CHESTER — The Union are right where they don’t want to be as the final game of the 2024 MLS season beckons. With playoff hopes somewhat slim, the Union face FC Cincinnati Saturday night (6 p.m., Apple-TV+) to wrap up the regular season campaign. At 9-14-10 (37 points), the Union sit 11th in the East. The top nine teams make the playoffs. The math is easy, though the task isn’t. If the Union lose or draw Saturday, their season ends. The Union must beat third-placed Cincinnati to reach 40 points and have either D.C. United or Montreal lose to remain on 40 points. The Union hold tiebreakers over both teams – if each are on 40 points, they’ll have identical win totals (10, the first tiebreaker), which then goes to the second tiebreaker of goal differential. The Union are plus-8, D.C. minus-15, Montreal minus-18. If the Union win and both D.C. (home to sixth-placed Charlotte) and Montreal (home to New York City FC, in fifth) lose in simultaneous kickoffs, the Union would leap into eighth and host the play-in game. If both D.C. and Montreal get results, the Union’s result doesn’t matter. Seeds eight and nine will play a Wild Card match this week, likely Tuesday, hosted by the eight seed. The winner will get Supporters’ Shield winner Inter Miami in a best-of-3 series in Round 1, in which the Union host the second game. The Union, thanks to consecutive losses and just one point taken from the last nine available, have lost control of their Decision Day destiny. But they aren’t dead yet. “I think we know the stakes,” manager Jim Curtin said Friday. “We know that we have to have a great performance against Cincinnati, a team that we obviously have a real history with in the last several years in the playoffs, some really good regular-season games, always a high intensity game where both teams are very familiar with each other. There’s a lot on the line for both teams.” Cincinnati (17-11-5, 56 points) is locked into third place in the East. But a win would move it closer to CONCACAF Champions Cup qualification via MLS’ convoluted methods. The Union lost 4-3 in Cincinnati June 19, part of a five-game skid that has deposited the Union at this current nadir. They exacted some revenge by claiming a 4-2 victory at TQL Stadium in the Round of 16 of the Leagues Cup. The teams have played each of the last two years in the postseason. Cincy eliminated the Union, 1-0, in Ohio last year on a controversial goal by Yerson Mosquera in the fourth minute of stoppage time in the conference semifinals. The Union ran past Cincy, 1-0, on a Leon Flach goal in the conference semis in 2022 on the way to MLS Cup final. There’s plenty of familiarity with a club run by former Union player and executive Chris Albright and coached by Curtin’s former assistant Pat Noonan. The Union have had two weeks to prep during the international break. All of the club’s internationals were back by Wednesday, providing two full practice sessions. They came back healthy, including Andre Blake, who backstopped shutouts of Honduras and Nicaragua in the Nations League for Jamaica and whose season-long leg issues have relented enough that he’s able to take long goal kicks. Reserve forward Sam Adeniran has missed time with a bruised foot, though he resumed training fully Friday. That could mean a chance for Chris Donovan to play if the Union are chasing the game late. The Conestoga grad hasn’t played since July 13 – that’s 17 straight games as an unused sub – but he came up with big goals last year to help the Union advance past Queretaro in the Leagues Cup and New England in the first round of the playoffs. Whatever happens Saturday, there’s little applying lipstick to the Union’s pig of a season. They need a result of any kind to pass the 2012 campaign (37) for the fewest points in any of the club’s 14 34-game seasons. Even if they hit 40, that would surpass only 2012 and the expansion 2010 season (31 points in 30 games). It’s already the first time since 2018 that the Union have finished outside the top 10 in the Supporters’ Shield standings, and their current standing of 22nd would be the lowest in franchise history (the previous worst is 18th in 2015, though that was a 20-team league, not 29). “It’s a position you never want to be in again,” Curtin said. “That’s the reality. We’ve been a team that’s kind of prided itself on consistency, on winning. In the past years, we’re fighting for usually a home playoff game and securing that, rather than just scraping and clawing our way in.” All that will be grappled with on another day, possibly as soon as Monday if the Union don’t win. But the Union’s ability to compete against quality teams offers legitimate reason to hope that they could extend their playoff stay if they can only get in. That won’t be totally up to them, so Curtin has harped this week on what is under their purview. “We know the one thing we control is how we play, is that we can get a result,” he said. “That’s our priority. We have to win the game. Otherwise, your season is 100 percent over. That part is clear.”