Whitecaps playoff opponent set, team draws massive BC Place crowd for regular season finale

The Vancouver Whitecaps ended their 2023 Major League Soccer regular season with a 1-1 draw on Saturday against LAFC, but it was mostly a preview for what’s to come.

Following the match, the two teams learned that they’ll actually be playing each other once again fairly soon, in the first round of the 2023 MLS Cup Playoffs kicking off next weekend.

It will be the first ever playoff meeting for the two sides, with the two teams playing off in a best-of-three series beginning next weekend in Los Angeles before the second match will be played in Vancouver. LAFC finished third in the MLS Western Conference this season, while Vancouver finished sixth.

Tickets will be made available at ticketmaster.ca/whitecaps once dates and times are officially set, with the first round of the playoffs to go from October 28 through November 12. Earlier postseason action gets going this Wednesday, with the eighth and ninth seeds in each conference playing this Wednesday in one-off matches to qualify for the final 16 teams in the 30-team league.

It’s Vancouver’s first playoff appearance since 2021 and just their second since 2017, when they last hosted a home postseason contest. Meanwhile, LAFC, who first played in the league in 2018, are the defending MLS Cup champions and have made the playoffs in four of their first five seasons in existence.

On Saturday, 25,146 fans were in attendance for the contest, the largest crowd at BC Place for a Whitecaps game this season, with the supporters receiving a piece of positive news in relation to one of the leaders of their club.

During the match, the club also announced that they’d signed head coach Vanni Sartini to a contract extension for two more years, making the announcement during the opening stages of the first half.

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