After a busy decision day on Saturday, the MLS playoffs are finally here. The multi-week postseason begins on Tuesday with a wildcard match between Montreal and Atlanta United and ends on December 7th with the MLS Cup final.

Inter Miami CF, led by Lionel Messi, won the Supporters’ Shield this season. The franchise, which has never made it past the first round, will now look to make a strong playoff push to build on its regular-season success.

In the meantime, two teams will wait for history to repeat itself. Last season, the Columbus Crew defeated LAFC in the MLS Cup. Both teams are back in the 2024 playoffs, with second-place Columbus seeking a repeat and first-place LAFC seeking revenge.

But before these teams can think about the cup, they have to get through the first round. Here’s everything you need to know about the 2024 MLS Playoffs.

Playoff format

After introducing it last year, MLS is once again sticking with its new playoff format. The playoffs begin with two single-elimination wild card games between the No. 8 and No. 9 seeds in each conference. The winners of these games will face the number 1 team in the next round – Inter Miami in the East, LAFC in the West.

After the wildcard, the remaining 16 teams will compete in a best-of-three series in the first round. The round follows a home-away-home format: the higher seeded host is Game 1 and the lower seeded host is Game 2, with Game 3 returning to the higher seed’s city if necessary.

In this format there are no ties and total points are not used. Instead, every game must end with a winner. However, there will be no extra time and the teams will go straight to penalties to decide the tie.

After the first round, the winners of these series advance to the conference semifinals, followed by the conference finals. Both are single-game elimination games hosted by the higher seeded team. In the event of a draw, the games will be played using the standard “extra time and penalty kicks” format.

The final event is the MLS Cup, a single game hosted by the team with more points in the regular season. The cup takes place on December 7th.

Wildcard round

The MLS playoffs begin Tuesday with two wild card matches:

Tuesday, October 22, 7:30 p.m. ET: No. 9 Atlanta United vs. No. 8 CF Montréal

Montréal, which had a relatively easy schedule to close out the season, won five of its last seven games; One of those wins was against Atlanta in a 2-1 victory on October 2nd.

Wednesday, October 23, 10:30 p.m. ET: No. 9 Portland Timbers at No. 8 Vancouver Whitecaps

Portland and Vancouver had similar problems at the end of the season (neither won a game in a month), but they were relatively well matched. Their last game was a 1-1 draw on September 28th.

First round: Eastern Conference

In the East, the team to keep an eye on will certainly be Inter Miami, who finished the regular season with a record 74 points. Miami will begin its playoff round on Friday, facing the winner of the wild card round.

Columbus Crew, the reigning MLS champions, had another strong season, finishing with 66 points – more than any other team in the West. Columbus is ranked as the No. 2 seed. 1 against the New York Red Bulls. 7 matchup. The Red Bulls had some problems towards the end of the season and finished 2-3 against Columbus on decision day.

NYCFC and FC Cincinnati, the conference’s No. 3 and No. 6 teams, have faced each other four times in multiple competitions this season. While Cincinnati beat NYCFC three times, NYCFC got the last laugh with a 3-2 home win on October 2nd.

Orlando City SC and Charlotte FC, the No. 4 and No. 5 clubs, finished with similar records, although Orlando picked up an easy 2-0 home win over Charlotte last month.

First round: Western Conference

In the Western Conference, LAFC is the first overall seed and will face the winner of the Cascadia Wild Card.

The No. 2 LA Galaxy lost to the No. 1 seed on goal difference, thanks to a wild last-minute goal from the Houston Dynamo that sent the league leaders into turmoil. The Galaxy have a chance to wipe away the pain of defeat with a match against the No. 7 Colorado Avalanche.

Real Salt Lake vs. Minnesota, the No. 3 seed 6 duel has the potential to be interesting: both games between the two clubs this season ended in a draw and a red card for the home team. In the last game, the Seattle Sounders face Houston Dynamo. Seattle experienced a bit of a slump in the middle of the season, but came back with a stronger result in the end; The Sounders won their last game against Houston, a 1-0 victory on September 28th.

Here’s how to watch

As with the rest of the season, the entire MLS playoffs will be broadcast on Apple TV. The eight first-round games are all free on the platform, but the remaining games require AppleTV’s MLS Season Pass.

The full schedule can be found here.