Five things you should hope to see out of the start of the MLS Cup playoffs

The 2024 MLS Cup Playoffs begin Tuesday night with a pair of wild card round matches, and 18 teams in Major League Soccer will battle to be the only club left standing after the MLS Cup on Dec. 7.

As we get set for playoff soccer, there are several storylines if you plan to tune in that should have your attention.

Who’s playing who?

Eastern Conference

• 1 Inter Miami vs. winner of 8 CF Montreal/9 Atlanta United
• 4 Orlando City vs. 5 Charlotte FC
• 3 FC Cincinnati vs. 6 NYCFC
• 2 Columbus Crew vs. 7 New York Red Bulls

Western Conference

• 1 LAFC vs. winner of 8 Vancouver Whitecaps/9 Portland Timbers
• 4 Seattle Sounders vs. 5 Houston Dynamo
• 3 Real Salt Lake vs. 6 Minnesota United
• 2 LA Galaxy vs. 7 Colorado Rapids

Note: The entirety of the MLS Cup playoffs can be found via MLS Season Pass on Apple TV.

Is Messi and Miami really built for this?

Inter Miami set the MLS points record and won the Supporters’ Shield given to the club with the league’s best regular season record for the first time. So, they have to be a shoo-in for winning it all, right? Well, not exactly. Sure, they’re the favorites, but they have to beat the pressure of being the Shield holders, as whoever wins the Supporters’ Shield usually finds it difficult to win MLS Cup.

Since 2004, only four Supporters’ Shield winners have gone on to win MLS Cup: LAFC (2022), Toronto FC (2017), LA Galaxy (2011), and Columbus Crew (2008). They are the only forur Shield winners to even make it to the final in that time frame.

Plus be honest, every team wants to be the team to knock out Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, and the rest of Inter Miami.

Vancouver’s chances could get motocrossed.

The Vancouver Whitecaps are hosting the Wild Card match against the Portland Timbers, but they’re hosting it in a weird place: Providence Park. Because BC Place is hosting a motocross event that was prescheduled, BC Place is not available and Vancouver had to give up their home field advantage to their Cascadian rivals.

Photo by Serhat Cetinkaya/Anadolu via Getty Images

That hopefully won’t come back to bite them, as they already had to back into the playoffs. The Whitecaps haven’t won since Sept. 14 (that’s an eight match winless streak) and now they even lost their hosting rights for the important first match.

On the flip side, the Timbers are in a funk of their own — having only won one of their last six matches — Vancouver will look back with deep regret if they lose this match on the road because motocross kept them away from home.

Once again, LAFC is ascending at the right time.

Los Angeles Football Club are once again on a heater. They’ve won six straight to close out the season, catching rivals in the Los Angeles Galaxy for the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference.

Photo by Jeff Dean/Getty Images

They could be getting into their groove at just the right time, scoring at least two goals in five of their last six matches. Now, they get to hold that all-important home field advantage throughout the Western Conference playoffs and potentially host the final again should Miami or Columbus lose.

Charlotte is built to surge.

One of the hotter teams in the Eastern Conference is Charlotte FC, who went 4W-0L-1D over their last five matches to surge into the No 5 seed. They’re hoping to keep it going against Orlando City, who beat them 2-0 on Sept. 18in Orlando and drew 2-2 in Charlotte on June 19.

Charlotte has been desperate to go deep into the playoffs and bring their city a winner, and under first year head coach Dean Smith, they feel they finally have the combinations on the field to do just that. They need to stay hot against a very good Orlando squad if they hope to continue seeking that first trophy.

Photo by Bob Drebin/ISI Photos/Getty Images

Who will be the hot keeper that carries his team?

In every MLS Cup Playoffs, there is one goalkeeper that decides it’s time to pose as a brick wall for Halloween. Goalscorers are what get your team on the highlights shows, but a hot goalkeeper can routinely carry a team to glory.

Whether it’s a guy who has a ton of saves like LA Galaxy’s John McCarthy or NYCFC’s Matt Freese or a guy who can stop penalties like Atlanta United’s Brad Guzan or Orlando City’s Pedro Gallese, the team that lifts the trophy will be able to credit their goalkeeper keeping the steel trap on the goal locked.