MLS Eastern Conference Re-Entry Cheat-Sheet: Your (Near) Post-World Cup Dose of Prevagen

From a movie/show called "State of Play," apparently.

With Major League Soccer returning to action this week (Eeeee!!!!), I put a little time into reorienting myself to what the big-picture state of play looked like before the World Cup break. So, with my results tracking Word doc as a guide (because MLSSoccer.com refuses to keep the Form Guide in full-season working condition), some sorting on the still-functioning (for now) Stats page, and a look ahead at what every team in MLS’s Eastern Conference has between today and (SIIIIGGHH!) the Leagues Cup in the first half of August, I put together brief ‘n’ loose notes on where every team in the East stands as regular season play resumes. There’s nothing deep down there, no more links, no kicking around tactics, notes on new signings, significant departures, and so on. This is just someone whispering over your shoulder to feed you a little more intel than you get off the name tag and your memory.

In the order they…stand, um, in the standings, these are my notes. Oh, and it looks like Leagues Cup kicks off on the first week of August. 

1st Nashville SC
Matches to Leagues Cup: v ATL, v MTL, @ ORL, @ DC
Notes
Compiled a 6-2-2 record over the ten games leading into the World Cup break, comfortably second in a runaway for the top three best goal differentials in MLS (Vancouver and San Jose are the other two), plus with three attacking players posting strong numbers in Sam Surridge (9 goals), Hany Mukhtar (6 goals, 5 assists), Warren Madrigal (5 goals, 4 assists; also, who?), and Cristian Espinoza (3 goals, 8 assists), plus the league’s sole remaining undefeated home record: Nashville’s better than fine. They’re also two points above Miami in the East with a game in hand. Based on the upcoming games listed above, and barring any disasters over the break, they’re a good bet to stay up here.

2nd Inter Miami CF
Matches to Leagues Cup: v CHI, @ MTL, v CLB
Notes
Their league-leading attack – led by (sigh) Lionel Messi – keeps Miami well above water and a free-swinging Eastern Conference (fun fact: every team in the West except three worst (SKC, Austin and Portland) have better goals allowed numbers than Miami). Their home record needs work (2-1-3, with the two wins coming versus Portland (of course) and a 6-4 win over Philly that underscores the “free-swinging” descriptor above. Miami will stick near the top, even if nothing in their past 10 games says their defense will improve (20 goals allowed, and against some crap teams). One likely under-appreciated detail: the assists they’re getting from Rodrigo De Paul (7) and Telasco Segovia (8). As for the upcoming, the Chicago game has fun written all over it, but I don’t see any gimmes in that run.

3rd Chicago Fire FC
Matches to Leagues Cup: v VAN, @ MIA, @ NYC, v CLT
Notes
I heard rumors the Fire signed Poland legend Robert Lewandowski, which is good because they’ll need him for those next four games; that’s first in the West, second in the East, plus two tough nuts. Against that, Chicago looks genuinely good in 2026 – e.g., reasonably balanced (+11 goal differential, just over a goal allowed per game and over twice as many scored), with positive records at home (5-3-0) and on the road (3-1-2), and a 7-2-1 record over their past ten games. Moreover, those numbers give me faith they can survive a starting XI that shifts more than most. On the numbers side, Hugo Cuypers is on a career season (13 goals, 2 assists), Philip Zinckernagel keeps plugging away (from memory, 3 goals, 5 assists?), and they’re getting enough from everyone else. And that’s good enough with players like Anton Saletros, Mbekezeli Mbokazi, and even Dje D’Avilla making the whole project more stable. Won’t be surprised to earn fewer points than they drop between today and Leagues Cup, but I’ll be stunned if they don’t make the playoffs clean.

A man contemplating hemorrhoids, apparently.

4th New England Revolution
Matches to (the Date) Leagues Cup (Starts): v TFC, v ATL, @ MTL (they’re not in Leagues Cup)
Notes
The Revs resurrected from a dead-cat bounce start to 2026 to hit the World Cup break as hot as any team in MLS (7-2-1). They don’t get a lot of glamorous wins, not one player on the team posts league-elite numbers (Carles Gil has 5 goals, 4 assists; Luca Langoni, 3 goals, 6 assists), but only the best beat them at home (7-1-0, and that one was Nashville) and they won every game they should over those past 10 games and they’re not bad at punching points out of immediate rivals (e.g., a 1-1 draw at Miami and taking all three versus Charlotte; three versus Minnesota was a bonus). If they can keep that up against tougher competition – something they don’t get between now and the Leagues Cup break – New England have a fair chance of hitting the playoffs as, at worst, a real pain in the ass for everyone else. For what it’s worth, and even if I can’t fully articulate where it comes from, I don’t have a ton of faith in the project. Still, a team to respect until further notice.

5th Red Bull New York
Matches to (the Date) Leagues Cup (Starts): @ PHI, v CLT, v ORL (they’re not in Leagues Cup)
Notes
A bad run of results knocked the shine off Red Bull’s youth movement, but it recovered in its way. Even if it came after a five-game winless streak (which featured real dropped points, e.g., a 4-4 home draw v DC), they went into the World Cup break picking up 10 points from their last four games, including two must-wins (3-2 versus Columbus and 2-1 at SKC) and three bonus points (3-1 win at Chicago). Julian Hall carries the banner for the still marching youth movement (9 goals, 4 assists), but he has Adri Mehmeti and Ronald Donkor right beside him; hell, they even got five assists (and one goal) out of the notoriously stingy Cade Cowell. This team still strikes me as precarious – a -7 goal differential does that - but I don’t see that getting exposed between now and the Leagues Cup break. If they can age a little more while the rest of the East is distracted with that, maybe they improve their chances over the second half of 2026.

6th Charlotte FC
Matches to Leagues Cup: v ATL, @ RBNY, @ CHI
Notes
They lost Wilfried Zaha (right?) – at 3 goals, 4 assists and 1,162 minutes played, that’s not nothing – and they did their share of ambling about the desert perilously close to the World Cup break in the form a 0-4-1 winless streak, so the question is the extent back-to-back home wins over Toronto and New England immediately before the same points to a newer, better direction. Positives include Pep Biel’s first big season (7 goals, 6 assists) and the steady presence of Ashley Westwood (5 assists!) in the starting lineup, but they still present as a team playing competent soccer versus taking steps towards a champion’s podium. It’ll take a home win over Atlanta to hold onto “competent,” but it’ll take getting more than a couple points out of road games at Red Bull and Chicago to get my attention. That or signing someone, anyone notable during the break. (Which they might have done; haven’t checked.)

God bless ESPN Ocho.

7th FC Cincinnati
Matches to Leagues Cup: v VAN, @ CLB, v SJ
Notes
The attack keeps pace with the best (36 goals scored!) and the defense lumbers behind sucking wind with the worst (37 goals allowed!); it’s the latter that feels like the story of Cincinnati’s slide to the middle of the table. A couple seasons of grinding out 1-0 wins has finally given way to swinging hard as they can in the East’s mid-table pillow fight – and Cincy clear owes 7th to the offense. Though led by solid numbers from Evander (9 goals, 6 assists) and Kevin Denkey (9 goals, 4 assists), Cincinnati’s attacking success seems to owe just as much to steady assists from all over (e.g., Pavel Bucha (6), Gerardo Valenzuela (4), Ender Echenique (5)). Sturdy as their home record is, the stretch to the Leagues Cup spells trouble for a team that has an aging Nick Hagglund leading the defense for minutes and Obinna Nwobodo still under 400 minutes on the season.

8th New York City FC
Matches to Leagues Cup: @ CLB, v CHI, v TFC
Notes
The math tells me NYCFC started strong – 3-1-1 over their first five if I’m counting right – and that only makes the 2-5-3 record since then look worse. Calling that run a mixed bag seems fair – e.g., balance a road win at Charlotte (and a…decent road record) against a 0-2 home loss versus DC – but it’s also a lot of dropping points against peer teams and that’s how a team winds up hanging from the bottom of the playoff rope. Nicolas Fernandez Mercau does his lifting (10 goals, 4 assists), with Hannes Wolf pitching in below (5 goals, 4 assists), and Maxi Moralez continues to defy age and time (1 goal, 6 assists), but NYC looks like every other team loitering around the middle of the East without intent: just-above average on goals scored and a narrow goal differential. More treading water beneath the big fish in the top 4, basically. That said, I see an opportunity for points amid the immediately upcoming matches; we’ll see what they do with them.

9th DC United
Matches to (the Date) Leagues Cup (Starts): @ HOU, v TFC, v NSH (they’re not in Leagues Cup)
Notes
God bless Tai Baribo (8 goals), the proud owner of just over 1/3 of DC’s goals in 2026. Another case of starting well enough, DC had just two wins in the past 10 games going into the World Cup break – versus Orlando and at NYC – but they picked up just three points out of the last 12 on offer, and with three of those games (v CHI, STL, and MTL) at home. The attack is slightly worse than the defense (-4 goal differential), but the broad stability of the starting XI – i.e., they have nine players over 1,000 minutes, and Baribo has 924 – suggests they’re doing the best they can for now. To the extent there’s a wait-and-see about this team, it boils down to players like (great hope) Louis Munteanu, Gabriel Pirani, Aaron Herrera and Jared Stroud all playing between half to a third of available starting minutes. In any event, don’t expect them to go anywhere in 2026, up to and including the playoffs. [Accidental Update: Today, I saw they shipped Pirani and signed Nathan Ordaz from LAFC, or thereabouts. Make of that what you will.]

10th Columbus Crew SC
Matches to Leagues Cup: v NYC, v CIN, @ MIA
Notes
Calling them the worst of just another mediocre mid-table Eastern Conference team seems fair – even when one considers they already fired a coach who seemed more obsessed with a dodgy system than on-field results. No one’s really doing well on the attacking side – losing Wessam About Ali was a hell of a blow (still has 5 goals, 1 assist starting half the available minutes – which pushed Diego Rossi, more winger than forward, leading the line (6 goals, 2 assists). Max Arfsten’s chipping in nicely (4 goals, 4 assists) and Dylan Chambost has a good number of assists from a guy who plays where he does (3 assists), and Columbus hasn’t done so bad over its past 10 games (4-4-2), and they’re winning most of the games they should, but also 10th place. And a 1-5-2 road record. It’ll take a signing or two to feel good about their chances, basically, or Abou Ali’s return to the lineup. And I wouldn’t expect a turnaround before the Leagues Cup break.

11th Club du Foot Montreal
Matches to (the Date) Leagues Cup (Starts): v TFC, @ NSH, v MIA, v NE (they’re not in Leagues Cup)
Notes
Montreal’s now past their annual tradition of playing all their games on the road, and they’re dining better on home cooking (3-2-1 v 1-6-1), but they continue to drop dumb points at home (e.g., 1-2 loss versus Philly, 2-2 draw versus Portland), so who knows what to make of them? They get good numbers out of Prince Owusu (9 goals, 5 assists) and Wiki Carmona’s doing all right (4 goals, 4 assists), so they’d probably be just another mediocre, mid-table Eastern Conference team had they not leaked 31 on the season – including 21 over their past 10 games. They have a couple players I rate, even if grudgingly (e.g., Brayan Vera), but Montreal has given off “this franchise doesn’t know what’s doing” vibes for some time now. I don’t expect much out of the four games listed above, but could be moved to pay attention if they can get more than six points out of that.

Still needs to hear it...

12th Orlando City SC
Matches to Leagues Cup: @ SJ, v NSH, @ RBNY
Notes
Those three upcoming games won’t help and, barring, like three massive signings, Orlando fans shouldn’t put much hope into getting a boost out of the Leagues Cup (they play Monterrey, Leon, and Atletico de San Luis). Recent results haven’t been disastrous – i.e., a good team can turn around a 3-5-2 run – but Orlando’s defense, with a runaway 44 goals allowed, has killed them in 2026. Calling Martin Ojeda (11 goals, 1 assist) and Ivan Angulo (1 goal, 7 assists) the sole real bright spots in Orlando's 2026 feels like telling a friend something they really need to hear, even if it hurts, and they’re 1-6-1 road record tells me to keep expectations low and hopes a little lower for the foreseeable future.

13th Toronto FC
Matches to (the Date) Leagues Cup (Starts): @ MTL, @ NE, @ DC, @ NYC (they’re not in Leagues Cup)
Notes
Perhaps(?) burned by their (very expensive) Italian adventure (Bernardeschi and Insigne), Toronto leaned into the intra-league model – plus recent(/former) U.S. Men’s forward, Josh Sargent - and in intra-league coach in Robin Fraser to get their feet back under them. Djordje Mihailovic, Richie Laryea, Daniel Salloi, Walker Zimmerman, Jose Cifuentes, (maybe), etc.: making sense of the vision has come far easier than making it work. If I’m being honest, this has become the MLS team I’m most likely to forget and that, along with the rebuild I forgot I was clocking, only deepens my surprise at seeing them in 14th place. Per the above, things aren’t likely to improve, not with four straight road games coming up and a 1-4-0 road record. They don’t have much on the attacking end – Salloi leads the XI with 5 goals and 4 assists – and the defense is merely average. Maybe the season crawls out of hell if/when the rag-tag collection of talent comes together for one last big score…somewhat related, Toronto hasn’t won in eight games.

14th Atlanta United FC
Matches to (the Date) Leagues Cup (Starts): @ NSH, @ CLT, @ NE, @ PHI (they’re not in Leagues Cup)
Notes
Based on the above, MLS should see the Battle for the Eastern Conference Basement this August 1st, when Atlanta visits Philly, because Atlanta looks fucked at least three ways till then. Believe it or not, the defense has been good – just 23 goals allowed, on the better side of the East – but a literally stupid amount and form of investment has yet to improve Atlanta’s scoring. Emmanuel Latte Lath continues to look like a bust (2 goals, 2 assists), Miguel Almiron has only 658 minutes on the clock and 3 assists to go with it; insofar as Atlanta has a “success story” on the attacking side, it’s Alexey Miranchuk. He improved on his rocky arrival, but the fact he leads Atlanta’s “attack” with a surprisingly lonely 5 goals and 2 assists says everything one needs to know about what’s going wrong in ATL.

15th Philadelphia Union
Matches to Leagues Cup: v RBNY, v SEA, v ATL
Notes
Raise your hand if you saw Philly’s collapse coming. Now put it down because I don’t think anyone saw [gestures broadly] all this coming – i.e., just one win over 15 games (a 2-1 squeaker at Montreal), still no wins at home, nothing but profoundly middling, global failure (i.e., they’re not that bad on top-line numbers, e.g., 18 goals scored, 30 goals allowed), and Milan Iloski (7 goals, 1 assist) putting all he can into a doomed salvage mission. They’ve found ways to drop points all season, sometimes exotic ones (e.g., a 3-4 loss at Orlando two weeks before a 4-6 loss at Miami), but, per their goals scored/allowed numbers in those two results (that leaves just 11 goals scored over their other 13 games and 20 goals allowed), Philly has mostly lost close ones. They’re currently holding the Wooden Spoon, but that should give them some glimmer of hope that it will fall to someone else by the end of the season. Getting four points between today and what will surely be a still-born Leagues Cup campaign would go some ways to making that better.

That’s all for this one. Till the Seattle Preview/Western Conference Wrap-Up/Portland Timbers Locator Post…