Mini Decision Day: What’s at stake in Wednesday’s two games?

Of the four East clubs competing Wednesday, Columbus are the only one whose playoff fate will 100% come down to Decision Day.

“It would have been very easy for our group in the 89th minute, down a goal, to call it a season,” head coach Caleb Porter said. “You didn’t see that out of our group, which says a lot. I’m watching games around the league as teams are being eliminated and I’m seeing teams call their season, you can just see it. Our group, you didn’t see that. It would have been very, very easy. That was a window into our hunger, that we want to have a chance to win a trophy, we want to be in the playoffs.”

Columbus, facing Charlotte in a game that’ll resume in the 16th minute while tied at 0-0, will have a largely first-choice lineup from when the initial fixture was postponed. 

Center back and captain Jonathan Mensah is out injured (thigh) and likely to be replaced by Milos Degenek from the pre-existing bench. Otherwise, star forward Cucho Hernandez is set to return after serving a one-game suspension against RBNY. The club-record signing is second on the team in scoring (9g/2a) since debuting in July, trailing only midfielder Lucas Zelarayan (9a/11a). 

Get a positive result and Columbus position themselves well for another road trip on Decision Day, that one to Orlando’s Exploria Stadium.

“In a lot of ways, I think it’s fitting that we’re going to punch our ticket into the playoffs, hopefully, on the road,” Porter said. “We’ve actually been very strong on the road this year in terms of consistency, getting results. Obviously quite a few of those are draws, but we’ve taken a lot of results on the road this year. So I think our confidence now to go on the road and to hopefully take care of business and get into the playoffs is very high.”