Decision Day is the one afternoon a year MLS kicks off all 15 games in two simultaneous windows, which stops anyone cheating and stops the rest of us watching properly. For Australians, the East Coast games landed at 8am Sunday and the West at 11am, perfect for either brunch or a hangover depending on your Saturday.

Nashville beat Cincinnati 2-0, with Sam Surridge scoring both goals in the second half, to reach 77 points. That’s three clear of the record of 74 Inter Miami set in 2024, which Nashville had matched going into the day. The Shield was already theirs, so Saturday was a lap of honour with a record attached.

The best game of the day was also the worst defended. Ian Fray opened the scoring after Luca de la Torre’s attempted clearance of a Messi corner dropped kindly for him. Luis Suárez got the final touch from another Messi corner, and Rodrigo De Paul smashed in a third before half-time. Charlotte had already had a goal chalked off for handball against Idan Toklomati, who’d pounced on a weak header back to the keeper from Casemiro and squared it for Abada. At 3-0 down they looked finished.

Miami spent the first half looking like champions and the second looking like they had somewhere else to be. Abada scored twice inside ten minutes after the break, and Rodolfo Aloko levelled it in the 90th. Messi hit the post in stoppage time, and Aloko nearly won it for Charlotte. One point was enough for Miami to hold second on 60, with New England losing 1-0 at Orlando to finish third on 58. Charlotte take fifth and a Round One series against Chicago.

He didn’t score on the day, though he did set up Suárez and hit that post. His 26 goals still won a second straight Golden Boot, the first back-to-back in MLS history. That’s three fewer than the 29 he scored last year. I suppose that’s not too shabby for someone pushing 40. Petar Musa finished second on 22 after failing to score in Dallas’s 3-1 win over Colorado.

Columbus won 4-3 at Chicago with a last-gasp goal, took seventh, and now get Miami. Orlando beat New England and still ended up in the play-in game, because Columbus’s win dropped them to eighth. They host Cincinnati on Thursday 19 November, and Nashville wait for the winner.

I wrote last week about a fan simulation that gave Sporting Kansas City about a 70% chance of finishing last. It turns out 70% isn’t 100%.

Montréal lost 2-0 to Vancouver, which left the door open. Sporting went to San Diego and won 1-0, with André Luiz converting a penalty in the 76th minute and Stefan Cleveland making it stand.

The two clubs finished level on 26 points, and wins decided it, seven to six. Sporting climbed to 29th, and the Wooden Spoon goes to Montréal. Sporting still finished with a record 81 goals conceded, but at least that stopped at 81.

This was the real chaos, and it came down to a point. Portland did their part by winning 2-0 at Austin and taking seventh. Real Salt Lake beat the Galaxy 2-1 while Colorado lost 3-1 in Dallas, which put RSL through. Minnesota beat San Jose 3-1 but finished a point behind RSL, and so did the Galaxy.

Seattle needed help from elsewhere and decided to start the evening themselves. Albert Rusnák scored after 51 seconds, the fourth-fastest goal in Decision Day history, and the Sounders beat LAFC 2-1. They finish eighth and host Real Salt Lake in the Wild Card, with Vancouver waiting for the winner. In Round One, Dallas play Portland, LAFC play St. Louis, and Houston play San Jose.

Round One starts on 20 November, and Nashville now have to avoid the club nobody wants to join. Only eight of 30 Shield winners have also won MLS Cup, and each of the last three record-breakers (LAFC, New England and Miami) fell short of the final. Some amateur math tells me that’s under 30%, though spoonless Kansas City are a living reminder that football is played on grass, not paper. Seventy-seven points makes Nashville the best regular-season team in MLS history. Now comes the part where they have to back it up.