Getting Reacquainted with Inter Miami CF, the Very Bestest, Special Boys of MLS

Fuck Lays on so, so many levels.

Thumbnail History
I came this close to lumping the Miami Fusion in with Inter Miami CF, and this was to the point of doing the math, but decided the gap separating the two teams was too vast. The Fusion joined in the same pre-contraction expansion season as the Chicago Fire, only, when contraction did come, the league opted to keep Chicago and cut Florida loose…of which, maybe it’s time for an early 2000s revival. I opted against, even if OG Miami was a good, fun team and even that’s before getting to the fact that MLS legends like Kyle Beckerman, Pablo Mastroeni and Nick Rimando started their careers in sunny Florida, which alone marks them as a worthy footnote for posterity…

…but today’s Miami lives in a totally different ZIP code than the old team and about 20 floors higher. It was born a glamour team and, as befits a team with ambition to match the buckets full of cash they had lying around, 2020 Miami went so rules-breaking big on its first roster-build that it forced the league to sanction it for playing a shell-game with their roster compliance. They played through the sanctions (which, factually, didn’t bite till the following season) and squeaked into the 2020 playoffs, if only due to the fact the playoff pool was out-of-control-house-party big that season (because COVID) and even then it took a wild card slot an MLS HQ acting as a village. In fact, Miami never made the playoffs as anything better than a wild card until 2024 – which, 1) doesn’t count in these parts* and 2) took riding Gonzalo Higuain’s last gasp to come off. I briefly became obsessed with Miami’s chances at the beginning of 2023 when they started strong on the back of sterling midfield performances from Gregore and Jean Mota, but Gregore went down for most (if not all) of the season by the third game and Mota succumbed to an injury of his own just a couple games later. Miami’s cruel summer to arrived ahead of schedule - they went winless and generally stepped on rakes from the middle of May to the middle July – and then came the ringers. Lionel Messi arrived first, of course, but then came Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba, and…Robert Taylor. With all that star power and a new director (they bumped now-Portland Timbers head coach, Phil Neville, for Tata Martino), Miami won its first trophy, the 2023 Leagues Cup. They could not, however, climb out of the hole the pre-ringer team dug over those two months of dining on shit once a week…and we all know where things go from here, not least because the league never allows us to forget that Messi Is Here.

Total Joy Points: 10

How They Earned Them (& *How This Is Calculated, for Reference)
Supporters’ Shield: 2024
Leagues Cup: 2023
CCL Quarterfinals: 2024
U.S. Open Cup Runner-Up: 2023

Getting Reacquainted with Atlanta United FC, the Drunken Sailors of MLS

Pick his pockets! Pick his pockets!

Thumbnail History
As noted in yesterday’s post on Los Angeles FC, Atlanta United FC started the tradition of expansion teams coming into MLS swinging. They arrived in the 2017 season like fun drunks livening up a wedding, finishing fourth overall and with the second best goal differential (+30) behind an historically (and freakishly) good Toronto FC team. Atlanta finished even higher in 2018 – if, again, second-best after a Red Bull New York team winning its third Supporters’ Shield – but coming second almost certainly got lost in the dopamine when they won MLS Cup 2018 at…well, an unfortunate stroll over my Portland Timbers. The secret to pulling that off followed from near-perfect roster construction. It started with (more or less) flipping off that season’s Expansion Draft, finding two future stars in the 2017 Superdraft – Julian Gressel was the stand-out (Miles Robinson bloomed later) – and then going nuts with trades and transfers. Atlanta’s FO built a spine out of ol’ reliables from all over MLS – e.g., Michael Parkhurst, Jeff Larentowicz, and their apparently-fovever goalkeeper, Brad Guzan - but they had to scour the international markets for their crown jewels, Josef Martinez and Miguel Almiron. One gave them lightning-like verticality – Almiron, who seemed to bend time when he got on the run – while the other finally ended Roy Lassiter’s 23-season reign of terror atop the single-season record for goals scored. For two fun-filled seasons – 2018 and 2019 - defenses struggled to keep Martinez from scoring goals and all came perilously close to allowing him a goal per game. Atlanta’s Act I seemed destined to on forever, but, as every play does, the action moved on to Act II, aka, the one where the hero(es) look lost and everything looks impossible and the doom kicks in. The trouble started when Martinez tore his ACL in the first game of 2020 – he would miss the entire season – and then came COVID, chaos (aka, Gabriel Heinze) and, when it all ended, a 23rd-place overall finish in the final standings. That’s not to say Atlanta didn’t move heaven, earth and bags of money to avoid that fate: when Almiron moved on to the EPL’s Newcastle, they gambled heavily on Ezequiel Barco and Pity Martinez, two young, (reportedly) high-upside talents from Argentina. They paid a $15 million transfer for Barco and (I think) somewhere around $10 million for Martinez; Barco played more games (81), but Martinez got more in less time (39), but he was only around for 2019-20, while Barco lasted from 2018-2020, but both players are more memorable as cautionary tales than for anything they did on the field. Coaching problems plagued the team as well, starting with the apparent sociopath, Heinze, but, with respect to Gonzalo Pineda, they haven’t got it right since. Some entry-level farting around in the CONCACAF Champions’ League aside (see below*), things faded fast and, hard as they’ve tried, the color hasn’t flushed back into Atlanta’s cheeks since…or has it?

Kidding. It hasn’t. Not really.

Total Joy Points: 10

Getting Reacquainted with Inter Miami CF: The Nouveau Riche or The Expendables?

Not shit. I just love the painting.

[Standing Disclaimer: While I have watched…just a stupid amount of MLS over the years, I don’t watch the vast majority of games, never mind all of them. As such, it’s fair to take anything below that isn’t a hard number or a physical trophy as an impression, a couple steps removed.]

Thumbnail History

I came this close to lumping the Miami Fusion into this post. They joined in the same pre-contraction expansion as the Chicago Fire, only, when contraction did come after the 2002 season, the league opted to keep Chicago and cut Florida loose…which continues to be a temptation, of course. I decided against for one obvious reason: the 1998-2002 team doesn’t have so much as a sparkle of the glitz and glamour of Inter Miami CF. The temptation lingered for a while, due mostly the fact that MLS legends like Kyle Beckerman, Pablo Mastroeni, Nick Rimando and (pushing it here) Jay Heaps, but the Fusion really did play and thrive in a totally different league…

…and yet, is that so different than the gap that separates Inter Miami’s MLS 4.0(?) Year and the Messi marketing cash-grab that so recently pissed off Hong Kong fans? My short response is no and yes, and in that order. The 2020 team went so rules-breaking big on its first roster-build that it forced the league to sanction it for playing a shell-game in terms of roster compliance. Miami still made the 2020 playoffs, but that comes with a couple caveats – e.g., the playoff pool was out-of-control-house-party big that season (because COVID) and the sanctions arguably derailed Miami’s 2021 season. They rode the death-rattle of Gonzalo Higuain’s career to get back to the playoffs in 2022 and I briefly became obsessed with Miami at the beginning of 2023 when they started strong on the back of sterling midfield performances from Gregore and Jean Mota. Gregore went down for most (if not all) of the season by the third game and Mota succumbed to an injury of his own somewhere around the 10th game, all of which caused Miami’s cruel summer to arrive ahead of schedule. Two months of eating shit followed: they went winless from the middle of May to the middle July, losing eight games of 11 and looking very, very doomed. And then came the Leagues Cup. And the arrival of Lionel Messi, Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba, and…Robert Taylor. That all-star cast and a new director (they bumped now-Portland Timbers head coach, Phil Neville, for Tata Martino) lead them to the inaugural Leagues Cup title. They could not, however, climb out of the hole the former team dug over those two months of eating shit…well, that and the six-game losing streak that happened earlier that season after Gregore’s injury threw Plan A into chaos.

Best Season(s)

I’m calling it a toss-up. I imagine that winning the Leagues Cup was nice and all, but failing to make the 2023 playoffs must have been like chasing a shot of delicious Jameson with something disgusting and fucking weird like pickle juice (just…don’t). Given that, I’m going with Gonzalo Higuain’s rousing curtain-call at the end of 2022. Just feels more heroic.

Vancouver Whitecaps 1-0 Portland Timbers: A Riddle to Solve

It'd be better if it was better.

I have so many thoughts.

One, would I take Vanni Sartini as a coach just because I like him? For all his shortcomings, yes. Yes, I would.

Second, while there’s absolutely no question that the better team won...did the Vancouver Whitecaps actually blow off your doors and/or socks? On the one hand, absolutely, they generated literal multiples of more offense and forced...holy shit, eight saves from one of the Portland Timbers’ few bright spots tonight, Aljaz Ivacic. On the other, the ‘Caps fired a (reported) total of 13 shots. Even with a disturbing number of those going on goal – and Ivacic’s numbers 100% back this up – I’d argue that tonight made a decent argument that Vancouver’s actual level falls closer to what they’d done over the first five games of the season (when they went 0-2-3) than what they did in the 6th (the shellacking of Montreal...who got drubbed again tonight, btw). Pursuant thereto...

Second Point, First Addendum: what does the above statement say about the state of the Timbers?

Second Point, Second Addendum: what does that say about tonight’s result?

With the scaffolding now built, let’s dig into all of the above.

To circle back to the facts, the Portland Timbers lost tonight, 0-1 at BC Place in Vancouver to the Whitecaps. If asked to answer the question, how did it go, I’d point to the literal two fucking shots Portland fired tonight. And zero of those went on goal, for those counting at home. I know I can’t make a plausible argument for any Timbers fan to feel good – particularly anyone who saw that wet, steaming pile of futility – and yet I’m going to try.

USA 0-0 Colombia: Mom, Dad, I Don't Know How I Feel About (January) Camp

Me tonight, only 20 years ago and with a lot more hair.

I was a little torn about the line-up the U.S. trotted out in tonight’s positively somnolent 0-0 draw against Colombia. January camp is, or has become, all about calling in players from the fringe and giving them a moment – I get that - but I would have rather seen interim coach Anthony Hudson name and stick with a starting XI over both games. Instead, he played the camp like a bad hand in draw poker and swapped out 10 players between Wednesday’s loss and tonight; unless I’m miscounting, only Walker Zimmerman started both games (and he lasted longest in this one).

Now, had you presented me with both line-ups and asked me which would do better, I’m pretty sure I would have picked tonight’s line-up, regardless of opponent. If nothing else, it featured the more experienced/accomplished players, particularly with the national team set-up – e.g., Paul Arriola, Aaron Long, Jesus Ferreira, Kellyn Acosta, Sean Johnson – and yet they delivered less in every category I could name outside the spine of the defense.

To state the obvious, Serbia and Colombia are different teams that played different styles. Perhaps knowing they could get something lethal going given the right circumstances, Serbia gave the U.S. more of the ball while Colombia played its defense high enough to force errors and broke from there; call it a second cousin to a press, twice removed. I don’t know what Wednesday’s line-up would have looked like against Colombia, in other words, and mostly hope that that multiverse got treated to a more entertaining game because, my god, was tonight’s game like watching old people fuck in front of drying paint....you have my apologies for the mental image...

The Mothership’s stats page doesn’t post xG for U.S. games, but the Yanks’ five total shots suggests something in the 0.5 range. The only two shots on goal involved Matthew Hoppe – he set up Paxten Aaronson for one (and he could have done better) and fired from the channel for the other – but those didn’t amount to anything besides easy-ish saves for “A. Montero,” Colombia’s ‘keeper. The only other decent U.S. chance I can recall from my times of full, attentive consciousness was the chance Ferreira opened up with a smart first touch. The way he lost that ball to a swarm of Colombian defenders sums up the game in a singular moment. The Colombians broadly overwhelmed the Americans tonight, but without ever coming close to beating them - i.e., boredom, by any other name.

USA 1-2 Serbia: Their Coach Seating Is Better Than Our Coach Seating

No. How are you really?

How do you talk about something that didn’t matter?

With just a handful of well-known exceptions – e.g., Walker Zimmermann and Aaron Long – just about every player who started for the U.S. Men’s national team tonight are only in the picture if you’re looking at the edges or deep into the background. And, given the comparative youth of the current starting set, providing a novel approach and/or skill-set strikes me as the only way any of tonight’s bubble boys can bounce into the first team. That’s where you start...

The place I want to go from there is a back-to-front TED talk about what worked and what didn’t tonight – and, no less significantly, when. But first the recap.

I don’t know much about the Serbian national team that beat America’s freshest B-Team 2-1, but I have a pretty good idea about how it won the game. Taking advantage of the rift that opened on a lonely free kick in the first half helped (think this is a full highlight package; go nuts to the extent it is), sure, but the game turned at the beginning of the first half. That’s when Serbia started pressing the American back-line and deep-lying midfielders. That pressure didn’t force mistakes, so much as exploit and punish them. A Serbian player ran down every long touch – which had ample company, unlike Serbia’s free kick – and they read every telegraphed past like they were jamming the channel. The winning goal came well before the pressure evaporated – and it followed from chasing a loose touch and a soft, telegraphed pass – and that left it up to the U.S. to claw their way back to level terms.

As in the first half, it took the U.S. a while, maybe even too long, to tilt the field toward the Serbian goal. The Portland Timbers’ Eryk Williamson kicked off the hottest rally of the 2nd half with a flying tackle and a great leading feed to an overlapping DeJuan Jones, a move that forced a save from...hold on, yeah, the lineups are up. Guess it was “D. Rosic” who made that save. I count that as one of the U.S.’s brighter team moves of the evening – it was a lot of soloist stuff prior, with the best of it coming from the San Jose Earthquakes’ Cade Cowell – and, yeah, yeah, yeah, I see those 20 shots, but I doubt I felt all that inspired by a quarter of ‘em, maybe a third...

FC Cincinnati 0-0 DC United: There Are No Highlights...

Three inches is generous, kind even.

Well, wasn’t that as pleasant as a team-building “event” at the office? It took an absolutely mind-boggling amount of men doing things in uniforms for nothing to happen. Worse, the few things that did happen - e.g., a timely, deserved red card to DC United’s Moses Nyeman, aka, the same guy who scored the sharpest, yet offside, goal all day - didn’t change a damn thing.

If you’ve ever asked the question, what would happen if FC Cincinnati had a man-advantage at home with 38 minutes to go, you got your answer tonight. Nothing, a fucking pair of useless eggs, a 0-0 home draw against half a DC United team. Lorde, gimme patience. I guessed the right final score - without knowing the many, many players DC had missing (e.g., Paul Arriola, Brendan Hines-Ike, Russell Canouse, etc.) - but that only makes it all worse (see Thought No. 1). I know what Cincinnati is/can and cannot do, and I only had a loose sense of DC as a high energy, low-accuracy team: so long as Cincinnati matched their energy, it’d be on the hosts to score. I see the xG, and, based on what I watched, that’s generous…and I don’t think I’d feel any differently had Cincinnati finally scored.

If Cincinnati had better chances than Joe Gyau’s (of whom and others, see Thought No. 2) header off Ronald Matarrita’s cross and that Nick Hagglund header early, quality yet hopeful header, they don’t register (hold that thought; forgot this one); related, Brandon Vasquez’s late (equally hopeful) lunge represented a better percentage opportunity, but it was no less desperate and unlucky. Ye gods, where to begin when you don’t even want to start?

Cincinnati wrestled both DC and themselves for chances and came up empty. Going the other way, the only chances they allowed DC came via offside plays and Julian Gressel trying to make the most of free-kicks on the cheap and direct. But, again, this was just half a DC United team, and I’d call Gressel and Kevin Paredes (who I’d kill to have on any roster I watched) the two best, most effective and interesting players on the field tonight. DC made the better chances, even if they had to push against legality to make them happen.

That’s my summary of the game and, no, that’s not good.

MLS Off-Season Weeky (01 25 2020): Welcome to the Weird Season! (Plus Some Moves)

Preseason.

Ah, preseason, the heady days when teams across MLS can nurse delusions of grandeur – whether Real Salt Lake claiming they’re “not that far from competing for the title” or Dax McCarty pretending new kids Nashville SC won't do the soccer equivalent of a flex-arm hang from the playoff line in its inaugural season.

The Chicago Fire (the rebrand didn’t run off with their OG name, right?), meanwhile, stung by a lost decade, takes the sober course: “I can guarantee them that we will work hard every day.”

We will try, the city of Chicago, they say. That’s really all any team can say ahead of any given season. To flip the script, Los Angeles FC can talk about a title all they want, but no promise can stop them from another stumble in the playoffs. At any rate, what will be will be. And some teams have already taken their first steps toward their 2020 fate.

Preseason, MFs!
I’ll clock some playa moves below, as well as what’s going on with the Portland Timbers and FC Cincinnati, but I wanted to start things off with actual preseason play.

Does it matter that (weird) Atlanta United FC beat the (weird) New York Red Bulls 2-1 in hot MLS-on-MLS action yesterday, or that the (weird) Seattle Sounders dropped their first preseason game to Uruguayan giants, Penarol? Nah. Everyone’s knocking off the rust (no matter what the copy says about Josef Martinez) and the regulars knock off after the first 30 minutes, and a bunch of randos come on to replace them: the silly season continues, but welcome to the “weird” season. (Related: I’ll be placing “(weird)” in front of every team’s name until either real games come around or when a given team plays some version of its expected first team in the late-stage preseason.)

Portland Timbers 0-2 Atlanta United FC: Narratives and Their Wrinkles

That is clarifying (apparently), but who sees it as such?

I loved this game for everything except the result. It was a fucking diamond, I tell you, in that it reveals different things when you hold it up to the light…

I didn’t like that the game ended with the Portland Timbers losing to Atlanta United FC 0-2 in Portland, obviously, even if I kinda saw it coming, or at least the outlines of it. To make a list of it, if you look at Portland’s last 10 opponents – @ MTL, v FCD, @ NYC, v COL, v ORL, @ SEA (ha!), v LAG, @ MIN, v VAN, v CHI – between talent and form, Atlanta presents as the most thoroughly leveled-up of the bunch. Sure, NYCFC looked as strong as Atlanta when the Timbers beat them in the Bronx, but the rest of all of those teams rolled into their game against Portland with some amount of baggage and pain, and that’s the line I’m drawing in this post: in Atlanta, Portland finally met a team with a similar kind/amount of talent and momentum and, the shocking evenness of the evening notwithstanding, it didn’t go great for the Timbers. They lost at home and with…a solid percentage of what most people seem to regard as its best team on the field. The only question I have is what percentage of Timbers fans found this result disappointing and what percentage see it as clarifying.

I’m borne for the latter camp (Team Clarifying!), even as it cuts against the record the Timbers compiled over their last 10 games; trust me, 20 points from 30 is fucking rare in this league, but that’s been Portland’s level. (Immediately relevant thereto, Atlanta has managed 19 points in its last 10 games, MLS regular season only, as in, not this game, or what the Mexican press thought of it.) At the same time, Atlanta has played well – sometimes very well - against MLS’s better teams – e.g., your NYCFCs, your LAFCs, your Galaxys (a fallen family, but still). Portland, to their very real and enduring credit, has done the proverbial business since finding their feet toward the end of its long, opening road trip; whatever I think of each of the ten teams listed below, wins in those games didn’t just happen and Portland posted some memorable wins during that stretch – there, wins over Seattle and LA stand out – but that doesn’t change the blunt reality that this resurgent, surging Atlanta teams was a different animal.

Before digging into details, sure, it could have gone either way last night…and that applies even if I think Atlanta created the better chances overall. As much as it’s fair to point out that Julio Cascante made the inexplicable decision that lead to Atlanta’s second goal (not sarcasm!), that wasn’t every reason why the Timbers failed to draw, never mind win, last night’s game. (Also, and because I ignored it entirely below, here's Atlanta's first goal.) They were not centered, they did not feel…