Felipe's Farewell, Four Points Taken & a Familiar Serving Angst

Because this will include notes on two games, plus a half-assed Scouting Report on the game versus the Seattle Sounders this weekend (for reasons which I’ll explain), this post attempts to compress an abundance of thoughts into what will still be short post. I’m going to kick things off with Felipe Mora’s last game as a Timber.

Mora scored three goals over his last two games. To be clear, I committed to Team Kevin Kelsy early in the 2026 season, without regrets (doesn’t hurt Kelsy backed that up), but one can’t help but wonder what Mora could have done with more than 443 minutes. Scored a couple more goals, almost certainly, the man always works and I’ve always respected what he brought to the team, while also accepting he doesn’t fit the team the Timbers have evolved into over the past season or two (for good, and mostly ill). Making peace with departure still comes a lot easier than liking it.

The goals he scored – the first, a classic put-back versus FC Dallas, the second and third headed goals off corners(!) versus Real Salt Lake – all pointed to what made Mora effective as a player: reading the game, knowing where to go to receive a pass, sniff out a rebound or, almost comically, to find a gap between defenders half a foot taller than him to nod home. Didn’t even have to jump on that first goal against RSL…priceless…

Scoring that brace on Saturday put Mora within a goal of a now, deservedly-mythical Portland Timbers hat trick and – I’m pretty sure I mean it when I say this – I don’t think I even want to see a Timbers hat trick unless it comes in a moment that would have been as perfect as Felipe Mora scoring one in his farewell game. Had it happened, every person who attended that game live would have experienced one of those rare, privileged moments that gave meaning to suffering through 100 shit performances played under terrible weather and worse refereeing. A Mora hat trick would have ranked right behind the double post in the pantheon of “I’d go back in time and kill moments” in Portland Timbers history.

FC Dallas L'il Scouter: Going Prepared (to Avoid the Jump Scare)

4-2-0 road record, AAUGGHGHH!!

Respecting the fact I can only know so much about a team at glance, kindly accept this offering in the same spirit. That said, when you don’t know much, what else can you do but start with…

The Facts
Record & Related Stats
7-4-4, 25 pts., 15 GP; 30 gf, 22 ga (+8); home 3-2-4, away 4-2-0
Last 10 Results: WDDLLWWLWW (5-3-2)
Strength/Location of Schedule
@ DC (4-0 W); v STL (1-1 D); v LAG (2-2 D); v MIN (0-1 L); @ SEA (1-2 L); @ RBNY (2-0 W); v RSL (3-1 W); v VAN (2-3 L); @ SJ (3-2 W); @ COL (2-1 W)

A couple things jump out there (and apologies for any typos; I do those). I’d start with that 4-2-0 road record – especially with three of the four coming hot into the World Cup break – but I’m mostly struck by seeing a Dallas team improving as the regular season turns into summer. My memory could be faulty on here, but the Dallas teams I recall from the past 10 or so seasons past start hot enough to get people thinking they could have a strong one, only to have them slouch slowly to the playoff line and yo-yo on either side of it before making a wholly forgettable playoff run.

At the risk of repeating a prediction that seems to blow up in my face every other season…Dallas looks good this year.

The Lineup(s)
The (Moribund) Mothership tells me Eric Quill (good vibes) generally sends out his starting XI in a 3-4-3 (mostly like this one), but the broadcast had them in a 4-4-2 for the loss versus Vancouver that looked plausible based on the lineup (available here; first couple seconds are all you need, but Sebastian Berhalter scored a couple bangers in that one).

Seattle Sounders 1-5 Portland Timbers: On the Right Side of a Snowball...

A peace I hope we all find...

Maybe there’ll be some benefit to spitting this out same day in my older years…

Let’s move this fast and keep it tight, people. The Portland Timbers kicked off their return to regular season action by kicking the holy shit and ever-lovin' stuffin' out of the Seattle Sounders. The 5-1 win felt like dunking by the end, even if the numbers pad the Sounders’ pain a little.

The Game, Very Briefly
It opened as I expected, with Seattle worked to get their attacking patterns going and they collapsed space effectively every time the Timbers worked the ball wide. The Sounders probably hit their high in those early moments (the five-minute interval agrees; see, the numbers), but their grasp on the game slipped away little by little. It started with the Timbers cutting out passes, disrupting Seattle’s inlets into he attacking third, but their game plan really got upended when…well, the Sounders got punched in the mouth.

The game turned from the second Jimer Fory floated that leading cross to Kevin Kelsy sprinting between two defenders to score Portland's first goal (wait for it, and so much of it). It took a double save, first by James “Canuck Wall” Pantemis, then by Kamal “Maybe Wily Veteran’s His Game?” Miller to hold Portland’s lead (has to be in here somewhere, maybe even here?), but Seattle never really recovered before the half. After the half? Shit broke all the way down…

I’ve used the phrase “five-minute fuck up” in the past and (with allowances for the fact all this unfolded in more than five minutes) Seattle’s defense served up a peach of an example tonight. First, their defense got beat at the back post – twice! – which allowed Miller to keep up the heroics. Four minutes later (still within bounds), Cole Bassett started and finished a goal off transition courtesy of a David Da Costa pushing then snapping across Seattle’s backline. Three minutes later (shit!), Kelsy bullied in a goal to complete his brace. That had the Timbers up 4-0 and rolling all. the. way. down the river.

A Seattle Sounders L'il Scouter & Portland v the Dregs of the West

Step One: less of this.

The Eastern Conference Re-Entry post took a pretty linear shape (and thanks to anyone who read it!), but, for reasons of local rooting interests, this Western Conference Re-Entry post will take a different shape.

It’ll start with a brief Scouting Report on the Portland Timbers’ next, dreaded opponent, the Seattle Sounders (aka, the Spoiled Rich Kids of the Middle North, aka, Cascadia’s Somehow Successful Fail-Sons). The section that follows expands on the template for the Eastern Conference Re-Entry by flagging all the teams within reach of the Timbers in the standings, whether above or below, and the post ends with a speed-run through the teams in the top half of the Western Conference table. With Portland closer to the bottom of the table than the top, that last section will be reduced or cut entirely as time allows…fwiw, I don’t know if it’s going to happen anymore than you do. Every day is a surprise/miracle. Even if neither are very good. [UPDATE: That section was cut, notes on the top eight in the West are written into the record indirectly and by suggestion.] Ahem. Getting on with it!

Before looking forward, I wanted to link to the long look back I posted right before MLS turned off the lights for the World Cup break. It was fairly straightforward, content-wise - just listing all the players and what I think of their contributions, talents and individual potential; you won’t see many rays of sunshine in there, because the sun struggles to get all the way down to 13th place. With that in mind (including the post), I wanted to start with a glance ahead to the next four games – e.g., at Seattle, v Dallas, v RSL, v Seattle - regardless of who’s lining up and giving direction to the starting eleven. (At time of posting, that is still interim head coach, Jack Cassidy), but Jeremy Peterman posted a quicky to Bluesky saying that the Timbers may report a new head coach this week.) The two things I liked to see:

1) Coherence in the Attack
Too often under Phil’s “guidance,” the Timbers functioned as a competitively dysfunctional improv troupe – i.e., too little “yes-anding” and too much “fuck it, guess I’ll just kick the ball.” Seeing the attacking pieces coordinate as they move on Thursday would be enough to make me coin the word "delief" (a delight meets a relief).

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.

Portland Timbers, at the Break: Was It Underachieving?

something's gotta give, something's gotta give, something's...

To open the post with a question, does the Portland Timbers conscious uncoupling from Phil Neville render all that came before it even partially irrelevant?

Answer: Some combination of we’re about to find out and we’ll only know if the new hire makes the current team rise above lower middle-table class.

As I thought about what I wanted to write into the record during the moral injury timeout of Major League Soccer’s 2026 season, aka, the 2026 World Cup, I came up with a couple different approaches – e.g., reviewing every goal allowed this season to see if I could get a handle on whatever ails the Timbers defense (28 goals allowed so far, 2.0/game), or mining themes out of all the posts I’d written since First Kick 2026. On the theory that Neville’s departure renders all that at least partially irrelevant, all that’s going out the window.

Related, I’m not going to bother picking at the bones of the rotting camel carcass that ended Phil’s tenure, last Saturday’s 1-3 home loss versus the San Jose Earthquakes. On the most basic level, it was an(other?) example of game getting away from the Timbers; they gave up three goals with just over a quarter of the game played and Portland hasn’t scored more than two goals in any game outside the opener versus Columbus and versus a wretched, yet rising Sporting Kansas City team (now just three points below the Timbers). I doubt I would have put much time into that one had Neville stuck around. Setting aside the question of whether he was up to it (he wasn’t), the two-month The World Cup break will give every team in MLS something like a fresh start. Sure, some teams would make that start with more baggage than others – think of Portland running eight points behind the pace for the “real” (as in non-play-in) playoffs as starting adulthood with student debt in a race against trust-fund kids – but the Timbers brain-trust had plenty of information for gauging what was and wasn't working and making the relevant adjustments.

Those adjustments can only go so far, of course, with the extent limited by the players currently under contract with Portland. And that’s what the rest of this post will be: one man’s examination of the cards the Timbers currently hold in their hand and that its next manager will have to play. I’ll take those one at a time in player-by-player, position-by-position blurbs below - most based on the eye test, with a glance at the numbers – starting with the regulars and then on through the bench. Before touching on the present realities, however, let us turn our attention to a couple other externals.

San Jose Earthquakes Scouting Report: You Know What? Fuck It.

Yummy and a future worth dreaming about.

As I sit down to type this, I can’t help but wonder if there’s a point to it. The Timbers won’t play again until the middle of July (July!) and San Jose doesn’t play another regular season game until the week after. I mean, how many teams will come back after the break remade, refreshed and quite possibly smelling of peaches and mint. You say that’s silly, I say you never know. But, because I did the work…

The Basics

San Jose Earthquakes
9-3-2, 28 pts., 14 GP; 31 gf, 14 ga (+17); home 4-2-1, away 5-1-1
Last 10 Results: WWWWWWDDLL (6-2-2)
Strength/Location of Schedule
@ VAN (1-0 W); v SD (3-0 W); @ SKC (3-1 W); @ LAFC (4-1 W); v ATX (5-1 W); @ STL (3-2 W); @ TFC (1-1 D); v VAN (1-1 D); @ SEA (2-3 L); v FCD (2-3 L);

I made the personally unsettling decision to track only the past ten games for every team in Major League Soccer (literally killing me), but for anyone who forgot the San Jose Earthquakes conceded one single goal over their first six games (versus Seattle Sounders; hold that thought). Even after the surrendered their second goal, then third, then fourth, then they allowed two after that, etc., it took to the beginning of (fucking) May for San Jose to draw its next game of 2026. In the words of the great philosopher, Gwen Stefani, that shit is bananas for the team that traded Cristian Espinoza to Nashville SC and doesn’t have any other player that would make most people’s short list for league-elite players.

When they picked up their second loss of the season at Seattle, nobody blinked because why would you? They were 10-1-0 at the time, San Jose was bound to slip up at some point, so why not again a Sounders that both started strong and beat them previously? Even that was tricky – e.g., they started a sacrificial lineup and gave up two shit goals, but the first shit goal (midfield where?) – which tied the score – came after Ousseni Bouda and Preston Judd came into the game. Judd returned the game to 2-2 with his ninth(!) goal of 2026, but Seattle scored the winner (also not good; defenders where?) after Beau Leroux and the experienced Paul Marie came in to solidify the defense. And then came last weekend versus FC Dallas...

Inter Miami CF 2-0 Portland Timbers: Blood From a Stone

Some have it, some get out of the way.

With this as late as it is, I’m gonna do all of us a solid and keep it short. Then again, with the Portland Timbers once again sinking to the bottom of the Western Conference what else is there to say but not great, Bob?

Inter Miami CF 2-0 Portland Timbers
What Passes for a Match Report
My personal highlights included Cole Bassett nutmegging Rodrigo De Paul in the first half (even if the ensuing play went nowhere) and Joao Ortiz getting off scot-free after absolutely wrecking him in the second, but that doesn’t show up on the scoreboard like Lionel Messi cutting through four defenders like a cosmically centered border collie wrecking an obstacle course. You have to tip your hat to the guy on that one, no matter how grudgingly, but seeing the defenders lose the sunsetting legend score Miami’s first goal on yet another give-and-go and the 1,000,000th trailing run of his career sticks in the craw like a broken chicken bone. At any rate, the fat lady broke into her aria after the second goal. One could make a fair case she started her vocal exercises after the first.

You have to sit through the full highlights to see Portland’s better moments (with MLS doing the clipping, I assume Messi’s wunder-run consumed the snapshot whole). Despite posting decent numbers, the Timbers didn’t put up much resistance. Kevin Kelsy probably fired Portland’s most collectively competent shot on goal (second half header) and Cole Bassett shot a smart one from range in the first half, but their chances of scoring more than one goal felt like something between fantasy and pipe dream. With 13 games in the books and just one (tough) game left to play versus the San Jose Earthquakes (more…tomorrow? Thursday?), the stinging sense that Portland’s not really in the hunt for, well, anything lingers like a fart in an elevator. The answer to the question of what’s going wrong boils down to the enduring cliché [gestures broadly]. The eye test is only really damning on the attack end – take the six goals scored versus Sporting Kansas City out of the sample and Portland averages a sliver above one goal a game – but the defense can’t be great when the Timbers posted its only clean sheet…versus SKC.

Portland Timbers 6-0 Sporting KC: Love & Trust, Plus a Club du Foot Montreal Scouting Report

Kindly turn your attention to the little red dot...

In last week’s post, I recommended that Portland Timbers fans memory-hole the hopeless, whistle-to-whistle loss at Real Salt Lake. At the risk of pissing off, OH, everyone, I recommend that people memory-hole Portland’s Sunday-best 6-0 demolition of Sporting Kansas City. The argument for treating the SKC win like someone else’s bestest birthday ever actually makes more sense because, which of these things feels most likely to happen again: 1) Portland getting outplayed at every position but goalkeeper, or 2) the Timbers kicking rainbow sparkles out of some hapless team going for all-time Wooden Spoon?

If the Timbers roll up to Montreal on Wednesday and we see bright shimmering lights in the eastern skies, we’ll know it’s not the Aurora Borealis. It’s our boys kicking rainbow sparkles out of Club du Foot Montreal.

Needless to say, I don’t like our chances up north. I also don’t need Portland to keep this great thing rolling. All I need from them in Montreal is something between recognizable competence and three points. Per the title, this post will close with a wee Montreal Scouting Report. Before that, let’s relive the glorious thing I’m charging you all with forgetting…swear this is for your own protection.

Portland Timbers 6-0 Sporting Kansas City
What Passes for a Match Report
Even after Kristoffer Velde banged in a 6th-minute goal that was somehow equal parts unlikely and entirely on-brand, I still had no goddamn idea which way the game would ultimately goal. Speaking solely for myself, all doubts evaporated by the 26th-minute own-goal scored by that poor bastard Jacob Davis (who, just to note it, is one of several Jacobs/Jasons in SKC’s defense that I’ve seen mortally mortify himself over the first third of 2026). That one had some dark magic in it. Like a monkey’s paw curling just to give you the finger for some sin you may never have committed.

Sporting Kansas City Scouting Report & MLS Week 11 Wrap: A Parade of Weakness

So, "welcoming spirit" is a thing. 

This post ends with the Sporting Kansas City Scouting Report. For the record, (I swear) I did not do that to drag the reader through the rest of the post; skip to the bottom as the spirit moves you. It had more to do with keeping the past with the past and the future wherever it ends up. Think of it as kicking around what I know before moving on to what I think I know.

The secondary purpose comes with situating the Portland Timbers in the Western Conference before interrogating the good and bad that will come from whatever result they get against SKC. With an eye to feng shui, notes on Major League Soccer’s Eastern Conference will come first, followed by notes on the West, followed by the SKC preview. To answer the question no one asked, yes, I did abandon the idea of writing about just three games. What I can I say: restlessness makes me an unreliable narrator. With that, let’s get something out of the way:

Results I Ignored
TFC 1-1 SJ (Toronto’s burning home games on draws (5, 8 of 11 at home); San Jose will be fine)
ATL 3-1 MTL (good for Atlanta, seriously, but Montreal’s bad on the road)
PHI 0-0 NSH (Nashville will be fine; Philly’s fishing around their pants for a Wooden Spoon)
LAG 1-1 VAN (Vancouver will be fine and should stay in Vancouver, goddammit)

Moving on to…

Eastern Conference Notes
Still Nashville’s conference to lose – though I’m seeing rumors about injuries, even beyond Sam Surridge – which make the shifts below them more interesting.

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.

San Diego FC 1-2 Portland Timbers: A Strange Place, an RSL Scouting Report & an MLS Week 10 Review (Whew!)

Why, hello, Mr. Jackson...

I bit off more than I could chew this week, but the tardiness owes more to a busy weekend and needing to move shit around. I’ll change the things I can change, accept the things I can’t, and, at the end of it all, try to get these posts up by Monday. [Ed. - See programming note at the end, if you make it. Journey's long, mes amis.]

To riff on a regular obsession for this blog, definitions of the phrase “must-win game” probably number in the dozens. My thinking on it has evolved to another phrase – i.e., a result doesn't need to be fatal and chronic can actually be worse. Part of that turns on the fact that, in Major League Soccer, the only teams challenging for the Supporters’ Shield play must-win games week in and out. For the rest of MLS, the damage done by failing to win a "must-win" game lurks in a space between reputational and predictive. To explain by example, the Portland Timbers upcoming against Sporting Kansas City is a must-win game because losing to a team already tagged as one of the worst in MLS history, failing to bank those (still) easy points compels the Timbers to fight for them against bigger dragons. (Related, heartbroken for SKC fans; pulling for you crazy kids.) In other words, what starts as keeping up appearances can quickly become a lesson in the practical math of foregone points.  

Based on how I see other people talk – and therefore think about soccer – makes me think I put more weight on the question of the opposition than most. Any team can win any given game, of course, but where each time is in terms of points, confidence, feeling like they’re making progress, etc. etc. at the time they meet means, like, a lot. Which brings the conversation to…

San Diego FC 1-2 Portland Timbers
What Passes for a Match Report
When Andres Dreyer scored the penalty kick, called by the ref (correctly) for a Brandon Bye handball, a game that already tilted against the Timbers seemed poised to roll away from them. By my imperfect tally, San Diego had fired five shots inside the opening 20 minutes and they fired two more – including one Dreyer buries four times out of ten – before 25 minutes had gone. Kevin Kelsy quite literally stole a goal at the 26th minute – i.e., he picked the ball of the generally reliable Jeppe Tverskov’s toe and scored a smart one – but Dreyer’s goal still felt like regular order reasserting itself. Instead, reality turned regular order on its head.

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.

Minnesota United FC 2-0 Portland Timbers, the Brutal Math of Gettable Points & a San Diego Scouting Report [hiccup!]

THIS IS THE TRUTH! SMILE!!!

If you seriously thought Portland would win last Saturday, I salute your optimism. This post does not make a case for optimism – the deck’s stacked pretty high against that – but rather occupies a state of suspended animation that I can’t see dissipating until Merritt pulls the plug on Phil Neville’s tenure. Where things go from there…that’s some tricky shit. Moving on…

Minnesota United FC 2-0 Portland Timbers
What Passes for a Match Report
After multiple threats to skip the tick-tock of the match and just pass on a handful of broad impressions, I’m following through this time. Minnesota scored an early goal, nice finish by Tomas Chancalay (good player, bad history with injuries), but I was more disturbed by their successful targeting of Jose Caicedo for prying the ball loose – particularly one short week after declaring myself “sold” on the youngster (see Talking Point 6). Jefferson Diaz did the picking on that occasion and pulled it back for the assist, but my notes have Caicedo coughing up possession on both sides of Diaz’s mugging and, if there’s one must-have skill for a No. 6, it’s not giving up the ball in that position. It took the Loons until the second half to score their second – also around 15 minutes in, curiously – and the Timbers gave that one up by overcommitting to the attack. A great ball from (I believe) the highly-effective Joaquin Pereyra dropped from Minnesota’s right to Chancalay on Portland’s right and, with the Timbers midfield miles behind the play and the defense chasing, all he had to do once he landed the trap (with aplomb) was find a wide-open Kelvin Yeboah for a tap-in/his fifth goal of the season.

The final numbers paint a picture that Bob Ross couldn’t tidy up with a forest of happy trees, but Portland found chances, including feeds to a streaking, anxious Antony that one thinks would lift their xG higher than 1.0, but I don’t control such things. Cole Bassett – who arguably played the best game in an off-white Art Deco kit on Saturday (again, Kristoffer Velde gets my vote to make up for how often I’ve shit on him) – got a bit lucky to get a great chance about six yards out, but got unlucky by pinging his shot off the post (surely, that’s in here). Jimer Fory played a good cross to Felipe Mora that just fell a bit too low (29th minute), Brandon Bye found the ball at his feet after a good spell of pressure and played a peach of a cross that found no takers (63rd), Velde got loose on the counter a couple times in the second half only to have an errant touch push the ball out of his reach or to play a smart cross 10 yards behind a run on a long diagonal: maybe scribbling “thriving in garbage time” into my notes credits the effort too much, but this 1) wasn’t abject failure, and 2) wasn’t unexpected.

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.

Portland Timbers 1-1 Los Angeles Galaxy: Something I'm Choosing to See the (or Some) Good in + a MLS Week 5 Recap

Me, before they even leave The Shire.

Welcome to another week of me triangulating toward what’s possible between time and other ambitions. Dreams of putting in long shifts on several games have shrunk to watching the Portland Timbers game, scouting the team they play next for 60-plus minutes, spending about the same amount of time on, literally, just one other game, plus going through as many highlights as I can get to. The plan is to tighten things up on the content side, but I've been dreaming that same dream since the late 2000s and yet what did I do but top the Director's Cut of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, with commentary and all the songs from The Hobbit (plus commentary on the songs). My therapist told me that not working on my problems is the worst thing I can do, so here we are. Something else I learned about myself this past weekend: I will not sit through ten minutes of a game when neither team scored and I know the result. With that in mind, I need to revamp one of the regular sections a little:

Results That Surprised Me (This section will be removed going forward)
Charlotte FC 6-1 Red Bull New York (wait for it...)
Sporting Kansas City 1-4 Colorado Rapids (didn't think SKC was this bad; don't trust a word I type)
Vancouver Whitecaps 0-1 San Jose Earthquakes (though maybe it shouldn’t have; more later)
San Diego FC 2-2 Real Salt Lake (maybe less “surprised” than notice taken?)

Results I Ignored (no surprises here; but also links provided!)
Atlanta United FC 0-0 DC United (but Atlanta should feel very disappointed)
St. Louis CITY FC 3-1 New England Revolution (expected it enough, and good for St. Louis)
Austin FC 0-0 LAFC (don’t think this was good for anyone, but see below)
FC Cincinnati 4-3 Club du Foot Montreal (Cincy dodged a bullet that shouldn’t be sighting them)
New York City FC 2-3 Inter Miami CF (they’re both good teams; didn’t feel educational)
Minnesota United FC 0-0 Seattle Sounders (see note on Austin v LAFC and below)

I’m tracking results/opposition for all teams, for what it’s worth – and fuck The Mothership for letting the Form Guide cut off at Week 23 and not including anything to scroll over (they don't add one later; I check) – and that gives me big-picture perspective on some of the results I’m ignoring. For instance, LAFC’s goal-less draw at Austin looks different than, say, Minnesota's goal-less home draw versus Seattle: the context for LAFC's result includes a road game, sitting atop MLS’s Western Conference and not a goal allowed all season; the context for Minnesota’s is them scoring less than one goal per game (0.8/game, fwiw) and allowing 11 (2.2/game, fwiw, though most of that happened at Vancouver) and just generally presenting as a team running through mud. With those games dismissed (I'll do this better/deeper in the copy next week, promise), let's turn to The Main Event:

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...

Thumbnail History
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...

Thumbnail History
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.