This post will be, in some ways, inconsequential. And I stand by that choice on the grounds that nothing manifestly consequential has happened in and around Major League Soccer in the year 2022. Also, don’t think too hard about when things become “manifestly consequential” during the MLS season, because that only leads to questions about why one tunes in at all.
That said, and to avoid any confusion, I love this messy, middling league as much as a man with a wife, two kids, two cats, and a proliferation of hobbies and interests possibly can. Moving on…
I’ve decided to move the MLS Weakly posts to mid-week, and for a couple reasons. First, once the season starts, I’m going to use them for reviewing the week just past and previewing the week ahead; as (all four score of my) regular readers already know, I’ve grown increasingly obsessed with results over time, so why not situate the discussion in a place that looks back to look forward? Your people call it Wednesday (or Thursday). Second, and related, that best fits what I have in mind for framing the 2022 season. And that follows from a thought that has developed, 1) over (too many) years of watching and writing about MLS, and 2) the seemingly relentless expansion of the number of teams in MLS. There is, in a phrase, too much shit to keep track of. More germane to the point at hand, very real liberation comes from ignoring shit that isn’t worth tracking. Related, this next bit might get a little unpleasant for, oh, about 1/3 of the regular (or semi-regular) visitors to this site.
I follow FC Cincinnati for a couple reasons, hometown love and sincere affection among them. I have motivation, in other words, but Cincinnati has given even the most rabid/devoted MLS neutral fan absolutely no rational reason to give them even one stray thought outside limited scenarios - e.g., your team plays them next week, you’re from Columbus and love the city a little too well, you need to think of another team to make you feel better about your team’s struggles, Cincy’s perennial, horrifying quest to lower the collective bar each season, etc. Judge my personal choices however you want, call it masochism and I’ll tell you where I like it and how hard, but arriving at the full meaning of Cincinnati’s permanent irrelevance led me to a long overdue rethink of the TOTAL COVERAGE framing that has been my greatest obsession and my greatest obstacle for as long as I’ve rambled about America’s best pass at The Beautiful Game.
I, like you, see all the big trades and acquisitions - e.g., Houston Dynamo FC, aka, the place where even the concept Keeping Up with Jones’ went to die during the 2010s, went and got themselves one of those fancy signings that the classier teams started making a decade ago. I’ve said this so much that people are probably sick of it, but I have no goddamn idea whether, or how much, Sebastian Ferreira will succeed in MLS. I can only say, he looks promising, e.g.:
“Ferreira, 23, joins Houston after two years with Libertad, where he won two Golden Boots and led them to the 2021 Apertura championship. He finished with 34 goals and 12 assists in 79 all-competition appearances for Libertad.”
He’s also just 23, will be moving to a county that’s going through some weird shit, during a pandemic (a weird shit accelerator), and coming onto a team that finished last in MLS’s Western Conference in 2021. On the one hand, sucking in the West wasn’t nearly as bad as sucking in the East last year (see: Cincinnati, FC), but it was still sucking. On the other, Houston made some moves - e.g., picking up Steve Clark (GK) from Portland and Daniel Steres (CB) from the Los Angeles Galaxy - that fall well short of crazy, but is that plus Ferreira minus Boniek Garcia, Maxi Urruti, Maynor Figueroa enough to turn around a team that missed the playoffs by (shit!) 18 points last season?
I might not know enough about that to comment, but I wouldn’t put money on Houston pushing for any trophies in 2022 either.
I’m sure I’ve missed more trades than just about anyone who writes about MLS in any capacity, but I’m fine with that because not every trade or acquisition matters (though I just saw word that Paul Arriola will go from DC United to FC Dallas, and…golly, what’ll that do to either team), and even the ones don’t matter until they actually come off (hello, Hany Muhktar!). To turn that question into a local concern, how could I have known the signing of Diegos Chara and Valeri would yield 6+ years of…let’s call it B+ soccer. Good, consistent, but just a couple steps away from the highest heights. At any rate, that’s just a convoluted way of saying, we’ll all know which trades matter, and more clearly, with every week and each result.
Because I’m not dead on the inside, some moves will still move my personal needle - e.g., the progress of Los Angeles FC’s (so far) in-MLS rebuild, which, for the record, includes moves (e.g., within an e.g., Franco Escobar (D), Ismael Tajouri-Shradi (F/W), Ilie Sanchez (M), and Kellyn Acosta) that say “win now” louder than “build a dynasty,” or at least that’s what I’m hearing. To (finally) tie up the thought, where LAFC is right now - better resources, sure, but also the above surface-level theories on their acquisition process going into 2022, plus finishing just three points out of the playoffs - makes LAFC interesting in a way that Houston is not, even with a flashy signing.
I’ll be using the broad outlines of that thought process as the frame/lens for these MLS Weakly posts for 2022: divide the league into teams that interest me and teams that don’t, and don’t talk about the latter. Or, rather, to only talk about them as an object of abuse (aka, another team’s easy points) or surprise (WHAT?! They won?). If nothing else, that narrower focus will cut some pounds off the posts, while also making the Weakly review/previews more narrative than analysis.
I’m still waiting on the final brain-wave that tells me how I’ll cover FC Cincinnati and the Portland Timbers in 2022, but they’ll still make up the majority of what I post in this space, even if I check out for a week or two here and there in the middle of the season (because not every game needs scrutiny). The way Portland semi-consistently throws rocks before their path to success makes it easier to have something to say about them for most of any given season, but, as I said above, were if not for the place I was conceived (writ large, get yer minds outta the damn gutter), I’d ignore Cincinnati until they gave me a reason not to. My parents did what they did and where they did it, etc.
Before closing with a broad comment, I wanted to note one thing about FC Cincy did last week that brought me hope. They bought out salary-cap-anchor/rare-starter Kamohelo Mokotjo, a move that tells me they see where the issue is and are taking real steps to resolve it. I believe I’ve covered the (no offense to anyone involved) Houston-level moves they’ve made - e.g., addition(s) of Dominique Badji, Raymon Gaddis, Alec Kann, and Alvas Powell (etc.) - but I’m confident as a man can be when it comes to feeling good about Cincinnati when I say that getting a good No. 6 and/or functional dual-pivot system in place will do more to getting their shit stable than lighting money on fire for three more Brenners. That’s not to say that Cincinnati signing a decent No. 6 will amount to making them worth paying attention, or even that it should. Again, and this comes to mind more and more often, a team that makes you pay attention by becoming impossible to ignore. I’ll still write about them - and almost certainly more than warranted - but becoming impossible to ignore is their job, not mine.
And that’s how I wanted to close this post. I’m still working on, not just which teams I’ll deem worthy of thinking about going into 2022, but how to draw the line between them. To continue the thought, I wanted to close this first…semi-preview post of 2022 by listing the teams who have to do a little something more than the rest to convince me they’re worth thinking about. Those are:
EASTERN CONFERENCE
DC United
Club du Foot Montreal (I know this is lonely, but fuck it)
Inter Miami CF
Chicago Fire FC
Charlotte FC
WESTERN CONFERENCE (which I know a little better, fwiw)
Minnesota United FC
Real Salt Lake
Los Angeles Galaxy (I like Marky Delgado…but that’s still a Houston-level move)
San Jose Earthquakes
FC Dallas
Austin FC
Houston Dynamo FC (but, of course)
I am emphatically not predicting all those teams will suck in 2022; I'd call the first two teams under the Eastern Conference and the first three under the Western close to becoming interesting with just a signing or two. I’m saying that all those teams need a reason to believe they’ve got a shot at any goal higher than making the playoffs. All of…that is to say, I plan on confining the content of the Weakly posts to teams that look like legit/reasonable contenders, plus the teams who look like they’ve got the bones to get there. I'll leaven that with notes on, say, surprise streaks once the results start rolling in, but I wanted to start thinking about 2022 by actually thinking about it, as opposed to vomiting out a bunch of wild stabs on every team in the league.
Thanks for listening to a man in soft lockdown think out loud (feel like the damn Birdman of Alcatraz over here). Hope it kicked off some thoughts for you.
That said, and to avoid any confusion, I love this messy, middling league as much as a man with a wife, two kids, two cats, and a proliferation of hobbies and interests possibly can. Moving on…
I’ve decided to move the MLS Weakly posts to mid-week, and for a couple reasons. First, once the season starts, I’m going to use them for reviewing the week just past and previewing the week ahead; as (all four score of my) regular readers already know, I’ve grown increasingly obsessed with results over time, so why not situate the discussion in a place that looks back to look forward? Your people call it Wednesday (or Thursday). Second, and related, that best fits what I have in mind for framing the 2022 season. And that follows from a thought that has developed, 1) over (too many) years of watching and writing about MLS, and 2) the seemingly relentless expansion of the number of teams in MLS. There is, in a phrase, too much shit to keep track of. More germane to the point at hand, very real liberation comes from ignoring shit that isn’t worth tracking. Related, this next bit might get a little unpleasant for, oh, about 1/3 of the regular (or semi-regular) visitors to this site.
I follow FC Cincinnati for a couple reasons, hometown love and sincere affection among them. I have motivation, in other words, but Cincinnati has given even the most rabid/devoted MLS neutral fan absolutely no rational reason to give them even one stray thought outside limited scenarios - e.g., your team plays them next week, you’re from Columbus and love the city a little too well, you need to think of another team to make you feel better about your team’s struggles, Cincy’s perennial, horrifying quest to lower the collective bar each season, etc. Judge my personal choices however you want, call it masochism and I’ll tell you where I like it and how hard, but arriving at the full meaning of Cincinnati’s permanent irrelevance led me to a long overdue rethink of the TOTAL COVERAGE framing that has been my greatest obsession and my greatest obstacle for as long as I’ve rambled about America’s best pass at The Beautiful Game.
I, like you, see all the big trades and acquisitions - e.g., Houston Dynamo FC, aka, the place where even the concept Keeping Up with Jones’ went to die during the 2010s, went and got themselves one of those fancy signings that the classier teams started making a decade ago. I’ve said this so much that people are probably sick of it, but I have no goddamn idea whether, or how much, Sebastian Ferreira will succeed in MLS. I can only say, he looks promising, e.g.:
“Ferreira, 23, joins Houston after two years with Libertad, where he won two Golden Boots and led them to the 2021 Apertura championship. He finished with 34 goals and 12 assists in 79 all-competition appearances for Libertad.”
He’s also just 23, will be moving to a county that’s going through some weird shit, during a pandemic (a weird shit accelerator), and coming onto a team that finished last in MLS’s Western Conference in 2021. On the one hand, sucking in the West wasn’t nearly as bad as sucking in the East last year (see: Cincinnati, FC), but it was still sucking. On the other, Houston made some moves - e.g., picking up Steve Clark (GK) from Portland and Daniel Steres (CB) from the Los Angeles Galaxy - that fall well short of crazy, but is that plus Ferreira minus Boniek Garcia, Maxi Urruti, Maynor Figueroa enough to turn around a team that missed the playoffs by (shit!) 18 points last season?
I might not know enough about that to comment, but I wouldn’t put money on Houston pushing for any trophies in 2022 either.
I’m sure I’ve missed more trades than just about anyone who writes about MLS in any capacity, but I’m fine with that because not every trade or acquisition matters (though I just saw word that Paul Arriola will go from DC United to FC Dallas, and…golly, what’ll that do to either team), and even the ones don’t matter until they actually come off (hello, Hany Muhktar!). To turn that question into a local concern, how could I have known the signing of Diegos Chara and Valeri would yield 6+ years of…let’s call it B+ soccer. Good, consistent, but just a couple steps away from the highest heights. At any rate, that’s just a convoluted way of saying, we’ll all know which trades matter, and more clearly, with every week and each result.
Because I’m not dead on the inside, some moves will still move my personal needle - e.g., the progress of Los Angeles FC’s (so far) in-MLS rebuild, which, for the record, includes moves (e.g., within an e.g., Franco Escobar (D), Ismael Tajouri-Shradi (F/W), Ilie Sanchez (M), and Kellyn Acosta) that say “win now” louder than “build a dynasty,” or at least that’s what I’m hearing. To (finally) tie up the thought, where LAFC is right now - better resources, sure, but also the above surface-level theories on their acquisition process going into 2022, plus finishing just three points out of the playoffs - makes LAFC interesting in a way that Houston is not, even with a flashy signing.
I’ll be using the broad outlines of that thought process as the frame/lens for these MLS Weakly posts for 2022: divide the league into teams that interest me and teams that don’t, and don’t talk about the latter. Or, rather, to only talk about them as an object of abuse (aka, another team’s easy points) or surprise (WHAT?! They won?). If nothing else, that narrower focus will cut some pounds off the posts, while also making the Weakly review/previews more narrative than analysis.
I’m still waiting on the final brain-wave that tells me how I’ll cover FC Cincinnati and the Portland Timbers in 2022, but they’ll still make up the majority of what I post in this space, even if I check out for a week or two here and there in the middle of the season (because not every game needs scrutiny). The way Portland semi-consistently throws rocks before their path to success makes it easier to have something to say about them for most of any given season, but, as I said above, were if not for the place I was conceived (writ large, get yer minds outta the damn gutter), I’d ignore Cincinnati until they gave me a reason not to. My parents did what they did and where they did it, etc.
Before closing with a broad comment, I wanted to note one thing about FC Cincy did last week that brought me hope. They bought out salary-cap-anchor/rare-starter Kamohelo Mokotjo, a move that tells me they see where the issue is and are taking real steps to resolve it. I believe I’ve covered the (no offense to anyone involved) Houston-level moves they’ve made - e.g., addition(s) of Dominique Badji, Raymon Gaddis, Alec Kann, and Alvas Powell (etc.) - but I’m confident as a man can be when it comes to feeling good about Cincinnati when I say that getting a good No. 6 and/or functional dual-pivot system in place will do more to getting their shit stable than lighting money on fire for three more Brenners. That’s not to say that Cincinnati signing a decent No. 6 will amount to making them worth paying attention, or even that it should. Again, and this comes to mind more and more often, a team that makes you pay attention by becoming impossible to ignore. I’ll still write about them - and almost certainly more than warranted - but becoming impossible to ignore is their job, not mine.
And that’s how I wanted to close this post. I’m still working on, not just which teams I’ll deem worthy of thinking about going into 2022, but how to draw the line between them. To continue the thought, I wanted to close this first…semi-preview post of 2022 by listing the teams who have to do a little something more than the rest to convince me they’re worth thinking about. Those are:
EASTERN CONFERENCE
DC United
Club du Foot Montreal (I know this is lonely, but fuck it)
Inter Miami CF
Chicago Fire FC
Charlotte FC
WESTERN CONFERENCE (which I know a little better, fwiw)
Minnesota United FC
Real Salt Lake
Los Angeles Galaxy (I like Marky Delgado…but that’s still a Houston-level move)
San Jose Earthquakes
FC Dallas
Austin FC
Houston Dynamo FC (but, of course)
I am emphatically not predicting all those teams will suck in 2022; I'd call the first two teams under the Eastern Conference and the first three under the Western close to becoming interesting with just a signing or two. I’m saying that all those teams need a reason to believe they’ve got a shot at any goal higher than making the playoffs. All of…that is to say, I plan on confining the content of the Weakly posts to teams that look like legit/reasonable contenders, plus the teams who look like they’ve got the bones to get there. I'll leaven that with notes on, say, surprise streaks once the results start rolling in, but I wanted to start thinking about 2022 by actually thinking about it, as opposed to vomiting out a bunch of wild stabs on every team in the league.
Thanks for listening to a man in soft lockdown think out loud (feel like the damn Birdman of Alcatraz over here). Hope it kicked off some thoughts for you.
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