Round One drama: What we learned in Game 3 & what comes next | OneFootball

By Matthew Doyle

And finally the Round One Best-of-3 Series grind of the Audi 2025 MLS Cup Playoffs has come to an end. It did so mostly with bangers – golazos, PK shootouts, late heroics, and a statement win from the GOAT and friends.

We’ll have post-mortems for the eliminated teams coming this week. In the meantime, let’s pick apart what we saw:

CHARLOTTE FC 1-3 NEW YORK CITY FC

Game 3 in a nutshell: Charlotte conceded all three NYCFC goals on set pieces. THEIR OWN set pieces.

I’ve literally never seen an MLS game play out like this:

To have that happen in a series-deciding playoff game? I’m not sure whether to go with “football, bloody hell!” or #ThisLeague. Either is appropriate.

And so I almost don’t know what else to say. Charlotte were actually very good in this one – of their six playoff games under Dean Smith, this was pretty clearly their best performance from a pure soccer perspective. They didn’t settle for too many crosses, and they took advantage of an NYCFC team that was way too passive defensively in build-up play. The Crown were invited to come forward, set up shop and try to make something happen, and a bunch of times they actually managed it.

The problem was twofold:

And thus it was a game that came down to star attackers (Nicolás Fernández Mercau and Alonso Martínez, to name names) making special plays on the break. If you’d told me beforehand that’s how it was going to play out, I’d have told you “2-0, Charlotte.”

WATCH: Nicolás Fernández Mercau brace sends NYCFC into Conference Semifinals

What it means for NYCFC: For one, they were bad. This was easily their worst performance of the season, both in an “we’ve just got to survive the onslaught” kind of way – Charlotte played on the front foot from the whistle – and in an “we’ve got our foot on the ball, let’s just knock it around and try to build some rhythm” kind of way.

They never quite managed the second part of that rubric, and that second? Real skin-of-their-teeth stuff.

That said, I may be doing them a disservice here because in the 20 minutes between Martínez's goal to make it 2-0 and Andrés Perea’s sad and brutal injury, they had done a good job of getting into Charlotte’s heads and blunting their attack. It was only after Perea had to be carted off that the Pigeons found themselves waaaay up against it and, once again, holding on for dear life.

But I have buried the lede here: Perea had become a crucial starter in central midfield over the back half of the season, alongside hard man Aiden O’Neill. We won’t see Perea again for a long time (I hope when he does come back, he manages to get to 100%; both his ball-carrying and second-line pressing had become a lot of fun to watch), while O’Neill picked up what was frankly a pretty brainless yellow just before the injury.

That was O’Neill’s third yellow in three games, which means he’s suspended for the Conference Semifinal trip to Chester against the Philadelphia Union. And that means NYCFC will be without their starting No. 6 and starting No. 8 – so, yes, a makeshift midfield – on the road facing a team that’s lost just once at home all year long.

The only bit of good news is that both Charlotte on Decision Day and then, to a lesser extent, Chicago showed you can, in fact, get at the Union by dumping long-balls into the channels, so long as you survive their high press.

And, well, we know that’s suddenly a game plan that Pascal Jansen won’t shy away from.

What’s next for Charlotte: More than half their lineup was composed of 30-something imports, and most of those are not guys who just hit 30. And you know what goes when you hit that age?

Speed.

On the first goal it was Tim Ream, and then Nathan Byrne. On the second goal it was Byrne. On the third it was Wilfried Zaha.

Smith has a particular game model that’s not going away. But the roster build – especially with Adilson Malanda now a former Charlotte player – needs a rethink.

MINNESOTA UNITED FC 3 (7) - 3 (6) SEATTLE SOUNDERS FC

Game 3 in a nutshell: Gonna turn the mic over to Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer:

“This is the toughest loss that I’ve experienced at this club,” he said – and bear in mind that this is a guy who’s lost two MLS Cups and, like, a bajillion home games to their biggest rivals from 2018 to 2023. Any coach who’s been around as long as he has has got some demons. “This one was tough. We let it slip away.

“A lot of teams will say we won Leagues Cup. A lot of teams would look at this season as a success, but the standard of our club is games like this don’t happen. We should be moving on. That’s on me, that’s on us. We have to accept that,” he continued.

“We should have beaten them the first game here, we should have beaten them tonight. We gave it away.”

I don’t think any of that can be argued. Seattle went up 2-0 inside of 10 minutes, and then went up a man just before halftime when it was 2-1. A team of their quality – a team of any quality – should’ve been able to see it out with relative ease. And they certainly gave themselves the chances to over the first 15 minutes of the second half.

But with each blocked shot or hit post, you could feel the inevitability of a Minnesota equalizer, which came after a short throw-in routine (trust me, that is both worth mentioning and very amusing). What I didn’t see coming was Minnesota then going up 3-2 on a set piece, or Seattle equalizing on a late set piece of their own.

If what had followed the 3-3 draw was a normal shootout, then this still would have been one of the most memorable playoff games in either club’s history. But it was followed, of course, by a completely insane shootout that featured a dislocated pinky; the woodwork getting hit multiple times; goalkeeper theatrics turned up to 11; and, eventually, decisive goalkeeper PKs.

No neutral could’ve asked for more.

WATCH: Instant classic! Minnesota United STUN Seattle in PKs

What it means for Minnesota: They're the first team in the new playoff format to advance from Round One without winning a game in regulation time. They were beaten 7-5 on aggregate, lost the xG battle 7.21 to 2.89, and never led. Not for a single second.

Set pieces, long throw-ins and Dayne St. Clair, though.

I simply don't think they can keep winning this way. But it’s a funny old game, isn’t it?

What’s next for Seattle: I’m expecting only minor roster surgery, save for what I assume will be a lucrative offseason sale of Obed Vargas.

But the bottom line is this was one of the two best teams I saw in MLS this year. Nobody in their right mind blows that up because of one playoff series.

FC CINCINNATI 2-1 COLUMBUS CREW

Game 3 in a nutshell: There were two big knocks on the Crew all season long:

They still tended to control games in the way Wilfried Nancy’s teams always tend to control games; look at their underlying numbers almost across the board, and this looks quite a bit like last year’s Leagues Cup winners, or 2023’s MLS Cup winners.

And look, I’m a big system guy. I think the best way to keep any team’s level high in this league (or any other) is to have clarity in terms of your principles of play and then how you execute on those principles. Build a culture like that, and you end up with a team that becomes both an incubator for young talent and a home for cast-offs who were underappreciated elsewhere.

But at some point, you also need match-winners. The Crew took a few swings trying to find those this year, and mostly missed. I’m bullish on Wessam Abou Ali, but he’s hurt. Dániel Gazdag played his way into a bit part, while Hugo Picard might never put the ball into the back of the net. Add in the long-term absence of the very underrated Mohamed Farsi, and this team lacked a cutting edge almost all year long.

All that control they exerted on where the game was being played, and at what pace? Because of their weaknesses in both boxes, it ended up not mattering as much or as often as it should’ve.

Cincy are the polar opposite team. They have mostly lacked that structure and system all year long (this has caused consternation in certain corners of Cincy fandom, with lots of fingers being pointed at Pat Noonan – to the point that he is now, I think, vastly underappreciated). But they have the types of match-winners in both boxes who can obviate any kind of control and turn the game into a series of discrete moments won on pure quality.

And, well, that’s what they did. And there was nothing undeserved about it.

WATCH: Hell is Real revenge! Cincy bounce Columbus

What it means for Cincinnati: They exorcised some of the demons that had been tormenting them since 2023, surely. That game remains one of the most dramatic in league history, and while this one didn’t quite hit those heights, they did come back from 1-0 down against their fiercest rivals in an elimination game at home. That’s got to feel good.

And now they get the privilege of hosting an Inter Miami side that put on a clinic in their own series decider against Nashville. And look, I have my suspicions about how that one will turn out – Miami have a better structure than people realize, and a better defense, and obviously have the ne plus ultra match-winner. I don’t think the Garys can brute force a win in this one; they have to play better than they did in any of the three games against the Crew.

But also, I don’t think they’ll be going into this one remotely scared:

Evander will have a point to prove. Luca Orellano will, hopefully, be 100% healthy, and Obinna Nwobodo as well. Miami can still get got on the counter.

There’s a path.

What’s next for Columbus: Weeks – months, maybe? – of speculation about Nancy’s future. He’s been credibly linked to European clubs for a while now, and those links are now to bigger and bigger clubs. He’s going to take one of those offers at some point, right?

Selfishly, I hope he doesn’t, as in the 30 years this league has existed, there’s no team I’ve enjoyed more than Nancy’s Crew. But the clock’s ticking.

And it has, of course, stopped ticking on Darlington Nagbe’s magnificent career. He always drove me insane for what I felt he could've done but didn't, and finally, over the past three years, I was able to appreciate him for what he does do that basically nobody else can.

There’s almost no such thing as a like-for-like replacement.

INTER MIAMI CF 4-0 NASHVILLE SC

Game 3 in a nutshell: The defining characteristic of this game was the energy Miami played with against the ball – not always a given with them. Sometimes they sleepwalk and trust their superior talent to win the game, and obviously that can and does work regularly.

They have a different gear, though, and they showed it against the poor ‘Yotes from the jump on Saturday night, pressing high but then also staying touch-tight even during moments of innocuous ball circulation. And within 10 minutes, one of those moments produced a turnover that became a 1-0 lead through yet another Lionel Messi goal vs. Nashville.

And while that wasn’t exactly game over, it wasn’t not game over. Because Nashville had to push numbers up looking for an equalizer, and when you do that against Miami, you almost always end up in a situation like this:

That was game over.

People think, because of this team’s Barça DNA, they’re most comfortable with 60% possession playing some version of tiki-taka. That’s not really them, though; they’re actually best when they’re pressing or attacking in the open field. Been that way for a minute now.

Nashville never really dealt with that at all.

WATCH: Lionel Messi, Inter Miami march on in MLS Cup playoffs

What it means for Miami: They’re off to Cincy for the Conference Semifinals, where they lost 3-0 earlier this year. I’m going to take that with a grain of salt, though, because I went back and watched the first 30 minutes of that game, and the way Miami defended on that day bore zero resemblance to the version of the Herons we all saw on Saturday night.

That is the version of Miami that needs to show up if they’re going to make the Conference Final.

The elephant in the room: Luis Suárez did not play, as he was serving his one-game suspension for kicking Andy Najar. And man, there's a compelling case to start Mateo Silvetti up top again and have him repeatedly attack the space behind the backline! Playing him in that role gave Nashville all kinds of fits, and I could see it causing a real dislocation in Cincy’s back three.

I don’t expect it to play out that way, though. Suárez will start and probably go the full 90 minutes.

What’s next for Nashville: A massively successful year, which included the team’s first trophy.

But they're not a young team. Most of their best players either just hit or are well into their 30s. They have a gigantic decision to make on Walker Zimmerman (he is out of contract, and it’s impossible to imagine he’ll be back on a DP deal; can they find a number that works for both parties?), as well as a desperate need for a third high-level attacker and some young depth at multiple spots.

Gonna be a very busy winter.

SAN DIEGO FC 4-0 PORTLAND TIMBERS

Game 3 in a nutshell: It was very funny watching Portland try to press San Diego in this game, in almost the same way it was very funny watching Portland try to press San Diego in Game 1 of this series.

Why? Because San Diego live for that stuff. They eviscerate any press that is even slightly disorganized; Portland’s press has been slightly disorganized (sometimes more than that) all year long.

That’s what was so remarkable about Game 2 in this series, when Portland’s man-to-man pressure was so straightforward and so relentless that it actually threw Los Niños off a little bit, and disorganized them in a way that few teams have managed this year. Timbers head coach Phil Neville deserves a lot of credit for that, even if it was a little bit suicidal.

Neville, afterward, said he wouldn’t do that again (there were definitely man-marking elements to this one, though it was not the full-throttle version we saw at Providence Park), and instead had a different trick up his sleeve – starting in a 3-4-3 instead of the usual 4-3-3. The idea, I guess, was 1) to press with that front three and really blitz the SDFC backline (and backup ‘keeper Pablo Sisniega), and 2) to keep the wingbacks wide and try to beat the hosts with service from the touchlines.

Honestly, there were moments when both gambits looked like good ones. They turned San Diego over in the attacking third several times over the first half hour, and their wide service was dangerous all night.

But the upshot – or the downside, I guess? – was that any time San Diego broke through that first line of pressure, they were facing a scrambled midfield and a high line of center backs who looked uncomfortable in a three and who were not about to run down anybody in the open field.

As so:

Thus, it was a clinic, with Los Niños scoring four of the types of goals they’ve been scoring all year long. They dictated the terms, and then won the game on them.

WATCH: Moving on! San Diego FC oust Portland Timbers

What it means for San Diego: They're going to host Minnesota in two weeks and play the exact same way they’ve played – or tried to play, at least – every game this season. Here’s what happened the last time they did that against the Loons:

Set pieces, long throw-ins and counterattacks. The three true outcomes.

Absurd game.

What’s next for Portland: Last year, they were eliminated 5-0 in the Wild Card game. This year, they were eliminated 4-0 in Game 3 of Round One after having won the Wild Card game.

So technically that’s progress, though I’m not sure it’s progress of the sort that makes anyone in the Rose City feel all that bullish on this group’s chances heading into next season.

I think there’s going to be some tough questions about why guys like Juan Mosquera and David Ayala haven’t really improved, and why the likes of David Da Costa, Kristoffer Velde and Kevin Kelsy all had trouble settling in. There’s some sort of disconnect, and I’m not sure how it’s going to be resolved.