No, I Think It's Really Happening This Time: Closing Shop, Cleaning Up

Lord, let this be the last one.

Yes, I've done this at least a half dozen times already.

Leaving the scene like James Brown, only way more embarrassing.

To make it formal...

This blog is hereby closed by the power vested in me by whatever authority that still remains in blogger's withered hands.

This site isn't what it was when it started. If I'm being honest, half the motivation came from giving me an excuse to get drunk and stoned and to just...riff.

I couldn't keep that going beyond my mid-50s, as it happens, and even that's not great.

To celebrate the closing of this space, I offer these ten thoughts on club/franchise soccer in these United States.

1) If you came to Major League Soccer any time after...let's go with 2008, you have no idea how bleak it was. The answer to the question of why all of us old timers continue to put up with all the bullshit MLS throws our way can be answered by the seasons between 1996 and 2008. 

2) Other old timers' opinions may vary, but Guillermo Barros Schelotto was the first player I saw come to MLS who made me see the market beyond the headlining names. Beckham coming in was massive, but it's the guys you never heard of that really transformed the league.

MLS Week 20-22 Level Set, the Timbers Place in It & a Wee Austin Scouter

MLS to literally all of its teams.

With the Leagues Cup now behind every MLS team (look at that, clean sweep) and the home stretch on the horizon, I felt like I needed another level set on where teams are around the league. The dive ain’t deep: it’s about 80% looking for patterns over the past 10 games for every team in MLS and 20% “other” – so the analysis doesn’t go much further than “things are okay” or “Jesus Christ, are they okay?” Just to note it, going back 10 games in regular season play takes all the teams below back to the middle of May; a pretty big sample, in other words. Hopefully, the blurbs provided on each team will either confirm an impression, maybe even tell you something you didn’t already know.

As for organization, I decided to go with something simple as the playoffs: each MLS team is grouped below as either Quick (i.e., either above the playoff line or with a fair chance of getting over it by Decision Day) or Dead (i.e., unlikely to make the playoffs, present place in the standings notwithstanding). I went with that looser measure deliberately: some teams look a lot more like “contenders,” others the middlest of mid-table, and most will trot to the end of their season at the exact same clip, but a good run at the right time can go all the way to MLS Cup for any team that makes MLS’s open-armed playoff system, so why get out the fine-tooth comb when I run a ratty old brush through it?

Quick aside: looking at the 2026 standings with the rumored new playoff format floated by Larry(? (Harry? What’s his fuck?) Berg is a fun exercise. I understand the 2027-28 season will feature more conferences and, full disclosure, both eyes and ears glazed over when it was explained to me, but as I understand Berg’s proposed system, the “if the playoffs started today” line for 2026 would be drawn between the determinedly mid-table Red Bull New York and the (frankly) plummeting Seattle Sounders. Everyone on 26 points and above gets in, basically, so that’s eight teams from the East and twelve in the West (e.g., the LA Galaxy and everyone above them, basically, and at time of posting). Have to admit that’s not as bad as I thought, or not much worse than the present system, at least in terms of the invite list.

So, time to get into it. I’ve decided to start with the Dead – i.e., the teams I don't see making the 2026 playoffs – and then run through the Quick. Going backwards feels little more suspenseful, for some reason. But, before getting into that, and because this is a Portland Timbers blog, I’m going to start by seeing how both they and Austin FC, the team they host this weekend, weigh in the balance…plus I also wanted to pad the entry on Austin with a little scouting report.

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.

Real Salt Lake 2-0 Portland Timbers: Local Man Loses Popularity Contest* (Wait for It...)

That big fucker should get you $50.

Wanting something to succeed comes with a built-in temptation to want to see the good in things. In last week’s wrap of the Portland Timbers’ win over San Diego FC, I started a thought about Portland being in a weird space after that win, plus the one versus LAFC, and just posed the obvious question – i.e., what would happen if Portland won at Real Salt Lake?

We all know that happened Saturday – EMPHATICALLY not that – but I wanted to stick with tricks of the eye for a minute. I came around on Kristoffer Velde to the point of thinking I misread my first impression; Jose Caicedo’s rep took a knock for me at Minnesota, but, being a necessary piece, I pinned my hopes on him because I have nowhere else to pin them; I keep hearing the name “Aravena” and figure it must mean something (it hasn't, not so far): players to project onto a brighter future, basically, and yet. While you’re there, stuff Cole Bassett into the frame and why not make room for David Da Costa, Jimer Fory and Alex Bonetig?

With that in your head, step back and ask yourself: did you think, believe, whatever that the Timbers would win at Real Salt Lake? I accepted the possibility they might with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old who’s pretty sure the Tooth Fairy is bullshit, but who still wants the quarter. (Or the dollar. Seriously, what did you get from the tooth fairy?). Again, we all know what happened Saturday – i.e., there was neither tooth nor quarter when we woke, just pain– so let’s kick that around.

Real Salt Lake 2-0 Portland Timbers
What Passes for a Match Report
After re-watching (most of) the first half, the best thing I can say is that it’s not as bad as you remember it. Portland got pulled to shredding, no question, but RSL’s attacks didn’t hit often as they seemed to in real time. 18 shots with 11 on goal says otherwise (the game ended 25/15 to 11/2), of course, and the quality of the chance creation (quite good!) was always the biggest concern. Diego Luna ran rampant, both Zavier Gozo and Morgan Guilovogui ran free in acres outside Portland’s (and Jimer Fory’s) right, and Sergi Solans alternately out-wrestled and out-raced the Timbers oft-clumsy high line. James Pantemis’ thirteen saves kept the bloodbath polite, but every Portland fan with eyes sees the body and most know the state of it.

MLS Week 8 & 9 Wrap-Up: A Short Longitudinal That Means Nothing, Yet Satisfies Something

Roger Shewitt isn't a real name. This is Roger Schmidt.

Before Major League Soccer kicked off…what I think was its Week 8, I saw the first midweek games of the season chasing its tail and decided that a condensed schedule called for a simpler post. With that in mind, I posted 10 questions to Bluesky (9, factually) that the two games played by all the teams involved would either answer, or at least begin to answer.

The Q & ensuing A are below, with some amount of riffing thrown in. Nothing of what’s below provides comprehensive coverage, it’s intended as a snapshot for a couple handfuls of events (aka, games). This could become a model for the league-wide posts. I typically know about 12 hours before you do, fwiw. Let’s get do it, let’s get down to it, Roger…Shewitt.

1) What Happens on Inter Miami CF’s Post-Mascherano Rocky Mountain Road Trip Swing?
At least the Colorado Rapids made the MLS brass’s very special boy/team work for the win. They beat them by the numbers, too, and my Bluesky timeline was full of praise for Matt Wells and Rafael Navarro’s savvy slipperiness. Miami scored the late winner through Messi, of course, but they seemed no less determined to feed German Berterame until he scored a damn goal (which he did). Despite the offside (by a fucking toenail) goal that RSL had called back, the Rocky Mountain rivalry’s Western-most team looked more rattled than I’ve seen them so far in 2026. It took them ferever to do it, but Miami won that one comfortably on goals by well-heeled opening acts like Rodrigo de Paul (82nd minute) and Luis “Ear-Biter” Suarez (83rd). “Indifferent form” means different things to different teams, but, in case you missed it, Miami hasn’t lost since Match Day 1 and they’re now 2nd in the East right behind Nashville. If this team sees a slump in 2026, looks like it’ll come later.

2) Do Either Toronto or New England Have the (or Any) Juice?
New England answered with a throaty “YYYEeesssssss!!” with dueling 2-1 wins – versus Columbus last weekend and at Atlanta last night – while Toronto answered with what can best be characterized as an animated shrug by way of back-to-back, thrilling 3-3 draws versus Austin and Philadelphia. I didn’t see anything from the Austin draw (though the final stats tell me I should have put in the time), but I saw that Philly gave Toronto a fight they merely survived thanks to a last-gasp, thoroughly gorgeous equalizer by their ‘keeper, Luka Gavran (who, based on what I saw, only stayed as high as he did at Kobe Franklin’s urging). Shit was thin, in other words, and it’s still just two points from as many games and…well, sixth place isn’t so bad, even if 11th is a mere three points below. Toggling to the other team, the Revs’ win versus Columbus had me asking whether the latter is just a bad team (they actually did a nose better by the stats) and seeing any team up to and including a random collection of fans and stadium vendors beat Atlanta should surprise no one at this point (shout-out to Sergey Miranchuk, who’s doing really well after a bad 2025!); that’s all to say the opposition always matters. Going the other way, both wins count as New England taking care of business, they’ve charted their own fate all the way up to third in the East…even if that followed from beating every (or just four) of the East’s worst teams (MTL, DC, CLB, ATL), three of them at home. Still, juice is juice.

Portland Timbers 2-1 Los Angeles FC & MLS Week 7: re Asking the Right Questions

MLS Week 7 felt like a good week for defenses to let a player run from the midfield stripe to goal. And that’s watching just one game over half of them.

As hinted at on Bluesky (not sure how many people who find this site are on there, but it feels like most), I’ve tweaked the formula for these posts…yet again, so we’ll see where this goes. Per the Next Five-Year Plan, there will be:

1) a post about the Portland Timbers game, plus the round-up of MLS action for the relevant week, six games will be covered, if more contextually than specifically; and

2) a preview post for the Timbers opponent for the MLS Match Day to come.

Social obligations have put this post a couple hours further behind deadline, so I’m cutting off the preamble there, whatever doesn’t make sense shall become apparent, the first shall be last, the meek will get the best seats at the opera and dolphins shall walk the Earth, moving on to this week’s main event, which had a sweet, sweet chaser…

Portland Timbers 2-1 Los Angeles FC
What Passes for a Match Report
Regular readers of my preview posts know that the real payoff is all the shit I get wrong. After making a firm, reasonably empirical case that LAFC wouldn’t rotate their roster much, they rolled in with most of their regular starters except Denis Bouanga and Nkoski Tafari resting on the bench, it looks like Son Heung-min didn’t even travel, and so on. That set this up as Portland versus LAFC’s Youth Academy, bench players and the two aforementioned starters, which kicked the game off with an opportunity for the fully-loaded Timbers and plausible deniability for LAFC.

Los Angeles FC Scouting Report & an MLS Week 6 Wrap Up: To The Plan & Progress

"Reading Cliff Notes" taken very literally.

In the event others are ever tempted to try such foolishness, I’d argue that you can get almost as much from watching a 10-minute highlight reel than you get from parachuting in to watch a full half of two teams you barely know. The stray comments you catch from the broadcast booth is the only benefit of the latter and the former makes up a little ground by keeping in the best bits, plus a little more context. Think of it as a good, though not great, cut of meat.

In other news, a brain-wave on the way home from work has finally completed The Plan going forward for this site:

1) Portland Timbers Wrap Up posted no later than Sunday; and

2) a 50%-plus wrap up of the weekend’s results topped with a preview of Portland’s next opponent posted no later than Wednesday, but ideally on Tuesday (I did it, mom!).

A couple things recommend this shift, most personal, at least one practical, but that’s enough for the editorial notes because, this week, I’m on a damn schedule. Close readers will notice that the “50%-plus” figure in No. 2. The current goal has me including blurbs on six games in the weekly wrap ups. Those will be based on highlights, with a dash of historical context, but those six games, plus the Timbers game, plus a longer review of Portland’s next opponent will get my eyes on a total of 16 teams every week – i.e., just over half the league. In an attempt to get a jump on the future, I’m already revising The Plan for when Major League Soccer switches to a handful of regional conferences in 2027-2028 (that’s actually happening, right? I didn't dream that?), but I’ll cross that bridge next fall. In the here and now, though, The Plan means ignoring seven results every week. Covering those real fast, with links to The Mothership’s wrap ups embedded in each final score:

Results I Ignored (no real surprises here)
New England Revolution 3-0 Club du Foot Montreal (expected on both sides of the score)
Real Salt Lake 3-1 Sporting Kansas City (see above)
Charlotte FC 2-1 Philadelphia Union (Union=dead to me until they get at least a draw)
Inter Miami CF 2-2 Austin FC (very Austin season so far and ignoring Miami is my joint)
New York City FC 1-1 St. Louis CITY FC (mildly surprising; becoming St. Louis-curious)
Houston Dynamo FC 0-1 Seattle Sounders (wee alarms 4 Houston; Seattle boring again)
Los Angeles Galaxy 1-2 Minnesota United FC (expected; also good for the Loons)

With that out of the way, let’s talk about the Timbers’ opposition next weekend, with

Vancouver Whitecaps 3-2 Portland Timbers: The Psychological Comfort of Getting Robbed

Were the cops on the take? (Nah.)

So, yeah, another editorial curve ball. The idea of posting the Portland Timbers match report/next game preview and then re-posting that with a wrap of the week’s league-wide action sounds stupid when I actually say it out loud…something I’m only now realizing, after typing out the entire concept at least twice. I had a good, if mildly blasphemous reason for adopting it - i.e., writing about the same team every week gets stale, especially when they keep doing the same shit over and over. Staving off my annual ennui was the goal, but fuck it. If Portland forces me to, I will literally post something that has “same shit” for the match report and “AMA, yolo” for the talking points.

Rough result last night, obviously. Getting robbed never feels good, but it hurts a little more when what came before it felt pretty good. In fact, I feel comfortable calling that the Timbers most impressive game of 2026, if with a curdled side of “damn shame about result.” And yet, it was and wasn’t that simple.

Vancouver Whitecaps FC 3-2 Portland Timbers
What Passes for a Match Report
Vancouver scored early and too easily for my liking. Edier Ocampo scored it and the simplest take I have for what went wrong boils down to Jimer Fory switched off, thereby stranding Alex Bonetig and Finn Surman, in succession. The game carried on from there with the Timbers looking like 11 men running up that hill, but I also had this grand theory that Vancouver suffocated Portland without doing much for themselves. In the main, the Official Highlights support that theory, while the Official Stats run against it - i.e., that is some lopsided shit.

The Timbers came up for air somewhere around the 30th minute and slowly clawed their back, first to solid ground, then to the lead. Thanks to an opening 20 minutes that conditioned me to accept failure as the expected state, the progress Portland made felt unlikely and, for that reason, precarious. Even after an equalizer for the ages at the 36th minute by Juan David Mosquera – who played a game that gets a fan’s cockles all hot and jittery (hold this thought) – waiting for the ‘Caps to shake off the stupor and get back to stuffing Portland into their own half seemed like the grown-up thing to do…

MLS Post-Week 5 Level Set. Because the International Break

Not pictured, always, the drummer.

I like the rhythm of the regular season (and the falling rain), enough to spend last weekend dipping into AppleTV for games that weren't there. Five matchdays represents a blip, of course, particularly early in the season, but patterns had started to show, I’d started to mold those patterns into the misshapen golems that pass for coherent thoughts, then – POW! - the international break arrives like a thunderclap (newman), leaving me with a headful of half-shapen golem-thoughts. And time on my hands. Which leads to the introduction of the monster lurking below.

The format is really straightforward: every team in Major League Soccer is listed below, in the order of the current place in each conference’s standings (starting with the Eastern as the sun rises over our fair, yet fouled land); each entry includes the basic stats for the teams, lists the teams they’ve played and where, and concludes with notes about their season so far and the players on the team. For the latter, I landed on “Players Who Excite Me” for a subheader only to treat each of those entries as an invitation to stare at the roster and just free-form. Add a couple puffs and a couple cocktails and you get...that. Attacking players dominate, but I'm not sure why anyone would expect anything different. Forwards are the lead singers of soccer, midfielders are the lead guitarists and/or the kinds of bassists that play melodies, and defenders are always, inevitably, the weird drummers that the groupies, and me, pass over. It’s not that we don’t care; it’s just that being at your best kinda means being invisible.

That’s it for the preamble. I think the format is self-evident, but what to do I know? Call this my marker for the time between Week 6 and whenever MLS shuts down for the World Cup. Lesdothis.

Houston Dynamo FC 3-2 Portland Timbers & MLS Week 4 in Review: Of Daggers and DPs

Don't google images of Underoos 

Major League Soccer’s Week 4 handed me a tidy little theme and for that I am thankful. That could be me trying to squeeze a big idea into the Underoos I wore as a wee man, but I’m guessing it will resonate in both directions and in a tone that every MLS fanbase will hear and appreciate it. Unbelievably, that’s it for the preamble. Maybe I should start saying yes to every home improvement project, if only to spare everyone who finds this site from reading an Adrien Brody speech every time they click through to this site. (Anyone else watch The Oscars tonight? If so, please leave the good speeches in the comments; my wife and I yell over the entire show.)

Tuning in, now, to regular programming…

Results That Surprised Me (yeah, I have links for all of these; see below)
Atlanta United FC 3-1 Philadelphia Union (sunny no longer)
Chicago Fire FC 1-2 DC United (I rate DC highly as I.H.O.P. coffee)
FC Dallas 3-3 San Diego FC (weeeeeee!!)
New England Revolution 6-1 FC Cincinnati (Cincy leaping, not stepping, backward?)
Vancouver Whitecaps 6-0 Minnesota United FC (see, goal differential, Minnesota, uncharted)

I call that a good weekend, all in all, at least for anyone who tunes in for spills, chills, thrills and the odd face-plant. Even if the wild start to 2026 doesn’t continue, I doubt you could find even one MLS fan who would have predicted that the bottom three in the East for any week in the MLS 2026 regular season would include (bottom to “top”) Philadelphia, Columbus, and Orlando. The West has at least one surprise – who saw Minnesota looking up at 12 teams at any point this season? – but seeing the teams on either side of Missouri (e.g., SKC and St. Louis) tracks. There is one more team down there in sewers of the West, paddling amid the refuse, one I expected to see and feared to behold at once. Let’s turn to how they arrive at such a lowly station. Our story begins with a man named Philip...

The Unmentionable Thing Vancouver Did the Portland & an MLS Week 3 Wrap Up

You're not sinking, you're thriving. MENTALITY!

Major League Soccer Week 3 went into the books a few days ago, fucking up a narrative or two as it passed through. I’ll get to that, but let’s start with the usual editorial notes.

Responsibilities around home improvement forced some adjustments to The Plan. That was noted in last week’s post, but in light of the abandonment of The Plan, I shall not reference it further. The only plan is that The Plan will evolve with one exception: I will watch a minimum of 60 minutes of the game played by the Timbers’ next opponent every week they have one. That went out the window this what with the New England Revolution getting a reprie…er, having their game against Houston Dynamo FC cancelled for reasons I couldn’t easily find and don’t care to find out.

Further minor adjustments shall also go unmentioned as I think even careful readers won’t miss them. With that, let’s get to the good stuff, starting with…

Results That Surprised Me (both expanded on below)
Colorado Rapids 4-1 Los Angeles Galaxy
Red Bull New York 0-3 Club du Foot Montreal (also, congrats Montreal! Thought y’all were cooked)

Mild shocks aside – e.g., the final score on Nashville’s win over Minnesota and the weight of the hurt New York City FC dropped on Orlando (both also noted below) - every other result tracked well enough for me. Moving on, now, to this week’s main event…and I see you, Orlando fans.

Colorado Rapids 2-0 Portland Timbers & a Mini-Parade of Disasters from MLS Week 2

Mistakes were made, weight was lost. Or gained.

Welcome to the Week 2 wrap, both for Major League Soccer as a whole and my Portland Timbers! The first shall be firste (though they were seconde above), but I want to start this post with some programming notes that hit like revelations. (Not really, but hype is the coin of the realm in the 21st century.)

Between my wife’s unfortunate illness (the very same one that derailed the “Level Set” series) and the resultant too much time on my hands, this week’s review got a little out of hand. That’s to say, I consumed more soccer than I either want to digest or (ewww) send back up the other way. That same experience led me to the research concept for MLS Week 3 and, ideally for every week going forward:

Watching the full 90 of every Portland Timbers game, plus the full 90 (or 60 minutes, at a minimum) of the team that Portland plays the following weekend, plus 45 minutes each of two more games – both with at least one Eastern Conference team, tentatively – then a maximum (get it together, man!) of four…or five of the 10+-minute highlight reels that Apple TV appears to have embraced for the 2026 season. [Ed. - It will be just four; gotta tighten this shit up.] If that doesn’t get my eyes on enough teams to stay current with Major League Soccer week in and out…well, I can’t say I give a shit, because that feels ample to me. That will leave some blind-spots, of course, particularly around teams that bore me, but fuck it.

With that, let’s get to this week’s notes, comments, and appreciations. To kick things off, enjoy this...

Stupid Thought for the Week
I appreciate that the offside rule must be called by the letter of the law instead of its spirit, but I will never stop resenting that reality. Seeing an attacking player get called offside for having the tip of his knee ahead of the last defender’s will never strike me as anything but a violation of the spirit of fair play, but if there’s a slipper slope in soccer officiating, this is it.

Moving on to the meat…

Portland Timbers 3-2 Columbus Crew, Plus MLS Week 1 Notes/Theories/Bullshit

No, seriously. Buffets are almost always bad.

I’d call that a decent opening weekend. This post looks to recap portions of that, but it also doubles as a first step in to a different, still unsettled approach to digesting a reasonable amount of the never-ending buffet that the average Major League Soccer matchday has become in the 30-team era.

Still working on the model for that, but to get the main programming note out of the way, I noticed that the recaps offered through Apple TV all appear to have come in at around 10 minutes so far. Assuming that holds, MLS Wrap Up is dead to me. Some non-trivial number of fans seemed turned off by MLS’s in-house talent – aka, Sacha Kljestan, Dax McCarty, Bradley Wright-Phillips, Kaylyn Kyle and (for me, the insufferable) Kevin Egan – which, here, means they actively hated them, so it looks like they’ve turned that into a loose narrative told over a bundle of short highlight clips. Sure, the in-house talent said some stupid shit, and I may be alone in missing the banter, but all those people still said something amidst the blah-blah-blah and you simply lose all of that in a two-minute clip of disconnected highlights.

Ten minutes, on the other hand, gives a fella something to work with. For as long as (the notoriously cheap and unreliable) Apple TV keeps that up, the plan going forward will be to: 1) watch and report on my Portland Timbers every week and whomever they played; 2) watch 45 minutes of three other games, one more involving a Western Conference team and two involving at least one Eastern Conference team, plus 3) tentatively going with five 10-minute recaps for the other games that interest me…

…while it would be a little harsh to say the rest of the games can gently fuck off, I’m also not not saying that. With that, lets get to this week’s results starting with a section I intend to use as framing:

Level Set 2026, the Portland Timbers: Where Things Stand as We Wait for the Whistle to Blow

Hello, 2012.

[Ed. - Factually, yes, I did post a “farewell post” for this blog late last year – and it wasn’t the first time. I very much meant it at the time, but please see the bottom of this post where I mumble some excuses for what will change going forward and why the farewell holds up, if in the most sorta kinda way possible.]

What follows is a brief history of the Portland Timbers, plus more brief notes on whatever long-term tendencies they have. Their 2025 season gets weighed in between those two sections and the whole thing ends with where I see things with them in this very specific moment in time - i.e., less than one week before First Kick 2026. I saw an Adam Sussman skeet telling me that Merritt Paulson told him to expect a couple more signings before then, so it's likely that not everything below is final…and yet, I’m not going to hold my breath for greatness or anything.

The post ends with a scale I came up with to measure the long-term success of every team in Major League Soccer. It does some things well (e.g., count trophies/achievements), other things less well (capture recent trends). It's called the Joint Points Scale and you can find a link that explains what it does. I was really stoned when I came up with the scale and wrote the post. Caveat lector. With that...

…for obvious reasons, this one’s going to go on a bit longer than the others in the series…

Thumbnail History
In my head, I knew the Portland Timbers had some lean seasons before they won MLS Cup 2015. That datapoint receded to where it felt like some other team’s history until I picked through Wikipedia posts about those early seasons, as if thumbing through a yearbook. I also remember the 2015 season through a very specific lens, but I’ll get to that. Starting at the beginning…

Level Set 23, Charlotte FC: It Was Just Another Tuesday, And Then...

Does the job. A job.

What follows is a brief history of Charlotte FC, plus more brief notes on whatever long-term tendencies they have. Their 2025 season gets weighed on both sides of that and the whole thing ends with where I see things with them in this very specific moment in time - i.e., before First Kick 2026. You should count on things happening between here and there.

The post ends with a scale I came up with to measure the long-term success of every team in Major League Soccer. It does some things well (e.g., count trophies/achievements), other things less well (capture recent trends). It's called the Joint Points Scale and you can find a link that explains what it does. I was really stoned when I came up with the scale and wrote the post. Caveat lector. With that...

Thumbnail History
I have a nasty habit of picturing Charlotte FC as a team wholly composed of Brandt Bronicos, but that’s a personal hangup, not history. Charlotte only joined MLS in 2022, but they’ve been a reasonably successful, if conservative start-up. One could make a case that they’ve improved season-on-season – e.g., no playoffs in 2022, then qualifying as a wild card in 2023, then qualifying for the playoffs clean in 2024 on the back of a lofty fifth-place finish in the East (then in 2025…wait for it) – but they also have yet to hit that prized gallop on the road to progress. instance, Charlotte struggled with scoring from the jump – e.g., partial to/stuck in the mid-40s (e.g., 45 goals in 2022, 44 in 2023, 46 in 2024) – and, if memory serves, they’ve never been good on the road. The sole reason Charlotte landed the wild card in 2023? MLS expanded the number of teams that qualified for the playoffs from a (half-)sensible 14 in 2022 to a comically expansive 18 in 2023 (which tracked as an insurance policy in the event Miami struggled). Most of the spicy stuff happens on the player side with this team – e.g., the failed star experiment that was DP forward Enzo Copetti, the low-simmering drama around Polish forward/(still) all-time leading scorer Karol Swiderski – but a kind of “Charlotte FC is a team that plays in MLS” level of buzz around the team remains. So far, think capable to a fault.

Level Set 22, Minnesota United FC: MLS's Marquises of the B Students

Noble, but also not.

What follows is a brief history of Minnesota United FC, plus more brief notes on whatever long-term tendencies they have. Their 2025 season gets weighed on both sides of that and the whole thing ends with where I see things with them in this very specific moment in time - i.e., before First Kick 2026. You should count on things happening between here and there.

The post ends with a scale I came up with to measure the long-term success of every team in Major League Soccer. It does some things well (e.g., count trophies/achievements), other things less well (capture recent trends). It's called the Joint Points Scale and you can find a link that explains what it does. I was really stoned when I came up with the scale and wrote the post. Caveat lector. With that...

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I tend to think of Minnesota as a team that always makes the playoffs, but never looks much like reaching the end of them. That’s only half right, if for a couple reasons. First, Minnesota missed the post-season entirely their first two seasons and again in 2023. Second, even when the Loons do qualify – which, to be clear, they’ve done more often not and cleanly (i.e., not as a wild card) – they almost always fall out before the quarterfinals. That drops them into the folds of the biggest wrinkle in the Joy Points formula* - i.e., teams only get credit for qualifying for the playoffs when they reach the quarterfinals – and that choice obscures the reality that the Loons are a solid regular season team. “Solid” feels like a good descriptor for what Minnesota has historically done on the field, as well. Adrian Heath coached them from their ascent from the USL (in 2017) to round about the latter third of 2023, when they let him go. In my mind, “Heath-ball” has generally meant fielding teams that were constipated in every sense of the word, equal parts stubborn and organized, with a touch of ruthlessness. That started with the arrival of Osvaldo Alonso over from Seattle in 2019 and Minnesota carried that tradition forward with additions like Jan Gregus(?) and Hassani Dotson(?). Putting that shield in front of “imposing” center backs – i.e., large, slow-ish, but combative and capable center backs like Michael Boxall, Brent Kallman, (briefly) Ike Opara, and Bakaye Dibassy – went a long way toward taking care of one side of the team. On the other, Minnesota has this tic, equal parts knack and limitation, of finding one guy with enough talent to make a competent defense pay off enough times. The most famous version of that was the “mercurial” Emanuel Reynoso (here, “mercurial,” speaks to his love of playing hooky), but they've also pulled out a couple wild cards or two, with the too-oft injured Kevin Molino serving as a tragic figure. When all else fails, Minnesota leans into one of the best all-purpose Band-aids in MLS history, one-man multi-tool, Finnish jack-of-all-but-defensive-trades, Robin Lod to steer the ship to shore. When that certain magic player cannot be found, is unavailable (or sulks in Argentina, a la Reynoso), Minnesota winds up relying on a rotating cast of characters like Darwin Quintero (the dreams they had for him…), Ethan Finlay and, more recently, Bongokuhle Hlongwane (just re-signed), Tani Oluwaseyi, and half-random guys like, say, Franco Fragapane. All that work and movement has yielded the returns immediately below…

Level Set 21, New York City FC: Chivas USA 2.0, Which (Mostly) Works Better

No.

What follows is a brief history of New York City FC, plus more brief notes on whatever long-term tendencies they have. Their 2025 season gets weighed on both sides of that and the whole thing ends with where I see things with them in this very specific moment in time - i.e., before First Kick 2026. You should count on things happening between here and there.

The post ends with a scale I came up with to measure the long-term success of every team in Major League Soccer. It does some things well (e.g., count trophies/achievements), other things less well (capture recent trends). It's called the Joint Points Scale and you can find a link that explains what it does. I was really stoned when I came up with the scale and wrote the post. Caveat lector. With that...

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When New York City FC joined MLS in 2015, it revived the concept hatched with Chivas USA – i.e., planting a junior club for a major international team in the U.S., in this case, (recent) EPL juggernaut Manchester City. New York’s second team joined a very different league, of course, one where the rules actively invited the signing of ringers. As befitted a team playing in America’s premier city (sorry, LA), the organization went big (if mostly in name), signing England/Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard, classy Italian regista (think I’m using that correctly), Andrea Pirlo (loved this guy), and Spanish golden-generation great, striker David Villa. They also insulted that talent by making them play homes games at Yankee Stadium, aka, a baseball stadium, an embarrassing look that hasn’t been a regular feature in MLS since the league’s earliest days when teams played most games over American football fields. Happily, NYCFC has constructed a soccer-specific at a place called Willets Point. (Yay!) Unhappily, and somewhat incredibly, that facility won’t open until the 2027 season (boo! Honestly, I can’t out “good job,” with “about fucking time” getting in its way.) NYCFC’s debut season reinforced a familiar lesson, chief among them, that seeding an MLS-regular expansion team with a few high-profile (and aging) ringers from Europe’s biggest teams ain’t enough. The team missed the playoffs in their first season (by quite a bit), and defensive failures would plague the team until they got more holistic about roster building. Defensive reinforcements arrived over their second and third seasons, led by Maxime Chanot and Alexander Callens in central defense and Sean Johnson in goal, and that laid the foundation that rebuilt the team. Success wouldn’t come until the team found lower-profile, but better and frankly hungrier, ringers at fullback, up the midfield spine and at the sharper end of the attack. A lot of the relevant players were on the roster as early as the 2019 – guys like crunching No. 8s, Alexander Ring and a young James Sands, fullback Anton “Tin-Tin” Tinnerholm and Ronald Matarrita, and a young forward named Valentin Castellanos, who went by “Tata.” The seemingly eternal Maximiliano Moralez was the key piece, though, the modest mouse that got the attack singing from the same sheet. The seasons since have been berry, berry good: NYCFC finished in the top ten every season from 2016 to 2022 - and in the top five more often than not – and reached the quarterfinals of the playoffs in 2024 and 2025. Blue New York reached its peak in 2021 with the arrival of Norwegian Ronny Deila as head coach, a star-turn season from Castellanos, and its first MLS Cup at the end (over the fallen, last-gasping bodies of the Portland Timbers). With Ring as a notable exception, that roster didn’t look so different from 2019’s and that speaks to the consistency of NYCFC’s roster-builds. Their worst season came in 2023, after Castellanos left (factually happened in the middle 2022), a couple players aged out, others moved on - Johnson and Callens stand out – and the hot, new, often young fixes like Santiago Rodriguez, Talles Magno and…Richie Ledezma(?) struggled to maintain the same standard. NYCFC have come back since, but the lofty peak they climbed in 2021 towers a little higher lately.

Level Set 20, Seattle Sounders: The Kristoffersons of MLS

Good at everything, etc., but mostly defense.

What follows is a brief history of the Seattle Sounders, plus more brief notes on whatever long-term tendencies they have. Their 2025 season gets weighed on both sides of that and the whole thing ends with where I see things with them in this very specific moment in time - i.e., before First Kick 2026. You should count on things happening between here and there.

The post ends with a scale I came up with to measure the long-term success of every team in Major League Soccer. It does some things well (e.g., count trophies/achievements), other things less well (capture recent trends). It's called the Joint Points Scale and you can find a link that explains what it does. I was really stoned when I came up with the scale and wrote the post. Caveat lector. With that...

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The Seattle Sounders have missed the playoffs just three times since joining MLS in 2009 – and, here, “missing the playoffs” includes falling out at any point before the conference quarterfinals (though they did whiff entirely in 2022) – and their haul of trophies makes them the second-best team of the past decade on the Joy Points Scale*. Only Los Angeles FC tops them over that period (though not all time…wait for it…). That hits closer to home for Timbers fan, but it doesn’t make it any less true. Smart first-season signings laid the foundation for that success: think everything from Jhon Kennedy Hurtado from Colombia, Sebastian Le Toux from the USL, and most important for me (because I obsess over the No. 6/No. 8 area), midfield wrecker Osvaldo Alonso (from one of the many in-tournament defections from a visiting Cuban team). Throw in a smart reclamation or two from the Expansion Draft – all-time utility-player great Brad Evans stood out – add a good first DP (Colombian forward Fredy Montero), put it all under a road-tested, road-approved MLS head coach like Sigi Schmid, and the Sounders had themselves a team. They made the playoffs both from the jump, then season after season, including percolating into the semifinals by their third season (2012; not easy, even even in the multi-DP era) and returning again in 2014. Those “blurps” into the big time followed from more smart signings – e.g., DP winger/midfielder Mauro Rosales and then-USMNT-regular Eddie Johnson in 2012, then USMNT fixture Clint Dempsey and the bustling Nigerian, Obafemi Martins in 2014 – and letting them cook without a care in the world in front of one of the Sounders’ many (insanely) reliable defenses. It was raining trophies from there (hallelujah): the Supporters’ Shield in 2014 (amen), then an MLS Cup in 2016 (amen) and another, better one in 2019 (amen; also, MLS Cup 2016 almost put me off soccer). Whether one starts that run in 2014 or 2016, that makes Seattle MLS’s fourth Shadynasty, after late 1990s DC United, early-to-mid-2000s San Jose/Houston, and the LA Galaxy teams from the first half of 2010s. Beyond the names listed above, Seattle owes that success to having smart succession plans plan for game-winning talent – e.g., just one season separates Morales’ departure from the arrival Nicolas Lodeiro (a better DP, frankly); they only burned one season of riding Dempsey’s aging knees and a mish-mash of attacking half-solutions before calling in Raul Ruidiaz (2018) to boost the next generation of attacking players (e.g., Jordan Morris) and the next round of journeyman (e.g., Will Bruin); Kim Kee-Hee took over the defense after MLS legend/monster Chad Marshall retired (2018?) and Roman Torres couldn’t step onto the field often enough, and Yeimar cane in after him. It even applies at the coaching level - Brian Schmetzer replaced Schmid after 2016 and he’s been there ever since and with very little cause to leave. The Sounders have never really fallen behind, on or off the field. After eight trophies over 16 seasons, one more thing sets them apart: they won MLS’s first, and only, “real” CONCACAF Champions’ title in 2022. (With all the respect in the world to the 1998 DC team and the 2000 LA Galaxy team, I think it took those teams winning for Liga MX to take that tourney seriously again). And, finally, maybe even fittingly, Seattle is just one of three teams to win three straight U.S. Open Cups (the other three: Fall River F.C. 1929-1931; Stix, Baer and Fuller 1933-1934 (does it even count if it’s over two legs? New Bedford Whalers second the "yes" motion); Greek American AA (1967-69). That’s one hell of a tradition to hold up and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I’d like to see them drop it for five, six seasons. Time in the wilderness builds character for both a team and a fanbase.

Level Set 19, Nashville SC: The Responsible Younger Sibling

It's Shaun Cassidy, right?

What follows is a brief history of Nashville SC, plus more brief notes on whatever long-term tendencies they have. Their 2025 season gets weighed on both sides of that and the whole thing ends with where I see things with them in this very specific moment in time - i.e., before First Kick 2026. You should count on things happening between here and there.

The post ends with a scale I came up with to measure the long-term success of every team in Major League Soccer. It does some things well (e.g., count trophies/achievements), other things less well (capture recent trends). It's called the Joint Points Scale and you can find a link that explains what it does. I was really stoned when I came up with the scale and wrote the post. Caveat lector. With that...

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Nashville SC joined in the COVID season (2020), along with Inter Miami CF, but fate has made them the plain sister/unathletic brother to MLS's glamour boys. And they built their inaugural roster as if they'd had their fortunes told by an insurance agent. It started with anchoring the backline with Walker Zimmerman and the midfield with forever-MLS vet, Dax McCarty; the front-office honchos filled out those two lines with still more familiar, imposing figures – e.g., Dave Romney and Daniel Lovitz in defense and Anibal Godoy in midfield. When it came to the offense, Nashville spent both big and wisely on one player – Hany Mukhtar, a future (and deserved) league MVP (2022) – but spent a couple seasons looking to squeeze more production than other teams got out of MLS journeymen like C. J. Sapong, Teal Bunbury, or even Alex Muyl and Fafa Picault. That’s not to say they haven’t tried to level up with bolder signings – e.g., I thought they’d landed a secondary scorer with winger Randall Leal, alas – but pinching pennies on the attacking side may have been Nashville’s first tradition. Have they moved on since? One could make a case for Sam Surridge as a first step – they (reportedly) paid $6.5 million – but he also came over after a shaky season in the English Championship. (And who can see what the future holds?) If Nashville has demonstrated anything, it’s how far a good defense goes toward getting reliable results and/or into the playoffs. Apart from a slip in 2024, Nashville has qualified for the playoffs every season since joining MLS, if sometimes only as a wild card, which, again, doesn’t count around here*…also, yes, wait for it. Consistency ain’t so bad, of course, and a good defense is great, but a team has to have a little something on the other end to win tournaments – and one player can’t shoulder the entire attack. Call it illustration, call it a quirky bit of trivia, Nashville didn’t even make the MLS Cup quarterfinals in Mukhtar’s 2022 super-season.

Level Set 18, Columbus Crew: The Hottest Ticket in Flyover Country

It is hard to explain what this meant at the time. Seriously.

What follows is a brief history of the Columbus Crew, plus more brief notes on whatever long-term tendencies they have. Their 2025 season gets weighed on both sides of that and the whole thing ends with where I see things with them in this very specific moment in time - i.e., before First Kick 2026. You should count on things happening between here and there.

The post ends with a scale I came up with to measure the long-term success of every team in Major League Soccer. It does some things well (e.g., count trophies/achievements), other things less well (capture recent trends). It's called the Joint Points Scale and you can find a link that explains what it does. I was really stoned when I came up with the scale and wrote the post. Caveat lector. With that...

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Don’t let the(/the greatest) flyover state thing fool you: the Columbus Crew (which I type as “Columbus Screw” 75% of the time), have long had a knack for signing exotic players. They’ve signed their share of guys who fit the working-class image of their original crest (faceless, but the crossed arms suggest the cat-calls) – e.g., Brian McBride stands out there, but they also got great mileage out of Josh Williams, Chad Marshall, Jonathan Mensah and, perhaps to a lesser extent, Artur and, briefly, Aidan Morris – but they put their stamp on league history through guys like Guillermo Barros-Schelotto, Lucas Zelarayan and, most recently, Cucho Hernandez. Toiling under the shadow of the early greats, DC United, the Los Angeles Galaxy and, to a lesser extent, the Chicago Fire and Sporting Kansas City, the Crew spent most of their first decade bumping against other teams’ achievements. They yanked a Supporters’ Shield out of their asses in 2004, but they also missed the playoffs five times between 2000 and 2007 and felt the sting of the Wooden Spoon in 2006. A mere two seasons later, though, Columbus became the smoothest, smartest team in MLS. Coached by Sigi Schmid, guided by Schelotto and back-stopped by a (hey!) working-class defense and midfield built around Marshall, Brian Carroll, and Brad Evans – incidentally, all players who would go on to anchor the all-time great expansion team (Seattle; it’s Seattle) – the Crew picked up the double in 2008, plus another Supporters’ Shield in 2009. They’d cracked a unique approach to the designated player code: finding great talents that few people States-side had heard of. And it paid off smartly until it abruptly did not – or at least until they re-learned the old trick. Between 2012 and 2022, Columbus missed the playoffs as many times as they made them and, despite being the home to the first (and, fair point, super-basic) soccer-specific stadium in MLS history, Columbus barely survived a bid to relocate the team after the 2018 season. The fans pulled together to fight that off in a way that still inspires and, a couple seasons later, Columbus reclaimed their crown as the best team between the coasts in Major League Soccer. They won two more MLS Cups – one in 2020 (aka, The Weird Season; look at the freakin' attendance) and again in 2023, both games at a saucy stroll – and they might have had one more trophy had they not screwed themselves over in MLS Cup 2015 (see: Clark, Steve and Valeri, Diego). For all their failures, and they’ve had a few, Columbus does have a bless’d eye for spotting talent. Checking their all-time roster and scrolling down is a genuinely worthwhile exercise, if just to see all the names that (arguably, in some cases) became more famous on other teams around the league. Per the Joy Points Scale*, Columbus remains one of the most successful teams in MLS history and all of the various powers-that-be that have guided them through damn near three decades’ worth of history deserve credit for accomplishing everything that they did in a…let’s go with unexpected market.