Orlando were not supposed to be here at all. They won one of their first eight league matches and spent the spring at the bottom of the East. Oscar Pareja was dismissed, Martín Perelman took over on an interim basis, and in July the club signed Antoine Griezmann from Atlético Madrid. Griezmann, a World Cup winner with France in 2018, has 14 goals and eight assists since arriving. Martín Ojeda leads the team with 16 goals and Justin Ellis has 11 assists, and the Lions closed the season by beating New England 1-0 on Decision Day — Braian Ojeda's volley at 45 minutes, struck after Griezmann's cross was cleared to the edge of the box, and Maxime Crépeau's clean sheet at the other end. It is Orlando's seventh straight trip to the playoffs, the longest active streak in the league.

Cincinnati arrive holding the receipt and the regret. The receipt: a 6-2 win over Orlando in May that equaled their club record for goals in an MLS match, and a 1-1 draw in Orlando in August. The all-time series sits at 5-5-5 across 15 meetings, and Thursday is the first postseason game between the clubs. The regret: Cincinnati went into Decision Day seventh and finished it ninth. They lost 2-0 at home to Nashville, Sam Surridge scoring twice in the second half, and wins for Orlando and Columbus pushed them into the play-in game and onto a plane to Florida. Pat Noonan put it plainly afterward — his team had been "in a position to avoid a play-in game" and let it go. Follow the game in the Game Center.

The nightcap is colder and louder. Seattle Sounders host Real Salt Lake at Lumen Field (10 p.m. ET, Apple TV), eighth against ninth in the West, one point between them all season.

Seattle have reached the playoffs in 17 of their 18 seasons in MLS, and they nearly missed this one. On Decision Day they beat LAFC 2-1 at Lumen Field — Albert Rusnák finished Cristian Roldan's cutback inside the first minute, Sebastián Gómez doubled the lead at 31 minutes, and then Seattle held on while LAFC outshot them 13-0 in the second half. Eddie Segura's header at 82 minutes made the finish nervous. It held. Brian Schmetzer's side leans on experience now — Roldan in midfield, summer signing Dejan Joveljić up front — and on a building that knows this round.

Salt Lake's season has a face, and it belongs to a rookie. RSL took the West's last spot on Decision Day, beating the LA Galaxy 2-1 at America First Field behind Sergi Solans at 10 minutes and Zach Booth at 13. It is their sixth straight playoff trip, earned the hard way: Diego Luna lost to a knee injury, homegrown winger Zavier Gozo sold to Crystal Palace, and a 13-game winless run from July into September that should have buried them. They closed 5-2-1 instead.

Solans is why. The 30th pick in the 2025 SuperDraft scored 15 goals with four assists in his first MLS season, 19 in all competitions — second only to Cyle Larin's 17 in 2015 on the league's all-time rookie list, and two short of Salt Lake's single-season club record. Thursday is the whole chase now: one more night, in Seattle, against the team that has made a habit of surviving nights like this — or the record stays exactly where it is. Follow the game in the Game Center.

Then the winners find out what the prize actually is. The East winner goes to Nashville on Sunday (4 p.m. ET, GEODIS Park), where the Supporters' Shield winners wait with the best regular season the league has recorded: a record 77 points, 23 wins against three losses, 25 goals conceded and 17 clean sheets, with Surridge — who scored both goals in Cincinnati on Decision Day to reach 21 for the season — leading the line. The West winner goes to Vancouver, the West's top seed with 64 points, on Sunday night. Nobody playing Thursday is lifting anything this week. They are playing for the right to walk into the hardest room in the bracket.

The champions wait until Saturday: Lionel Messi and Inter Miami open their series against Columbus at Nu Stadium, in the Game Center here. Thursday comes first. Two stadiums, two shootouts waiting if the goals do not come, and by the end of the night the 18-team playoff field is down to 16.