MLS play-offs 2025: How they work and who's leading in round 1

MLS (Major League Soccer) has completed the first match of round 1 of the play-offs. The football competition in the United States, unlike most football leagues in Europe, uses a system of play-offs in which the best teams in the regular season compete in a knockout tournament, like NBA: the top eight teams in the Western Conference and the top eight teams in the Eastern Conference play to find a Conference Champion, and then those two play the MLS Cup to decide the overall champion.

Currently, 16 teams are competing in the "round one" of play-offs, which consists in a series of best-of-three matches. The winner will move to Conference semi-finals, and from then on, it will be a single match.

After each team has played their first round one match, this is how the MLS play-offs are looking:

Eastern Conference:

• Philadelphia Union 2(4) - 2(2) Chicago Fire FC


• Charlotte FC 0 - 1 New York City FC


• Inter Miami 3 - 1 Nashville


• FC Cincinnati 1 - 0 Columbus Crew

Western Conference:

• San Diego 2 - 1 Portland Timbers


• Minnesota United FC 0(3) - 0(2) Seattle Sounders FC


• Los Angeles FC 2 - 1 Austin FC


• Vancouver Whitecaps FC 3 - 0 FC Dallas

Therefore, Philadelphia, New York, Inter Miami, and Cincinnati in the East and San Diego, Minnesota, Los Angeles, and Vancouver in the West are leading in the play-offs, and will qualify for conference semi-finals if they win their next match.

MLS play-offs (match 2) continue from Saturday, November 2 to Tuesday, November 4.