Union's motto entering final weekend of regular season: ‘So you're telling us there's a chance'

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How do you know your team’s playoff chances aren’t particularly good?

Here’s one way: a couple of days before the final game of the regular season, Union manager John Hackworth quoted that scene from “Dumb and Dumber” when Lloyd Christmas asks Mary Swanson (aka Samsonite) what the chances are that a girl like him could get a guy like her. Hoping for 1-out-of-100, he happily accepts her answer of 1-out-of-a-million, uttering the now-excessively-quoted line: “So you’re telling me there’s a chance!”

The Union's chances to make the playoffs are far better than 1-out-of-a-million and even better than 1-out-of-100. (It’s actually closer to 1-out-of-10, according to SportsClubStats). But they’re still remote enough that they’re comforted by the dumb optimism of a movie character that thinks his pets’ heads are falling off.

“The classic line – so you’re saying we have a chance – that’s one that we used and we’re in the same position right now,” Hackworth said. “We need help from people Sunday, but we have to take care of business on Saturday.”

So here’s the playoff scenario, which factors in all of the complicated tiebreakers. First, the Union need to beat Sporting Kansas City in their regular-season finale on Saturday at 3 p.m. Then, Houston needs to lose to D.C. United on Sunday at 1:30 p.m. Then, New England needs to lose to Columbus on Sunday at 4 p.m. If all of that happens, the Union will earn the fifth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference with 49 points.

In that same scenario, a Houston-D.C. United draw will also get the Union in, as long as Houston doesn’t score two more goals  than the Union score on Saturday. There’s another scenario where the Union can get in with a New England tie but that would involve scoring eight more goals than New England, so let’s just ignore that one.

Taking each game on their own, the Union, D.C. United and Columbus winning this weekend isn't entirely unrealistic. Philly is facing a very good opponent in Sporting Kansas City that’s fighting for the Supporters’ Shield, but the Union are playing at home and just beat SKC a couple of weeks ago. D.C. United has a historically bad record but they still managed to win the prestigious U.S. Open Cup this year and are hosting a tired Houston team that lost a midweek CONCACAF Champions League contest. And the Revs will also be on the road against a solid Columbus squad that, up until recently, was in the playoff race.

The problem, of course, is that when you need all three of the results to happen, the odds become significantly longer. But, hey, if Harry and Lloyd made it to Aspen on a scooter, anything is possible, right?

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