Free Headers: Playoffs, sprint season schedule, and Minneapolis City in the U.S. Open Cup

Minnesota United isn't playing LAFC until 7:30pm Central time on Sunday night. It gives them an extra day to recover, an extra day to rest - and also means that come kickoff, it's possible that they could already be out of the playoffs.

The Loons have 38 points and sit in 12th place, with two games to go, and are within numerical touching distance of five teams above them. They have to win Sunday night, to even have a chance to go into the final day of the season with playoff hopes, but they also need to stay within reach of at least one of the teams that finishes above them.

So, for this weekend:

• If Colorado (43 points) gets even a single point, the Loons can't catch them; the first tiebreaker is wins, and the Rapids have three more than Minnesota.
• If Seattle (also 43 points) gets a win, the Loons can't catch them either. (In reality, even a draw would probably do it; Minnesota trails Seattle seven goals on goal difference, the second tiebreaker, and probably won't make that up.)

It gets complicated when considering the permutations for Real Salt Lake and for the LA Galaxy (41 points.) The Galaxy play RSL on the final day of the season, which throws a wrench into everything, because Minnesota can't hope for both teams to end up with zero points on the final day.

So:

• If RSL wins OR the Galaxy win this weekend, Minnesota can't finish ahead of both of them.
• If the BOTH the Galaxy and RSL get a draw, Minnesota can't finish ahead of both of them.

The other wrench is Portland, which is still two points ahead of Minnesota with two games to play, but they can't guarantee they'll finish ahead of the Loons this week. So for now, we must ignore the Timbers.

"Obviously it's unfortunate that we've took so long to kind of find a stride now and really, really lock in what we wanted to do," said defender Morris Duggan. "It's going to be up to us to win those last two games."

Head coach Cameron Knowles said he wasn't going to be sitting in front of the TV with a calculator and a scratch pad, other than his usual of watching games because he enjoys them. "We don't get to determine where we finish, but we get to determine how," he said.

With the game not until Sunday, we didn't get a full picture of potential player availability during Friday's training session. Knowles did confirm, though, that midfielder Wil Trapp - who's still recovering from a brain injury - is unlikely to play Sunday.

Build the entire plane out of the pennant race

MLS released the 2027 sprint season schedule on Thursday, and while it was about what we expected, it feels much more real seeing the announcement.

Minnesota will play 14 games, one against each other team in the Western Conference, with an even split between home and road games.

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— Minnesota United FC (@mnufc.com) October 29, 2026 at 1:01 PM

The key info that's hidden in this announcement is what I'd consider another huge improvement: the league appears to be doing away with its edict that all games must start at 7:30pm local time. The Loons will have four afternoon games and three evening games, with all three of their February and March games taking place in the afternoon hours.

Looking at the league-wide schedule, it would appear that while many games will still begin at 7pm locally, the league is also planning to mix in many more early- and late-afternoon games. This hopefully means that they'll be undoing the mistake they made when they first went to Apple TV, which was putting almost every game on TV at the same time; it meant that most fans could basically never watch any team other than their own squad.

Those of us in the Central Time Zone have rarely seen - for example - the second half of a game that Lionel Messi or Cavan Sullivan played in, or the first half of a game in Colorado. (And those of us who are old never managed to stay up until the end of the West Coast games that started at 9:30pm, either.)

At any rate, 2027 is shaping up to be a playoff chase from the very beginning. (And it's also very clear that the league should award two different Supporters' Shields next season.)

Minneapolis City: Not U.S. Open Cup Banned

Local favorites Minneapolis City SC confirmed this week that they'll be part of the 2027 U.S. Open Cup. The first round, which includes 29 teams from the USL Championship and League One, three from MLS NEXT Pro, and 32 from the "Open Division," begins in April.

Of course, that doesn't make things easy on City, which plays a summer-league schedule in USL2. They'll be trying to assemble a squad ahead of their normal cadence.

"We should have a fair number of returners from this summer's team," said City general manager Matt VanBenschoten. "We've also got some players from Minneapolis City 2 last year that are current high school seniors, so it's possible they end up on the roster as well. Regardless, our goal is to be competitive and try to take down a giant or two."

The winners from the first round will move on to the Round of 64 in July, which is when MLS teams enter the competition. The final is set for December 15 - a schedule shift that should align better with the MLS calendar that begins next year.