Introducing two new visualizations for your viewing pleasure, as we are officially in the home stretch of the 2024 USL Championship season. I will update these two tables weekly for the remainder of the season. Currently they include all matches through October 24th, 2024.

USL Eastern Conference Playoff Qualification “Magic Number” table

This view should tell you exactly how many more points each team needs in order to definitively secure a specific position in the USL Eastern Conference table, without relying on the teams around them dropping points. Most of us will need no reminder that the top eight in each conference qualify for the playoffs, and the top four will host a home playoff match.

There are a lot of different scenarios that could still play out. This table is simply saying that if a team secured the indicated number of points, they would clinch the corresponding spot in the playoffs. 

The Playoff Qualification Magic Number table is not taking tiebreakers into account. Again – with the congestion in the table, tiebreakers are very likely to be a factor in the Eastern Conference playoff seeding.

USL Eastern Conference Tiebreaker Tracker

The USL tiebreaker rules use head-to-head record, then goal differential in head-to-head matchups, followed by points per game vs. in-conference opponents.

Here is Eastern Conference PPG – since there are at least a couple of remaining scenarios where this could come in to play.