D.C. United faces Toronto FC in what is, by definition, a middle-of-the-road MLS playoff game. They’re the fourth and fifth seeds in the Eastern Conference, and the league’s inexplicable choice to refuse to re-seed teams after this first round means that the winner of this game is intentionally set up to face the team that finished atop the conference in the regular season. There’s a solid argument that finishing sixth is actually better (you get a home game if the seventh seed also wins, and you can put off facing the top seed until the conference final), perhaps a reward for springing what is more likely to be perceived as an upset.
Three reasons D.C. United can beat Toronto FC
