Minnesota United finishes MLS regular season with 2-1 loss at lowly LA Galaxy

Minnesota United was near the top of the Western Conference heading into the final game of the regular season, with the LA Galaxy scraping along the bottom.

You wouldn’t have been able to tell from the game Saturday night, though.

A first-half goal from Matheus Nascimento and a matching second-half tally from Joseph Paintsil were enough to give the Galaxy a 2-1 victory, ending the Loons’ season on a low note with playoffs looming — and the Seattle Sounders coming to town to open the postseason.

“What we have to do now is make sure that that really counts for something tonight. There’s a sour taste left in our mouth that will ultimately put us in a better place for the playoffs, which is the most important thing,” coach Eric Ramsay said in a postgame interview via Zoom.

Joaquín Pereyra scored a very late consolation goal for Minnesota United, coming on a corner kick that snuck into the net at the near post. The Loons would have needed two more goals on top of that to make a difference in the final standings, though.

Had the Loons pulled off a victory, they would have climbed from fourth to third in the MLS Western Conference standings. While San Diego hammered Portland 4-0, Los Angeles FC could only manage a 2-2 draw in Colorado, so a victory would have put the Loons into third and a playoff matchup against Austin FC.

Instead, the result means the Loons will play Seattle, their longtime nemesis, in the first round of the MLS playoffs. It’s a best-of-three series, with Minnesota playing host to Game 1 and (if necessary) Game 3. It’s not a total-goals series; if games are tied at the end of regulation, they will go straight to penalty kicks — just like they did last year, when the Loons won both first-round games against Real Salt Lake in shootouts.

“If you look across their squad, they’ve got real depth and real quality, and that will for sure be a really tough matchup,” Ramsay said of the Sounders. “But we take a lot of confidence into that game based upon what we’ve done over the course of 34 games and the two games against them.”

The full playoff schedule will be announced Sunday evening; Game 1 will take place sometime between Friday and Oct. 29, with Game 2 approximately a week later.

The results also mean Minnesota can’t qualify for the CONCACAF Champions Cup through the MLS standings. Their only potential route left into the tournament is to win the MLS Cup. With San Diego officially clinching a spot, the Loons are one of only two teams in the league that have never made the intracontinental championship; Charlotte FC, playing only its fourth MLS season, is the other.

Minnesota hasn’t won on the road against the Galaxy since 2022, and has yet to defeat LA in Ramsay’s two seasons. The Loons were hoping to use a long-awaited positive result in Carson, Calif., as a springboard to kick off a postseason run, as their results have been somewhat middling since midsummer.

Instead, they have to start their playoff push with another loss to the Galaxy, who needed the win to climb out of the Western Conference cellar.

The Loons weren’t without their chances, but giving up a 12th-minute goal to Nascimento meant they were chasing the game all evening — something the team isn’t really built to do. The goal wasn’t a defensive mistake, just the Galaxy striker lashing home a deflected cross — the kind of moment of quality that the Loons never quite found.