Orlando City Are In: Sunday's Scoreboard Clinched the Lions' Seventh Straight MLS Cup Playoffs Berth
They lost 4-0 on Saturday and clinched on Sunday. Results in Atlanta, Nashville and New York completed Orlando City's last path into the Audi 2026 MLS Cup Playoffs — ninth in the East on 43 points, with the league's longest active postseason streak, seven straight since 2020.
Orlando City's playoff berth arrived the quiet way — on other teams' fields. Major League Soccer's official playoff coverage, published just after midnight, confirms the Lions have qualified for the Audi 2026 MLS Cup Playoffs, clinching their spot on Sunday through the one path Saturday's 4-0 loss at Charlotte left open: Toronto failing to win at Atlanta, the New York Red Bulls losing at Nashville, and New York City failing to beat Montreal. All three landed, and Orlando's season extends into the postseason for a seventh straight year — the longest active playoff streak in MLS, running unbroken since 2020.
The numbers the berth carries are a study in survival. Orlando sit ninth in the Eastern Conference on 43 points (12 wins, 14 losses, 7 draws) with one regular-season match left — Saturday's Decision Day finale at home against New England, which now decides seeding rather than survival. Ninth place means the Wild Card round when the playoffs open on November 18: seeds eight and nine play single-elimination Wild Card matches, while the top seven go straight to the Round One best-of-three series. MLS Cup itself is set for December 18.
How a team that changed coaches midstream got here is the season's own story: the club parted ways with longtime manager Oscar Pareja in March, interim head coach Martin Perelman steadied the side, and the league's coverage credits blockbuster summer signing Antoine Griezmann with pushing Orlando from near the bottom of the standings into dark-horse contention. None of that erases Saturday's 4-0 — but the Lions no longer need it erased. They need Saturday's finale for position, and then a Wild Card win to keep the streak's second week alive.
