Western Conference

It's not looking great.

At the moment, Phoenix Rising sits in 11th in the USL Championship Western Conference table.

They have three games left to play.

Of course, on this three-game losing streak at the moment, they are five points behind eighth place.

33 points, Phoenix Rising.

Yeah, Monterey Bay is already eliminated.

Phoenix Rising currently the lowest ranked team that is not eliminated in the Western Conference.

Again, that could change this weekend.

Indy 11 on the outside looking in, but these last few games in the 2026 schedule gonna kinda, uh, make this all play out of who that top eight are.

Uh, switching over now to the Western Conference, less decided there.

Um, just two teams confirmed in here.

Of course, friends of the show, New Mexico United, they clinched their spot.

And he did say, he's like, "I never thought going to Hollywood would actually bring me back to my dream of playing soccer, and now I get to do it professionally." So good for him, man.

Yeah, and then so a lot more, uh, playoff positions on the line.

A little bit more bunched up there in the Western Conference, so a lot to play for here.

And then if we could move along to the USL 1, uh, leaderboard.

Uh, you can put that as the headline for sure.

I wouldn't be too concerned, though, if you are a Las Vegas fan because it's very tight, as we know, in the Western Conference.

Only one team has been officially eliminated from the Western Conference in terms of the playoff push, and that's Monterey Bay.

Plus, when you're Las Vegas, looking at the result that happened last night with Phoenix Rising and New Mexico, at least you have one less team on your tail.

San Antonio will certainly be happy about that too, but it's, it's very, very tight there, and Las Vegas is a team that I think has a chance to bounce back here.

I think that's really the headline here.

Um, Kendal McIntosh doing quite a solid job helping Oakland survive long stretches inside its own half, backing up defensive disciplined shape on the road here against a tough Colorado team.

Uh, they produ-- Uh, Colorado produced 18 shots, four on target in the match, but the point extended the Switchbacks' unbeaten run and it also gave Oakland a third consecutive clean sheet in its push towards the Western Conference playoff line.

New Mexico United won 3-3 in their last 7, coming off the 1-0 loss at Tulsa on Wednesday past.

Phoenix 11th out of 12th in the table in the Western Conference.

New Mexico United is second as we get down to the final four games.

It'll be...

There's two games tonight as well.

There's two Western Conference games.

None of these

teams below us, though.

What did Gilbert Godfrey used to call it? All night.

Yeah.

Around the league from this week, I've got Western Conference scores.

El Paso, Tulsa tied.

Yeah.

And, and, and in our last episode, Ryan, what did you say? What was the, what was the percentage chance that Sacramento Republic could, uh, c- uh, what was the percentage chance of clinching that number two seed in the, uh, in the Western Conference?

The number two seed.

Let me see.

So no, all that matters in America is playoffs.

Playoffs.

With tight margins in the Western Conference, the shift of teams, uh, the teams are, teams are shifting around.

Um, and they, you know, the top three teams, um, in, in the league, uh, it's just a couple of, uh, news and notes on them.

Their only positive comes out of a shellacking with Brooklyn, demolishing them 4-0, but that momentum just hasn't carried over.

Drawing New Mexico, which you could say is respectable considering their prominence in the Western Conference, but then losing to Oakland and back-to-back losses.

Again, we keep talking, they're our mere match team of the year, doing the same thing right now, losing to Oakland, which Ryan Martin's team has been struggling in the Western Conference, and now losing to Miami.

I wonder if they don't appreciate Ryan Martin's fit on the West Coast.

But most importantly, too, out of these last two matches, not only is it back-to-back, but they were shut out in both of those defeats.

Liverpool native led the side to appearances in the USL Championship playoffs in both the 2024 and 2025 season.

and progress to the Western Conference semifinals each year.

The club, though, you know, when making this decision, we're sitting in eighth place in the Western Conference standings.

Five games remaining, definitely on thin ice, right? Following that seven-game win this streak, dating with the side's last victory coming in August.

I'm talking August 1st against El Paso.

And Orange County, they needed this home result big time to study the playoff push.

They were on thin ice.

They were slipping down the standings in a tight Western Conference race.

um make that final decision and i think um like you said i mean i've been playing pretty good and you know i gotta continue i mean we know how tight the the west is and i think you know that's the frustrating part that we're playing so good and we're in third place or fourth place but we can drop to eighth i know so it's it's a little tough and now we have a big game in new mexico that we won three points for sure

Yeah, no, it's an it's it is a very strange Western Conference season.

It's crazy how tight it is.

I know it's like it is nuts.

Scoreboard watching, I'm sure, is more prevalent from everybody's perspective, from our side, other team side as well, too.

How are you guys? How do you how do you kind of balance in a week to week basis knowing how tight the Western Conference is? Does it affect you or you just guys? Hey, no, we just got to go and get as many points we can the rest of the season.

Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both.

I mean, after games, you know, we always see like there's a lot of games going on and we like to see what the table looks like.