San Diego FC won Game 3 of its best-of-three playoff series against the Portland Timbers at sold-out Snapdragon Stadium on Sunday night and advanced to the Western Conference semifinals.

Now they wait 15 days to play it — Nov. 24 at home against Minnesota United — while key members of the roster scatter to distant corners of the planet for national-team duty during a mandated FIFA international break.

It is one reason (of several) why the MLS Board of Governors voted Thursday to align the season with the rest of the world starting in 2027, playing from mid-July to May instead of late February to early December. The owners would still need the blessing of the MLS Players Association, whose collective bargaining agreement with the league doesn’t expire until Jan. 31, 2028 — or midway through the first season with the new calendar.

“One of the most important decisions in our history,” MLS commissioner Don Garber called it.

That the Board of Governors vote comes during yet another international break, when pro clubs are obligated to release players for national-team duty, is probably no accident.

Teams that won their first-round series in two games will wait three weeks before the conference semifinals. There also was a two-week break in October before “Decision Day,” the dramatic final regular-season weekend when playoff seeds are finalized. And another two-week break in September while teams vied for postseason berths.

During a 12-week stretch starting in September, SDFC played eight MLS games — after playing 11 in the previous six weeks plus three more in Leagues Cup play. The breaks pushed MLS Cup to Dec. 6, barely a month before training camp opens ahead of the 2026 season — not to mention the specter of fans shivering in their seats with the Philadelphia Union or FC Cincinnati hosting if either comes out of the East.

“Having your most important part of the season interrupted by things you can’t control is an enormous challenge,” Garber said in a visit to San Diego in late September, “and one of the key motivations of moving the calendar is highlighting the most important part of our season — the playoffs and our championship game.”

So why not just move it?

“You’d like to think you can do it as soon as possible,” Garber said, “but it’s moving a mountain.”

It’s an issue that has been percolating in MLS since its inception three decades ago, with proponents insisting the league won’t be taken seriously on the global stage until aligning with the FIFA’s international calendar, starting in August, finishing in May, with the primary transfer window during the summer offseason, with the majority of FIFA international breaks during the first few months and none during the stretch run.

MLS considered that at the start, but not everyone had their own stadium and sharing with NFL or college football teams was more feasible during the spring and summer. MLS also needed to sell tickets and reasoned that families seeking affordable entertainment during the summer school break — while not competing with the NFL, NBA, NFL, college football and college basketball — made the most sense, and cents.

The sacrifice was international breaks constantly interrupting the final third of the season and soccer’s primary transfer window smack in the middle of it, plus an extended break in June every four years for the World Cup.

MLS considered the change in the mid-2000s and again in the mid-2010s, and passed. But a recent straw poll by The Athletic indicated that 27 of 30 owners favored a switch, and in July the Board of Governors authorized “a second phase of exploration.”

There was some talk of doing it next year, when the league already is facing a lengthy break for the World Cup hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada. The Board of Governors quashed that at its July meetings, saying it wouldn’t happen before 2027 “at the earliest.”

“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Garber said in September. “There’s a lot of support. We’re working on getting all of our teams aligned. It obviously has more impact on our northern clime teams far more than it does on teams in San Diego and L.A. and Florida and Texas. We’ve got to continue to do the work.

“I’d rather take our time and get it right than get it wrong by moving too fast.”

The cons: the risk of attendance drops with games in the teeth of winter while directly competing against football, basketball and hockey.

Half of the 30 clubs are in cities where it regularly snows with outdoor stadiums. MLS is expected to take a winter break, as Germany’s Bundesliga and other Northern European leagues do from Christmas until late January, but that could compress the schedule and force more dreaded mid-week games.

Without a 10-figure TV contract like the major U.S. pro sports leagues, MLS relies heavily on ticket sales for revenue. And once it left linear networks for Apple TV, which doesn’t have to fill specific time slots, MLS put the overwhelming majority of kickoffs at 7:30 p.m. on balmy Saturday nights, when it historically draws the biggest crowds.

The other option to preserve more Saturdays is to start in mid-July, a month earlier than most major European leagues. That would shrink the offseason to as little as six weeks, something that might draw the ire of the players association.

“I think it could be a good step,” Danish midfielder and SDFC captain Jeppe Tverskov said recently. “In the European season, a lot of things are done in certain windows and certain ways. Everybody knows them and is able to schedule around them. For me personally, it’s been a little bit weird going around what’s usual. I think (a move) could make sense, yeah.”

SDFC coach Mikey Varas agreed.

“For me, it’s to grow the league,” he said. “Aligning the transfer windows, I think, will really help us take the next step. If we’re developing top talents, being able to get those talents out at the end of the season or in at the end of the season versus in the middle of the season will really benefit the league long term.”