‘I must apologize for tonight:’ Charlotte FC bows out of MLS playoffs
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Charlotte FC was knocked out of the MLS playoffs with 3-1 home loss to NYCFC Friday night.
- Charlotte outshot New York 16-8, but put only one of those 16 shots on goal.
- Charlotte players lingered on the field afterward, consoling each other after the loss.
Charlotte FC squandered the final day of what had been a feel-good season Friday night, losing 3-1 to New York City Football Club and crashing out of the first round of the Major League Soccer playoffs.
In a three-match series that went to the limit, Charlotte technically had the advantage because as the higher seed it was able to play two of those three at home. However, all three playoff games in the series were won by the road team, including Friday night’s decisive match before a sorely disappointed crowd of 34,473 that filled the lower bowl at Bank of America Stadium.
“I must apologize for tonight,” Charlotte FC captain Ashley Westwood said after the game. “Well, not just tonight, but the past three games. It’s been below our standards.”
The Crown had entered the playoffs on a hot streak, having gone 11-2 over the season’s final 13 games. That run had pushed Charlotte to the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs; New York was No. 5. But the results ended up just like the year before, when Charlotte also lost a first-round MLS playoff series. Charlotte FC at least makes the playoffs every year — it can brag about that to the Carolina Panthers and Charlotte Hornets, as neither has made the postseason since at least 2017. But in its four-year history, Charlotte has yet to advance out of the playoffs’ first round.
Charlotte head coach Dean Smith said in his postgame news conference that he thought his team played well enough to win.
“The fans turned up,” Smith said. “We turned up. Much better performance. Better team on the night. But sometimes sport is cruel. We didn’t get the result that we deserved tonight.” And later, to emphasize the point: “Tonight, the wrong team’s gone through, in my opinion.”
I understand Smith wants to defend his team, but I thought New York was the better team Friday night — mainly because of how well it finished chances. Charlotte missed one opportunity after another in the final third; New York put the ball in the net. Charlotte took 16 shots compared to New York’s eight. But seven of New York’s shots were on goal; Charlotte only had one of its 16 on target (and that’s the one that went in).
Charlotte came out energetically and had all the momentum for the match’s first 15 minutes or so. Several good chances were lost, most notably when Brandt Bronico’s right-footed shot from close range (with an xG of 34%) flew well over the top of the net to the dismay of the crowd and his teammates.
“We missed a big chance,” Westwood said. “And in football, that changes the game.”
Toward the end of the first half, New York started controlling possession. And in the second minute of extra time in that half, New York’s Nicolas Fernandez took a contested ball away from Charlotte’s Tim Ream and started speeding down the field.
No one could catch him. Ream tried to chase him down but failed; right back Nathan Byrne almost got there but couldn’t. Unassisted, Fernandez went about 70 yards and banged a shot from the right side of the box into the top left corner past Charlotte FC goalkeeper Kristijan Kahlina.
It was an incredible individual play, and it made it 1-0 at halftime.
Then New York scored a similar goal in the 50th minute, when Charlotte’s first corner kick of the match was quickly snuffed out. New York’s counterattack was quick, decisive and ended up again with Byrne in a one-on-one matchup, this time with New York’s Alonso Martinez. Martinez outran Byrne to the ball, then beat Kahlina with his left foot to the bottom right corner.
That made it 2-0, and Charlotte looked in danger of going the entire playoff series without scoring (it had won Game 2 on penalty kicks).
Charlotte FC then scored its lone goal of the series in the 81st minute, with Idan Toklomati’s shot from close range that was aided by an acrobatic assist from Archie Goodwin. That cut New York’s lead to 2-1 and sent the Charlotte crowd into a frenzy, hoping for a tying score in the game’s final minutes.
But instead, New York soon scored on yet another counterattack — a problem to defend for CLT FC the entire match — as Fernandez scored his second goal of the game with a deft chip over Kahlina.
Fernandez was clearly the best player on the pitch Friday. Smith said he thought Fernandez should have been called offsides on the game’s final goal, but he wasn’t. So Fernandez ended up scoring two goals and incessantly bothering the Charlotte FC players with his ball skills and occasional extracurricular activity.
Charlotte, meanwhile, was left thinking about what might have been. Sixteen shots and only one on goal? Many of the players lingered on the field for long minutes after the game, consoling each other or talking to friends and family. Or, in the case of left winger Wilfried Zaha, simply lying down on the field.
Said Westwood, Charlotte’s central midfielder: “We were the better team tonight. It felt like that. But if you cross balls into the goalkeeper’s hands and these things — the quality wasn’t there. … I felt like we had the team to challenge for a trophy.”
Said Smith: “It could have been a really special night. But we have to come back better.”
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This story was originally published November 8, 2025 at 5:30 AM with the headline "‘I must apologize for tonight:’ Charlotte FC bows out of MLS playoffs."
