Hashtag DecisionDay Primer

It is almost #DecisionDay, so I wanted to write a helpful primer for you guys on Seattle Sounders FC's playoff prospects heading into [insert Periscope playback of a Vine showing me typing and saying HASHTAG as I Tweet this article] ###DecisionDay. Here are the options:

1. Seattle Sounders FC, of Seattle, Washington, USA scores more goals than Real Salt Lake of Sandy, Utah, USA, in CenturyLink Field on the Xbox Pitch between the hours of 4:00 p.m. PDT and 6:00 p.m.(ish), winning the soccer game, earning them three points in the Major League Soccer Western Conference Standings.

(TL;DR, Sounders Win)

There is no number 2. Sounders win, and they're in. They get to take part in the epic post-season showdown known by some as the Audi Major League Soccer Cup Playoffs Final:

credit https://instagram.com/p/9JFGfkTGo9/?taken-by=blackjaguarwhitetiger

I guess I could give you more details about why a win is Options 1 through infinity. But why? This is ~@#PlayoffSeason#@~ and teams on hot streaks are going to the Championship Match Bowl Game.

If the Sounders don't win, what's the point? If they lose, they're out. If not this week, getting leapfrogged by SPR and SJEQ, they're probably out Wednesday and/or possibly Thursday from the play-in games, having to travel to the dank confines of (former) JELD-WEN Stadium and AVAYA Bar & Grill and Kansas City (gross) and BC Place. [EDIT: I have been notified those should be OARs, not ANDs--we don't have to go on a tour da force. Though if we could find Luke, this would all be much easier.)

Well Actually, I went to BC Place earlier this year and that turned out pretty well, so I wouldn't mind going back. That'd probably be okay.

Oh and we could have to play in Los Angeles and, well, Sigi should probably just hand in his re-signation on the spot instead of boarding that plane down south, you know?

As I was saying, if the Sounders lose AT HOME to a team with the worst goal differential in the West, why would we have any faith that the Sounders would win ON THE ROAD to those teams I mentioned? The Sounders have not been great on the road, with exactly one point earned per game on the road.

If the Sounders tie, the only improvement on their fate is SPR can't sneak ahead with a tie in Galaxy LA. Otherwise they're just as vulnerable. to the wily whims of Garber & Co.

Basically what I'm saying is the Sounders have to win, if you didn't get it. That's their only scenario. They may host a playoff game, they may not. They might host four, for all I know (Dream Scenario: Timbers, Galaxy, Whitecaps, Impact). Hosting or not depends on what other teams do, and we can't control that.

But we can control our own destiny. We will be there chanting and cheering as always but this time it will be Audi Playoffs Loud(tm) because we are Seattle Fans and we know that every Playoffs requires a refusal to lose (aka winning) (aka not doing what certain other area teams have been doing like deciding to lose). The Sounders will win on Sunday because they have to, and because will will them on.