Eastern Conference

All right.

Eastern Conference standing, the USL Championship.

Tampa Bay Rowdies, Detroit City FC, and Charleston Battery all clinched playoff berths for the 2026 season.

And I said DCFC have done it every year in this league.

Wanna start with the league standings.

Looking at the Eastern Conference, the playoff picture, my friend, has changed somewhat dramatically, uh, over this last weekend.

Nobody, of course, making the bigger move on the table other than us and the amber and blue as we go from that seventh place now to fifth place, knocking on the door, Jason, of a potential home playoff, now with 38 points.

RFC was just in eighth after the loss against Charleston at the beginning of this week, moving three positions up the table into where they now sit comfortably.

It was like, we, we could get to fifth.

We could get to exactly where we are, and then the only thing left to do is get through Hartford, and it feels like we've arrived.

I know there's still a lot of time left in the season, but it feels like the scriptwriters have put this in motion to make this one of the most exciting Eastern Conference USL playoff races, as well as post-game, that they... post-season that they could ever ask for.

Yeah, I mean, the... as you say, the, the stage is starting to get set, but there is kind of a wild card here in another team we need to talk about.

And what a way to celebrate and clinch the playoff position with a fricking long range like that.

Then we gotta talk more opposite side of the Eastern Conference standings.

That, that eighth place, that coveted eighth place at Indy 11, so important, um, in this match against Rhode Island.

Both teams just looking to get more safety, looking to ensure and just get themselves in a nice position to clinch, possibly with more goal, games to go.

And it's very, very tight in the Eastern Conference.

We know that.

So Rhode Island taking on Indy 11.

And we talked about Louisville.

Who knew? Let's get into these league standings.

Some big shakeups in the Eastern Conference right out the gate with some other midweek action.

Right now, Rhode Island FC finally putting some space between them and the playoff line as they jump to seventh, courtesy of that six-point swing against Indy 11 on Wednesday.

And of course, they spend the first ever almighty game in hand, and it was a smashing success.

That starts to be goals against goals for, and that's where Rhode Island starts to differentiate itself from Indy.

So now with these positions and these matches that happened on Wednesday, a lot of favorable results going towards the amber and blue.

And then, of course, around the rest of the Eastern Conference, Detroit City punching their tickets to the playoff.

uh with a 3-1 victory against brooklyn fc curious to see how this expansion team rallies you know they have a midweek match that's great for us because we're coming off of a midweek match but they're also eliminated from playoffs at this point we're going to talk at length does this team have freedom or are they a caged tiger ready to prove something like hurt a team that's trying to climb further up the table Jason, we've talked at length about the magic number.

Miami is one of those teams fighting for their playoff lives, like we talked before.

I mean, they're heading into the week, they are ninth in the league, ninth in the Eastern Conference, so that's one out from a playoff spot.

But they have a game against Jacksonville on Wednesday, so they could move above that playoff line before they head to St. Pete, um, this weekend.

Um, so yeah, they're gonna be motivated for sure.

So you have a head coach who, who has a very good understanding of his own team.

You have a head coach who's also getting a better understanding and has now experienced that entire, the entirety of the league.

He's played the teams that he's gonna play in the Eastern Conference playoffs.

He's played against them a couple times, so he knows what that matchup is gonna look like.

And that's the other thing is I do sincerely feel...

I, I was kinda making fun of the Eastern Conference 'cause outside of Pittsburgh that, that won the title last year in penalty kicks, um-

Such a boring title run they made last year.

[laughs] It's just like-

And I really felt that, you know, in my mind, I, I compare, you know, different leagues.

And it reminded me of, you know, the Western Conference being more like the EPO where, yeah, you have some heavyweights, but you also have some teams, like, you know, that you are expecting to be up there and that are.

And on the Eastern Conference, it's more like La Liga where you're gonna have your Real Madrid and Barcelona and everybody else.

Or the Scottish League where you've got, you know, Rangers and Celtic and everybody else.

I think his agent wants that extra 87 million that he got because he made the all-NBA team.

But the thing about it is, is that when you're looking at the situation, particularly in the Eastern Conference, the Pistons could mess around and be a 5 or 6 or 7 seed if they don't hit the ground running on this season, right? So, for me, you get an offer of $200 million.

Man, you take that.

You're not going to get $200 million elsewhere, especially not when you're putting up five, six points a game in the playoffs.

All right, to end out the show, I want to talk a little bit about Detroit City FC.

It's the final run of the season.

They are third in the USL Championship Eastern Conference with five matches left.

You and I saw a match at Keyworth with Colorado Springs.