You might be saying to yourself, “self, why is MLS Decision Day happening on the second-to-last matchweek of the regular season instead of the actual last one?” You will likely receive no satisfactory answers. Meaning has become unmoored from language in our modern hellscape. Nothing matters anymore. We cannot escape ourselves.

As a practical matter, every game for Week 33 basically happened all at once. (Or as much as it can when you’re dealing with a country with four time zones.) Between the Fire game, Game 2 of the NLCS, and the new episode of Star Trek: Discovery, there’s no way I’m going to watch all the games to recap for you.

But the Eastern Conference playoff race has been over for a while now, and except for pointing and laughing at the Galaxy and the Sounders I pretty much give zero shits about the West. Fire = Good, Everyone Else = Bad.

New England Revolution 2-1 New York City FC

I hate being in a position where I feel gratitude for goddamn New England.

But they did beat NYCFC, and opened the door for the Fire maaaaaaaaaaybe being able to finish the season in 2nd place. Considering we had all basically given up on that first round bye, this is fucking delicious. So thank you Revs for making NYC shit themselves and opening the Eastern Conference race back up. They supposedly had that first round bye locked down, and now they could potentially finish the regular season in 5th. I love it.

New York Red Bulls 0-0 Atlanta United

Oh hey, Atlanta also dropped points! How about that!

The Red Bulls are probably stuck in 6th and didn’t have a lot to play for, but Atlanta had gotten in our shit and it looked like they were going to take our 2nd/3rd spot from us. Now we’ve got an actual race on our hands, thanks to the Most Exciting Team In The League choking at the crucial moment. Here for it, tbh.

Orlando City SC 0-1 Columbus Crew

At one point the Fire were losing to Philly and the Crew had just taken the lead over Orlando. We were forced to seriously contemplate losing home field advantage to That Yellow Fucking Team. That would be the biggest embarrassment in Chicago sports since *gestures vaguely in the Bears’ general direction*

But the Fire won, and Columbus can go kick rocks for another week.

Seattle Sounders 4-0 FC Dallas

So we get to see these assholes in the playoffs again. Great. That’s just super.

Portland Timbers 4-0 DC United

DC’s shambolic existence gifted Diego Valeri a goal on route to their 4-0 surrender, cutting into Niko’s lead in the Golden Boot race. Thanks a lot, DC. The one time you could’ve maybe not been pathetic losers this season and you passed on the opportunity. Jerks.