After a long, difficult season for FC Dallas, it all comes down to one game.

There’s only one more stop on this terrifying roller coaster that had about 20 loops, 10 drops, and even crashed a couple times along the way. But after 33 grueling games and a stomach-dropping fall from the top, the season is on the line Sunday afternoon against the LA Galaxy in Frisco.

FC Dallas comes into the game in seventh place and one spot out of the playoffs. While the sixth place San Jose Earthquakes are tied on 43 points with FCD, they hold the tiebreaker in wins. So for FC Dallas to have any chance of making the playoffs in that sixth spot, they must get a better result than San Jose Sunday. FC Dallas must win, and San Jose must tie or lose.

FC Dallas will be playing against a Galaxy team that currently sits dead last in the Western Conference and MLS as a whole. Theoretically, they are a team with nothing to play for, who are probably looking forward to getting their nightmare of a season over and looking forward to a surely more successful 2018 season. However, the Galaxy are coming off a dominant 3-0 victory at home against Minnesota and head coach Sigi Schmid has said that he is using these games as a way of examining players for next season. So don’t expect this team to just roll over and play dead.

Keep in mind that MLS recently has brought out what they call “Decision Day” which will have all games in the Western Conference played simultaneously. For a league that gets a lot of criticism for some of the decisions they make, you can’t criticize this one. This is something you see all leagues do, and the drama is just top notch.  So expect to see a lot of fans using their phones for score checking and not just Snapchat selfies with the Toyota Stadium/FC Dallas filter.

It’s worth noting that this game could be all but meaningless in the end, because even with a win FCD could still be eliminated if San Jose wins at home against a poor Minnesota United team, which would not surprise anyone, but you never know. The thing I love most about this league is the pure unpredictability of it. Any team could beat any team on a given matchday. Any Given Sunday (this might be the only time all season you can use this cliché for MLS).

While FC Dallas may not control the entirety of their destiny, the game is still a must win. While technically it is possible they could tie and get the sixth seed, you want to do everything you can to control your own destiny. For the fans of this team, and the fans of soccer in this country (it still hurts), this team owes it to the fan base who has stuck through this terror ride of a season, to finish the season off strong. It would be an incredible disappointment to miss the playoffs, and it would hurt significantly more if the team had a chance to control their own destiny and couldn’t get a result at home when it mattered most.