The Conference semi-finals begin in the MLS Cup Play-offs on Sunday when the two Eastern Conference matches are played out. That means by the end of the night we will know the two teams who will battle it out for one of the spots in the MLS Cup final.
We have already seen the top two seeds in the Eastern Conference exit the postseason so it will be interesting to see whether the third and fourth seeds take advantage or whether the shocks in these play-offs continue.
Where to watch
There is a choice of channel to watch both these matches on over the course of Sunday night. Sky subscribers can watch them on the Sky Sports Football channels but those without Sky can watch them on Free Sports. All three matches are also available at the bookmakers streaming services.
Orlando City vs New England Revolution (20.00)
The opening semi-final of the MLS Cup Play-offs sees the team who made it all the way to the MLS is Back Tournament final in Orlando City up against the New England Revolution and their vastly experienced coach Bruce Arena who is looking for another MLS Cup to add to his CV.
Orlando City might consider themselves to be playing with the house money after their incredible first round penalty shootout win over New York City FC. The scenes and shenanigans that went on in that were incredible so to survive that will surely give the Lions plenty of confidence to take forward with them. Often when teams survive a major scare they focus and go on from there. There was a more assured delivery of a victory from the Revolution in their first round game as they got on top of Philadelphia Union early and then managed their way to victory.
It will be interesting to see how this one plays out but I fancy the Revolution to cause a problem here. They have their creative attacking stars back and they are very obdurate defensively. Orlando have only won one of their last nine by more than a goal and that was against a terrible Atlanta United side so they are unlikely to blow New England away and if the Revolution get their noses in front they might not be caught based on how well they saw last week out.
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Columbus Crew vs Nashville SC (01.00)
The second Eastern Conference semi-final sees the team who are in many eyes the favourite to win the competition hosting the surprise package of the campaign as Columbus Crew welcome Nashville SC to Ohio in what is a big match.
When these play-offs began you got the feeling that Nashville had done their job for the season by getting involved and now they could relax and enjoy what comes but suddenly they’ve seen the top two in the Conference exit and all of a sudden something special could be in front of them. Columbus Crew had a serious mid-season wobble but showed in the first third of it that they are a special side. We also saw evidence of that in their win over the New York Red Bulls last week, in an encounter which had the potential to be awkward if the Crew allowed it to be.
I’m already on the Crew at 12.5/1 here having backed them to win the Eastern Conference each way at the beginning of the campaign and I’m not really opposing them now with the way the draw has opened up. This feels like it will be a tight match which doesn’t really inspire me into a bet so that outright interest is enough for me here.
Tips
HALF WON – Back New England Revolution (+0.25AH) to beat Orlando City for a 3/10 stake at 1.89 with BetVictor
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