Mere hours after New York City FC earned a resounding 3-1 win over the Philadelphia Union in their series finale, Major League Soccer announced that the two clubs would face each other in a rematch for the MLS Cup Playoffs’ knockout round.
The knockout round game will take place this Wednesday — on Halloween — at 7:00 PM EST.
For NYCFC, this is good news. Not only is City coming fresh off of a relatively dominant win over the U this weekend, but they will, once again, have them at home in the Bronx, a place where they have been dominant this year.
Obviously, it would bode well for NYCFC to not be too over-confident and complacent when it comes to the Union. Despite their recent triumph, City’s past playoff woes should be taken into consideration going into this mid-week match. But analytically speaking, this is probably the best possible matchup for New York City and a golden opportunity to erase the sins of past playoff runs, in addition to ridding the stigma around this team winning do-or-die games.
