How the Earthquakes can climb MLS standings, secure a playoff spot on final day

The Earthquakes‘ path to the MLS playoffs is narrow, but after Saturday’s results elsewhere in the Western Conference, they know what they must do to ensure a postseason spot.

San Jose sits in 11th place in the West with 38 points entering the final week of the season. The top nine teams make the playoffs, with the Nos. 8 and 9 seeds facing each other in a single-elimination wild-card game.

The Quakes can find their way into that game with a win in their regular-season finale Saturday against Austin FC (6 p.m., Apple TV+) and some help elsewhere.

Dallas FC (41 points), Real Salt Lake (40 points) and the Colorado Rapids (40 points) occupy the three spots ahead of San Jose in the standings. If the Quakes win and any of those three teams lose, San Jose will leap that team in the standings after accounting for tiebreakers. They must climb over two of them to earn a spot in that wild-card match. A Colorado draw would also allow San Jose to leapfrog the Rapids.

Salt Lake and Dallas entered this weekend with a chance to separate themselves but lost to Seattle and the LA Galaxy, respectively. Colorado, like the Quakes, was off this weekend.

As for the difficulty of their matchups, the Quakes face Austin, the No. 6 seed, while Dallas plays West-leading Vancouver Whitecaps FC, Salt Lake visits 13th-place St. Louis and Colorado hosts No. 3 seed LAFC.

All four games will kick off at 6 p.m. Pacific on Saturday as the Quakes seek to leap into a playoff spot in Bruce Arena’s first season in charge.