The Round One Best-of-3 Series grind of the Audi 2025 MLS Cup Playoffs rolls on – for some teams.
From the East, one club has booked a Conference Semifinal trip while another six await a decisive Game 3 next weekend. For one other, the season has rolled up after a quick, two-game trip and rolled into a long, three-month offseason.
We’ll soon have post-mortems for the eliminated teams. In the meantime, let’s break down what we saw in Game 2.
Game 2 in a nutshell: A massive missed opportunity from NYCFC. I generally think Pascal Jansen’s done a very good job this year, but he got it wrong by starting this game in a 3-4-2-1 – really, you could argue it was a 5-4-1 – with Maxi Moralez and Nicolás Fernández Mercau underneath Alonso Martínez.
It was too defensive and let Charlotte off the hook because Martínez was too often stranded playing 1v3 (Moralez and Fernández love coming back to the ball; neither is going to run with the Pigeons’ No. 9).
To put numbers to it:
- Over the game’s first 67 minutes, during which NYCFC were in that 5-4-1, they outshot Charlotte 9-7 and xG was about dead even. xG aside, Charlotte actually had the best chances – ringing the woodwork at the beginning and end of the half, with Harry Toffolo missing a tap-in on the overlap in between.
- Over the game’s final 23 minutes (plus stoppage time) after flipping back into their usual 4-2-3-1, NYCFC outshot the Crown 7-1 and xG was 0.94-0.06 in their favor.
NYCFC forced Kristijan Kahlina into a couple of nice saves during that time. How much more work would they have forced him into if they’d come out in a more attacking posture from the jump?
Anyway, as you can see, it finished 0-0 before Charlotte won it in PKs.
What to expect in Game 3
- When: Friday, time TBA
- Watch: MLS Season Pass, Apple TV
From Charlotte: Wilfried Zaha was back in this one, and marginally effective – he did better drawing fouls (heh) than he did creating chances from the run of play. That’s not meant as a slight: drawing fouls in dangerous spots is a weapon in any game, and doubly so in anything as tight as a playoff game.
Still, Zaha was a little isolated. There were very few moments where he was working in combination play with an overlapping fullback and a playmaker (Brandt Bronico counts as a playmaker in Dean Smith’s system) in the left half-space, carving out chances on the front foot.
Instead it was a series of 1v2s where he was asked to make something out of, more or less, nothing. If anything, Zaha was more effective when he came inside and was operating as a true No. 10 in select moments. He just didn't get to do that a lot.
Related: The Crown have now played five playoff matches under Smith. They’ve scored one goal and have a cumulative -3.7 expected goals differential (losing the xG battle outright in four of the five games).
So the real answer to “what to expect from Charlotte in Game 3” is “Kahlina.”
From NYCFC: It’s time to drop a defender (or d-mid and push Justin Haak up a line) and get Hannes Wolf back into the starting XI. Get him on that front line with Martínez and Fernández, let Maxi orchestrate, and trust your ability to attack and execute.
Part of this is that Wolf is a very good player who's productive in the final third. Part of it, though, is that Wolf's absence limits Fernández's effectiveness. One of the best things about the Argentine playmaker is his ability to play runners into space – a skill set that resonates with and mutually enhances Wolf’s best attributes.
Does dropping a defender mean you put yourself more at risk of getting gashed on the counter? Yes. Audentes fortuna iuvat.
Game 2 in a nutshell: There was a moment, a half-hour in, where it looked like the Fire were about to get back into it. Jovan Lukic had rugby tackled Jack Elliott on a corner kick, the ref had pointed to the spot, and suddenly the 2-0 hole Chicago were in – a nightmare of a start, but the exact pit they’d dug themselves out of in Game 1 – didn’t seem so deep.
Brian Gutiérrez stepped up. Andre Blake made the save. The Fire’s shoulders collectively slumped, and the competitive portion of the match was over. Philly made it 3-0 shortly after Gutiérrez's miss, and Chicago didn’t come particularly close over Game 2's final hour.
Folks could argue (many will, I think) that the competitive portion was over on Thursday when Chicago starting goalkeeper Chris Brady was injured in training, which meant backup Jeffrey Gal got the nod between the sticks. More than anything else, this match will be remembered as Gal’s Nightmare, as both the first and third Philly goals came from his inability to play decisively out of the back.
What it means for Philly: The Union are built to punish teams like the Fire – groups that are a little sloppy and a little soft, and maybe over-determined to play through the press no matter who the personnel is. They have such clarity on their pressing triggers and the angles they take are ruthlessly precise; you could teach an entire seminar on the way Tai Baribo shapes his blitzes. It’s all insanely well-drilled.
They owned Chicago this year, and a worrisome final 15 minutes of Game 1 was the outlier, not a harbinger.
What does raise a little bit of a red flag for me is how they struggled defending set pieces throughout these two games. They’ll want to get into the lab to work on that, but mostly they’ll be happy to have some time off to get Mikael Uhre fully fit.
Job done. Onto the Conference Semifinals, where they'll face Charlotte or NYCFC.
What’s next for Chicago: I think you can learn a lot about what Gregg Berhalter thinks of his central midfield group by the fact that 1) Rominigue Kouamé was subbed midway through the first half (I’m something close to dead certain we’ve seen his last MLS minutes), and 2) Kellyn Acosta didn’t get off the bench.
I’ll have much more to come in the post-mortem, but I think the general consensus should be that this was a successful first year of the Berhalter tenure, and that a good winter window can propel them into the ranks of the 60-point teams – and with that, true MLS Cup contention.
Game 2 in a nutshell: This time, Nashville didn’t play scared.
I hate to be that reductive, and I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but even Eddi Tagseth said it (as relayed on the broadcast): Nashville showed Miami too much respect in Game 1. It wasn’t so much that they failed to match the Herons’ intensity, but were timid in spots. Almost overawed.
That was gone in Game 2, as was the pseudo 4-3-3 that head coach B.J. Callaghan had instituted. Instead it was back to the 4-2-2-2 they’ve used almost all year long, though with a twist: it was an entirely makeshift left side, as Josh Bauer had to come in at left back to replace injured veteran Daniel Lovitz, and Matthew Corcoran – a natural No. 8 who I think will end up being a 6 – came in at left midfield.
The effect was obvious: Nashville didn’t create much up that side. But at the same time, both Bauer and especially Corcoran did a good job of keeping possession sequences going while mostly shutting down Miami’s right side (forcing Leo Messi into a mostly anonymous performance… right up until Bauer made his first mistake of the game, which Messi naturally turned into a Miami goal).
Creating a solid, no-frills platform like that was basically Callaghan betting on his attacking DPs, Hany Mukhtar and Sam Surridge, to win the game. And with Surridge getting the first goal (from the spot after he’d drawn a penalty when Hany had played him through) and Bauer getting the second (when he bundled home Mukhtar’s corner kick service)... pretty good bet!
What to expect in Game 3
- When: Saturday, time TBA
- Watch: MLS Season Pass, Apple TV
From Miami: You could tell Miami were frustrated and uncomfortable from the start. They struggled building from the back, and so Noah Allen was dropped at halftime, Sergio Busquets was moved to central defense, and Telasco Segovia was added to the midfield mix.
That didn’t really help. What did was adding Mateo Silvetti – more of a second forward than a winger, or playmaker – for Baltasar Rodríguez in the 54th minute. In conjunction with that change Messi started dropping deeper to get on the ball, and Miami dictated things for the final half-hour. Messi’s goal came off a Bauer mistake, yes. But that mistake was forced by constant pressure and movement, both on and off the ball.
I’m not expecting Javier Mascherano to go with this look from the jump in Game 3. But I wouldn’t be shocked if he figured out a way to get Messi on the ball deeper and earlier in the play.
From Nashville: Whether it’s Messi the forward or Messi the midfielder, it’s got to be Tagseth and Patrick Yazbek at their very best once again. The deep-central midfield pair were excellent in virtually every phase of the game, but also with their mentality in terms of 1) being physical, and 2) driving the ball forward at any opportunity to push Miami onto the back foot.
Shouts as well to Andy Najar, the right back whose on-ball work more or less turned Jordi Alba into a pure defender. Do that and you can spark a failure cascade in a lot of Miami’s build-ups, and those failure cascades lead to turnovers, and turnovers lead to transition opportunities, and transition defense is where Miami have traditionally been at their worst (although Maxi Falcon was excellent on the night).
Short version: expect the same lineup and game plan. The question is whether they’ll keep their confidence if Miami come out and hit first.
Game 2 in a nutshell: Even before Yuya Kubo picked up a completely deserved 38th-minute red card, this one was pretty one-sided.
Once he got that red card, it turned into a five-star beating:
- Passes into final third: 65-8
- Passes in the final third: 179-25
- Passes into the opponent's box: 18-1
This was maybe the best night to be a Crew fan since the 2024 Leagues Cup final. Just complete domination or the sort that doesn’t require any analysis beyond "there was only one team on the field."
What to expect in Game 3
- When: Saturday, time TBA
- Watch: MLS Season Pass, Apple TV
From Columbus: Here’s Taylor Twellman on the broadcast with about five minutes left in the 4-0 rout:
“They’re not gonna change, they’re not gonna do anything different. They’re gonna come out and do the exact same thing. Are you gonna be ready for them?”
A quick refresher on what that means:
- North of 60% possession.
- North of 60% field tilt.
- The longest passing sequences in the league.
- The highest wingbacks in the league, who stay high and wide in possession.
- In transition or attacking phases, those wingbacks always crash to the back post, so you get a ton of wingback-to-wingback chances (and some goals).
Beyond that, what was key in this one – in a “it doesn’t always happen like that, but man did they need it!” way – is that Diego Rossi didn’t actually play as a false 9, but as a true 9. He was always pressuring Cincy’s defenders when they were on the ball, and then also attacking the space behind them off the ball, which forced them deeper (and obviously forced poor Alvas Powell into a catastrophic mistake). That opened up space underneath for the rest of the attack, which opened up space on the wings for Max Arfsten, and…
Yeah. I write about failure cascades a lot in these columns; how one mistake can and often does lead to another and another and another as margins get slimmer, and eventually the ball ends up in the back of the net because of an error somebody made 80 yards upfield.
I don’t think “success cascade” is a term, but that’s what we’re talking about with the Crew; how one off-ball run leads to space here and time there, and suddenly that initial success is compounding all over the field.
It was that kind of night on Sunday. It’s who they are at their best.
From Cincinnati: And it was Cincy at their very worst. I think Pat Noonan will mostly want to chalk this loss up to his team coming out with less urgency than the hosts, and I think that might not be wrong. The Crew were up for it in a way the Garys were not.
But I also think they made the conscious choice to play a super narrow and compact defensive shape against the ball. They were determined, first and foremost, to prevent third-line passes up the gut into the half-spaces.
I don’t think that’s the wrong way to play it, but it left them vulnerable to two things:
- Wall passes up to a dropping d-mid that were played back to one of the CBs, then immediately out wide to a wingback in isolation.
- One of the CBs (usually Sean Zawadzki) getting on the ball and just… dribbling forward until one of the Cincy midfielders had to step to him.
Once that happened – once Cincy lost their shape – those third-line passes up the gut opened up, and once Columbus can complete those passes, then you’ve got trouble right here in River City.
Cincy are gonna be Cincy in attack: Evander, Brenner and Kévin Denkey will get on the ball and, at some point, probably do something jaw-dropping. In order to fix the defense and give those guys a chance to win the game, they (and the guys behind them) have to negotiate the tension between when to sit and take away passing lanes, and when to step and stop the ball.
Get that right and they’ll probably move into the Conference Semifinals. Get it wrong, and their most hated rivals will have another year of bragging rights.
