United needs to win and get help

NM hopes to secure playoff spot in finale

For all that has been extraordinary about New Mexico United in 2019, its play of late has been anything but — a .500 team (10-10-13) and a zero-goal differential.

You can’t get any more average than that.

So the ordinary team needs one more extraordinary night to extend this extraordinary first campaign into the United Soccer League Championship division postseason.

As United hosts Las Vegas Lights at Isotopes Park in the regular season finale Saturday, it is in 11th place in a Western Conference that will send only its top 10 teams to the postseason. So United must win to earn the three points in the standings, and then get help.

The top eight teams in the West have clinched playoff spots. Ninth-place LA

Galaxy II (11-10-12, 45 points, minus-5 goal differential, plays El Paso) advances with a win. If Galaxy II ties and United wins, they each finish with 46 points. The first tiebreaker is total victories, which would be a push at 11. The second is goal differential; United would be no worse than plus-1 and advance.

Tenth-place San Antonio (12-13-8, 44 points, hosts Colorado Springs) does no worse than maintain its standing and reaches the playoffs if it wins. If it loses or ties, United (43 points) passes it by with a win.

All of that will be immaterial if United doesn’t correct course. Coach Troy Lesesne’s crew lost its chance at deciding its own fate with Wednesday’s 1-1 home draw against Tacoma. New Mexico is 0-2-3 in its last five and hasn’t won in a month.