Deci­sion Day for MLS is Sun­day. The Col­orado Rapids are already in the play­offs, clinch­ing their spot Wednes­day with a 1–0 win in Port­land. In Sunday’s reg­u­lar-sea­son finale at Hous­ton, the Bur­gundy Boys get a chance to improve their seed­ing and get a more favor­able post­sea­son matchup.

As it stands now, and like­ly will after Sunday’s action, the three strongest teams in the west — Kansas City, Port­land and Seat­tle — hold the top three seeds. Though the Rapids did just beat the Tim­bers and Sounders, they will want to avoid all three and try to get the No. 5 seed and a matchup with Dallas.

The now sev­enth-seed­ed Rapids can move up to fifth rather eas­i­ly. Colorado’s small­er game total caused by the club’s COVID-19 out­break, paired with MLS opt­ing to use points per game to order its stand­ings, gives the Rapids a chance to make a lot of progress in just one match.

A win would leapfrog them over LAFC and the los­er of Min­neso­ta-Dal­las or Min­neso­ta out­right if the two teams draw. It’s as sim­ple as a Rapids win and they climb to No. 5, avoid­ing the West­ern Conference’s strongest teams in the first round.

“It’s impor­tant that we con­tin­ue to play with the same sort of ener­gy, intel­li­gence and cohe­sion that we have for the last cou­ple of games,” Robin Fras­er said.”The seed­ing, I feel like at the end of the day you just have to try to win your games and do as well as you can. And you’ll see where the chips fall.”

The Dynamo are in last place in the West, mak­ing a Rapids road win even more favor­able. If Col­orado can pull that off, they’ll car­ry a three-match win streak into the play­offs — their longest win streak of their season.

“Hous­ton is just anoth­er oppor­tu­ni­ty for us,” Kel­lyn Acos­ta said. “We can’t look too much into the play­offs because we’re look­ing to Hous­ton. They have been in a tough spot but that’s still a team that we need to respect because they have some qual­i­ty guys. Sun­day is going to be anoth­er test for us that we need to prove to our­selves and to the league that we’re not just some one-off team that just wins one game here and there.”

Three Rapids were named to MLS Team of the Week for their efforts mid­week. Acos­ta, Rapids iron­man Sam Vines and Dan­ny Wil­son, who start­ed in place of Aus­ton Trusty, all got the nod.

Anoth­er play­er worth not­ing is Nico­las Benezet, who has start­ed the past two games for Col­orado. The winger appears to be round­ing into form after spend­ing most of his first sea­son with the Rapids injured. In 2019, Benezet scored a mas­sive goal for Toron­to in their run to the title game.