Hitting the Road - Tomorrow and in the Future

Games don't often come along that are more important than Sunday's showdown between the Galaxy and Houston. The two sides are tied for first place in the Western Conference with two games remaining apiece.
But before we get to the all the playoff possibilities, we just wanted to pass along word that the Galaxy will participate in a postseason tour for the third consecutive season. But unlike the last two years which saw the club travel to Oceania, this year's trip will see the Galaxy travel to Kaiserslautern, Germany to take on FC Kaiserslautern of the Bundesliga 2. This game will be played at the Fritz Walter Stadion (known to many of you as the venue in which the U.S. played Italy to a 1-1 draw in the 2006 World Cup) on Thanksgiving, giving Galaxy fans some soccer to enjoy along with their diet of NFL football on Turkey Day. You can read more about this game here.

Back to more pressing matters such as the Western Conference playoff picture. Suffice to say, it's cloudy.

The Galaxy are in. We know that. They will be joined by Columbus, Houston, Chivas USA and four others. The only teams to have already been eliminated from postseason contention are New York and San Jose, meaning that nine teams are fighting for four spots.

The Galaxy are currently part of a three-way tie at the top of the Western Conference, along with Houston and Chivas USA, but that may have all changed by the time Sunday's game kicks off as Chivas USA and fourth place Seattle (41 points) are each in action on Saturday, as are fellow Western Conference foes Colorado (40 points), Real Salt Lake (37 points) and FC Dallas (36 points).

LA, Houston, Chivas USA, Seattle and Colorado can all still win the west and they can all finish second. The last two could be out of the playoffs all together.

No club can clinch the top seed with a win this weekend, but the Galaxy can clinch a top two spot, which would mean a road playoff game in the first leg of the Western Conference Semifinal Series, with a win over the Dynamo and a Seattle loss or tie.

However, a Galaxy loss combined with a Seattle win and a Chivas USA win or draw would drop the Galaxy all the way back to fourth place, possibly as little as a point above fifth place, depending upon Colorado's result. If the Galaxy finished fifth in the West, they would then cross over to the Eastern Conference to play one of the top two teams in that conference. LA can finish no lower than fifth in the West, though six teams could potentially qualify from the conference.

That means that there are still 11 potential Conference Semifinal Series opponents for the Galaxy; a number that should shrink after this weekend.

With that in mind, we would all like to see LA finish with the top seed in the Western Conference, but who would you like to see us face in the Conference Semifinal Series? And if we advance who do you want in the Western Conference Final or (fingers crossed) the MLS Cup?

Let us know.