Will MLS teams' regular-season momentum last the two weeks before the playoffs start?

With MLS Cup playoffs approaching, one word that continually comes up is "momentum." Does a team have it? If so, how can it maintain it, especially against the league's better teams? If not, how can the team get it back?

That said, the postseason does plenty to wreck the very concept of momentum. The league's playoffs are as unpredictable as it gets. Brackets are routinely demolished.

Nobody knows better the fickle nature of momentum than former MLS player and current Apple TV broadcaster Dax McCarty. He was part of the 2013 Supporters' Shield-winning Red Bull New York side that was eliminated in the Eastern Conference semifinal by the Houston Dynamo, thanks in part to a red card in the first leg to standout defender Jamison Olave.

McCarty was also part of the 2024 Atlanta United side that squeaked into the playoffs on Decision Day, beat CF Montréal in the wild card and then sprung an incredible upset against the juggernaut that was that year's Inter Miami side in Round 1. The win over Miami was aided by Atlanta keeper Brad Guzan performing physics-defying feats of gymnastics in the Five Stripes' goal.

"If the playoffs have taught us anything over the course of Major League Soccer's existence, it's that [you should] throw all that stuff out the window at times," McCarty said. "Throw tactics out the window, throw out momentum, throw out form, because one crazy play, one red card, one fluky goal can be the difference between advancing or your season being over."

Yet momentum is something that is still prized by coaches. In a world of fine margins, if you believe that you're going to win because of how you're playing in the moment, then the chances are better that the form will continue.

"I think momentum always matters, whether it's going into the postseason or whether it's the second game of the season," Houston Dynamo manager Ben Olsen said. "I think it matters mostly just because you want your team peaking around playoff time, and being the best version of themselves."

San Jose Earthquakes boss Bruce Arena stressed that momentum is as much a state of mind as it is about results. That's especially true if a coach feels his team is still short of its best.

"It doesn't have to be a terrific run going into the playoffs, but you have to have a team going in with confidence," he said. "You need to have a pretty good idea about what your team's about and how you want to go about your business in the playoffs.

"Probably the psychological part of it is more important than actually the tactical part of it. You just got to get inside the team and make sure that they enter the game with the confidence that they can get a result."

That appears to be true for the Quakes, who finished the season by going 4W-7D-2L. Houston, who faces San Jose in the first round, went a more sobering 2W-7D-4L.

At this stage of the season, teams have already been together for 10 months, so a manager is bound to know what makes his team tick. That doesn't mean said manager's work is done. There could be collaborative meetings in terms of refining how the team wants to approach a certain opponent.

Individual meetings might be needed as well to bolster the confidence of a particular player. A lineup change or a subtle tactical tweak could help a team as well. Arena stressed there is no formula for how he handles things.

"I think I've been in seven MLS Cup finals and won five of them, and I don't think I can tell you that I had the same approach to any of them," Arena said. "Every one was different."

The issue of momentum -- whether trying to maintain it or generate it -- faces some tricky obstacles this postseason. Following last Saturday's Decision Day, the teams that qualified for the playoffs will get around two weeks between matches due to the FIFA international window.

With rhythm broken, the playing field would appear to be more level. That provokes myriad questions in terms of approach. McCarty said the break "absolutely" has an effect on rhythm, momentum and potential injuries.

"How hard do you push your players? You want your players in form, but you also don't want them to get injured," McCarty said. "How hard are the coaches going to push their players?"

There seem to be two paths a manager can take. They either have a scrimmage against another MLS team, or they have an intra-squad match, albeit one in a stadium with referees, the better to simulate a real match. There are pros and cons to both. With injury prevention paramount, playing against another MLS team would appear to offer less control on the level of physicality.

"I think you would want to keep it in-house in terms of an intra-squad scrimmage to try to keep your players fit, to try to keep your players sharp, and with the very real caveat before the game to say, 'Listen, there are no dumb tackles. There are no slide tackles,'" McCarty said. "If you are an Inter Miami fan or a New England Revolution fan or a Nashville SC fan, you're telling young players that might be involved, 'You are not allowed to touch Hany Mukhtar. You're not allowed to touch Carles Gil. You're not allowed to touch [Lionel] Messi.'

"Those are the very clear expectations you have to set. But guess what? That doesn't actually give you a realistic playoff feel. It's whoever can find the right balance, whoever can be at their sharpest and fittest going into these first rounds of games, is going to like their chances."

Olsen indicated he wasn't particularly worried about dealing with the break, although he declined to specify which kind of scrimmage he would utilize. His thinking is that he's dealt with bye weeks so many times over the years that, "We all have a recipe for that."

Sure, he might change a few things here and there, but the concepts remain consistent, and he trusts his sports science department to get things right.

"There's a physical periodization, and there will be a tactical periodization from our side, but it's one that again has been, we've delivered, I don't know, 10, 15 times in the last three and a half years," he said.

Olsen admitted, though, that this time there's a twist.

"You're coming out of this into the most important game of the year, and that's a little bit new," he said.

Arena said he'll be going the intra-squad scrimmage route, although the international window brings another wrinkle to his preparations. What kind of condition will his four players that go away for international duty be in when they get back is a giant unknown.

"If you have players getting called up for international duty, they're likely starters in your team as well," Arena said. "So there's a lot of challenging things for coaches and players as you enter the playoffs. And this year it's been even more complicated because of the international window and the poor planning on the part of Major League Soccer."

This much is clear. Every manager will be trying to build momentum, wherever they can find it.