Minnesota United enters Decision Day Sunday in L.A. seeking to be decisive

Minnesota United reaches MLS' Decision Day on Sunday knowing the fewer decisions needed, the better.

Win or tie at LA Galaxy and the Loons are in the playoffs for a third consecutive year in their five-year existence.

Lose and it gets more complicated.

Then it depends on what Vancouver, Real Salt Lake and Los Angeles FC do Sunday — Western Conference games all, and all played starting at 5 p.m. Central time.

"It's going to be exciting stuff," Loons coach Adrian Heath said. "Decision Day, Judgment Day. Let's hope we can go in there and give a performance that will make it a special day."

If the Loons win or draw, they would be the third MLS team since 1999 to start the season 0-4 and still make the playoffs.

Portland clinched fourth place on Wednesday, denying the Loons a third consecutive year with a home playoff game. Any playoff spot seemed far away when they started 0-4 before they swapped goalkeepers, subbing Tyler Miller for Dayne St. Clair on May 12.

In September, they lost 1-0 at Seattle and 4-0 at Sporting Kansas City consecutively but righted their season with a 3-0 bounce-back home victory over the Galaxy that Loons veteran Wil Trapp now calls "huge." Star Emanuel Reynoso scored twice on left-footed strikes from distance in the first 20 minutes.

The Loons now play again one of MLS' founding franchises, a glamour team that has won a record five MLS Cups. The Galaxy missed the playoffs in 2020's shortened season and beat the Loons at home but lost to rival LAFC the last time it reached the playoffs in 2019.

The Galaxy started this season by winning four of its first five games for new head coach Greg Vanney, the former Toronto FC coach who remade the LA roster. He added Mexican star Chicharito, Samuel Grandsir and Victor Vazquez, subtracted Cristian Pavon and others and kept Sebastian Lletget and Jonathan dos Santos, to name two.

"It's a good team, a big club," Loons left-side attacker Franco Fragapane said in Spanish through a team interpreter. "Honestly, they have a lot of very important players, but I think we have the better team and we know we can win."

After its fast start, the Galaxy is 13-12-8, in the seventh and last playoff spot, one point behind sixth place and the fifth-place Loons.

The teams meet again after the Loons went 3-1-1 in their past five games, all of which Heath likened to a playoff or cup final game.

"There has been so much at stake every single game," Heath said. "I said it'd probably go down to the last game of the season — and it is."

They go to L.A. riding that late-season wave in which they needed to beat Sporting Kansas City last Sunday, and did 2-1. They're also healthy, except for injured rookie Justin McMaster.

The Loons and Galaxy both have played 33 games since mid-April just to play one more that means everything.

"There's nothing better," Trapp said. "It's everything we need in terms of a springboard into the playoffs. When you start battle-tested before you step into the playoffs, it really bodes well for those games that once again are win or go home.