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.

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.

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...

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 12, Real Salt Lake: After the Success Story

How it started. Going was MLS Cup 2009!

What follows is a brief history of Real Salt Lake, 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’m here to tell the kids that joining MLS as an expansion team today is nothing like what it was in the mid-2000s. Back then, the incoming front office couldn’t sign even one designated player – the Designated/aka “Beckham Rule” wasn’t codified until 2007 – which left any incoming team picking through the same crappy, exhausted buffet, as every other team in the league, aka, the Superdraft and whatever scraps they could buy from overseas. That’s the league Chivas USA and Real Salt Lake stepped into in 2005 and, golly, does “stepped into” get right to it. To their (very temporary) credit, Chivas USA turned over a competitive roster within one season – notably, by signing some soon-to-be famous young Americans - but it took RSL three-plus seasons to climb that mini-Everest. They built their first, best teams around rightful MLS legends like Kyle Beckerman, Javier Morales, and long-time anchor/boogeyman/legend, Nick Rimando, but they also did some next-level work in terms of finding great complimentary players like Fabian Espindola and, to turn the backline into a wall, Jamison Olave and Nat Borchers. When it all finally came together with a couple players who understood their roles and played them well – e.g., Ned Grabavoy and Will Johnson as shuttlers in a midfield-four diamond – they became one of MLS 2.0’s most consistent – and dangerous – teams. RSL didn’t just make the 2008 playoffs, they pushed to the semifinals. Just one season later, they lifted MLS Cup 2009 by holding off a pre-peak Los Angeles Galaxy team through regulation and extra-time and giving them one of the most famous Rimando-ings in MLS history. Over the next several season, they made Rio Tinto Stadium into a fortress with a 29-home-game unbeaten streak that started in June 6, 2009 (their road form, on the other hand…), but even that triumphal time included one of the most sharply painful moments in MLS history. RSL reached the final of the 2010-2011 CONCACAF Champions’ League tournament and, after drawing Liga MX’s Monterrey 2-2 in Mexico, all they needed to become the first MLS team to hoist the revamped regional club championship trophy was a keep Monterrey off the board in the fortress they’d built. All that promise came undone when some guy named Humberto Andres Suavo Pontivo scored at the 45th minute for Monterrey and, even with their (then-)best all-time roster and flashy, yet strapping forward Alvaro Saborio on board, RSL couldn’t pull back that one goal. RSL survived the blow and, with the balance of the core still intact, they reached the semifinals again in 2011 and MLS Cup again in 2013. They ultimately lost that game, but the success head coach Jason Kreis enjoyed between 2008-2013 made him not just a hot commodity, but the subject (or is it an object?) of a campaign that tried to whisper him to the U.S. Men’s National Team hot seat. He ditched them when New York City FC showed a little leg (before they even had horses, it bears noting), but the familiar pattern set in: player by player and season by season, the members of that team either aged out or moved on. RSL never fully slipped all the way under the waves – they’ve made the last eight in the playoffs four times since 2013, including a trip to the Western Conference final in 2021 - but they have struggled with getting enough quality on the same roster in the same season to take them that vital one step further.

San Diego FC 0-0 Portland Timbers: A Little Satisfaction, a Little Future Trepidation & a Wrap Up of the West

With, like, a lot of shit left out.

This post also counts as my first/second stab at a new format/concept. On the most basic level, it involves: 1) kicking around (or just kicking) the Portland Timbers’ most recent result; 2) a quick tour around the relevant parts of the Western Conference for perspective on the grand scheme; and 3) a quick check-in with the team Portland plays next (the Dread Pirate Minnesota). I’m going to hit this at the highest stream-of-consciousness speed I can manage – about all I can do four days late, but I pledged to drag myself through this, gritted teeth, bad taste and all.

Close readers may have noticed I identified this as a first for a new format and, paraphrasing one of the worst we'll-do-it-in-post moments in the Star Wars universe, that’s true from a certain point of view – specifically, I switched the order after the sections on last Saturday’s game, so that the Scouting Memo (I tightened it up), aka, the only forward-looking portion of the post, comes at the end, which is the opposite of what I did for the FC Cincinnati post. (No need to read that; already forgotten.)

There will actually be a third iteration this weekend, when I post notes on the game and then the other bits later. At any rate…

I just sat through the highlights to reconnect with this game. The first that struck me was the full minute of the 7:30 burned on the VAR review for the Andres Dreyer “goal” called back for offside around the 30th minute. I had a joke in the hopper about that being the only actual event of the game, but the rest of the highlights and the final stats painted a better memory for this game than the World of Imagination in my mind. It was still pretty damn dull, but, hey, little Ws have big hearts.

San Diego FC 0-0 Portland Timbers
About the Game, Briefly and Broadly
Is it possible that Corey Baird, formerly of FC Cincinnati (formerly of Houston Dynamo FC, formerly of LAFC, formerly of Real Salt Lake), coming off was the single most significant event of the game? It’s possible, sure: he played two drop-flicks that sent Dreyer free-‘n’-easy behind Portland’s back line, including the one that teed off Dreyer’s offside shot. The drought only looked more apparent thanks to San Diego’s failure to post even one shot on goal over the second half. They had a couple, just not many. Even so, I wouldn’t have believed MLS’s newest kids put just one shot on goal all game if the stats didn’t swear to it…and, yep, even that one shot on goal followed from the earlier Baird/Dreyer connection. The sum of that feels a tenuous combination of promising (for Portland) and significant (for San Diego), with the emphasis on tenuous.

MLS Weakly Returns: Week 1 & Scouting Reports for the (Two) Home Team'(s)' Week 2 Opposition

Me going into every preseason, free 'n' easy.

To repeat a familiar refrain, mistakes were made. Who can say by whom?

The original model – which was probably imagined more in service of clicks than coherence – had me putting up weekly league-wide posts that included scouting reports on the following week’s opposition for the Portland Timbers and FC Cincinnati. Because that’s a terrible idea, on its face, next week’s scouting reports on the Week 3 opposition for Portland (Nashville SC) and Cincy (Toronto FC) will get rolled into the same post as the review for their Week 2 games. But, since I’m rolling with Plan A for this post, you’ll find scouting reports for the Week 2 opposition for the Timbers (Austin FC) and Cincinnati (the Philadelphia Union) at the bottom of this post.

With that, let’s get back to the Week 1 results, which will start with one Featured Game of the Week from each Major League Soccer conference. As much as I hope to keep that feature, I will also burn it all the way down if I can’t squeeze it between life, other ambitions, and trying to remain sane and whole in a world full of flaming idiotic bullshit. Ahem.

Another concept that died on impact with reality: posting one review each for the Eastern and Western Conferences.

Western Conference Notes
Featured Game of the Week
San Jose Earthquakes 4-0 Real Salt Lake (Viewing: 15-30; 60-till the goals dried up)
This didn’t look nearly as bad as the final score in real time, something borne out by the top-line stats. Moreover, RSL rotated pretty heavily to preserve their legs for last week’s and this week’s CONCACAF Champions’ Cup games against Herediano – I’d turn to local reporting for a clearer read on how that much mattered – which means that, like a handful of teams (but not Sporting Kansas City, not any more), their heads might have been elsewhere. This eye-catching blowout comes with a couple caveats, in other words, those start with “it’s Week 1, y’all” and end with maybe tapping the brakes a little. Also, dig those away jerseys, Utah’s finest. My take on San Jose lands somewhere between giving them real credit for a strong opener (which comes with a side of quietly and sympathetically pulling for them) and rolling my eyes at a click-bait headline about “The Bruce Arena effect!” The ‘Quakes didn’t play against the ball as much as the possession stats suggest and connected smartly enough when they did go forward. The win featured a familiar standout, Cristian Espinoza, who lined up as a wingback in what everything I have available dubbed a 3-5-2 (the broadcast kept identifying him as a “right back”). He ended the game with two assists – one of them a dime dropped from a mile away (SJ’s third, scored by Ousseni Bouda) – but the balance of the damage followed from indifferent defensive cover from RSL’s midfield – e.g., San Jose’s first and fourth goals (and was that Diego Luna drifting off mid-defending in both cases?). RSL played, y’know, soccer well enough, and even created more chances (some quite good), but plenty of those 21 shots came from too far out to trouble the ‘Quakes ‘keeper, Daniel. A fair amount of credit for that goes to San Jose’s defense – Rodrigues looked as good as anyone on the field (and Bruno Wilson looks like everyone’s best friend; seriously, watch the goal celebrations) – and a little improvement could go a long way for them. So, again, this one’s hairy with caveats, but…noted.
Why This Game?
Every team that finished below the Timbers in 2024, but improves in 2025 stands out as a potential obstacle toward them reaching the playoffs. Think zero-sum meets relative, and let me know when you know what that means. I’m also not clear on where I think RSL will end up, so the possibility they may trend down for 2025 provided another draw. Related, I think Herediano kicked them out of the CCC earlier tonight.

Getting Reacquainted with Real Salt Lake, the Inspiring Underdogs of MLS 2.0

I can see you don't care....

Thumbnail History
I’m here to tell the kids that joining MLS as an expansion team today is nothing like what it was in the mid-2000s. Back then, the incoming front office couldn’t sign even one designated player – the Designated/aka “Beckham Rule” wasn’t codified until 2007 – which left any incoming team picking through the same crappy, then exhausted buffet, as every other team in the league. That’s the MLS Chivas USA and Real Salt Lake stepped into in 2005 and, golly, does “stepped into” get right to it. To their (very temporary) credit, Chivas USA turned over a competitive roster within one season – notably, by signing some soon-to-be famous young Americans - but it took RSL four seasons to climb that mini-Everest. They built their first, best teams around rightful MLS legends like Kyle Beckerman, (now Miami assistant coach) Javier Morales, and long-time anchor/dream-killer, Nick Rimando, but they also did some next-level work in terms of finding great complimentary players like Fabian Espindola and, to turn the backline into a wall, Jamison Olave and Nat Borchers. When it all finally came together with a couple players who understood their roles and played them well – e.g., Ned Grabavoy and Will Johnson as shuttlers in a midfield-four diamond – they became one of MLS 2.0’s most consistent – and dangerous – teams. RSL didn’t just make the 2008 playoffs, they pushed to the semifinals. Just one season later, they raised MLS Cup 2009 by holding them off in regulation and through extra-time, until they dealt a pre-peak Los Angeles Galaxy team one of the most famous Rimando-ings in MLS history. All that success turned head coach Jason Kreis into not just a hot commodity, but the subject (or is it an object?) of a campaign that tried to whisper him to the U.S. Men’s National Team hot-seat for a season or two. That team turned Rio Tinto Stadium into a fortress with a 29-home-game unbeaten streak that started in June 6, 2009 (their road form, on the other hand…), but even that triumphal time included one of the most sharply painful moments in MLS history. RSL reached the final of the 2010-2011 CONCACAF Champions’ League tournament and, after drawing Liga MX’s Monterrey 2-2 in Mexico, all they needed to become the first MLS team to hoist the revamped regional club championship trophy was a keep Monterrey off the board in the fortress they’d built. All that promise came undone when some guy named Humberto Andres Suavo Pontivo scored at the 45th minute for Monterrey and, even with their (then-)best all-time roster and flashy forward Alvaro Saborio on board, RSL couldn’t pull back that one goal. RSL survived the blow and, with the balance of the core still intact, they reached the semifinals again in 2011 and MLS Cup again in 2013. They ultimately lost that game, but the success head coach Jason Kreis enjoyed between 2008-2013 made him not just a hot commodity, but the subject (or is it an object?) of a campaign that tried to whisper him to the U.S. Men’s National Team hot seat. Smal wonder he checked out after that season to take the reins at New York City FC (before they even had horses, it bears noting), but player by player and season by season, the members of that team either aged out or moved on. As you’ll see below, RSL never fully slipped all the way under the waves – they’ve made the last eight in the playoffs four times since 2013, including a trip to the playoffs in 2021 - but they have struggled with getting enough quality on the same roster in the same season to take them that vital one step further. They have improved at finding the odd great/promising young player (e.g., Diego Luna), including on the DP market player (e.g., Cristian Arango), and they have a respectable youth system (see Justen Glad, Adrian Brody(?)), but they remain a small-ish market team in a league where that gets harder every season.

MLS Round-Up: Some Word Association on the Cusp of Decision Day

Ooh. Something about Orlando coming up.

With some strays called in – e.g., Columbus Crew SC (expectedly) picking at the bones of the New England Revolution (4-0) and Los Angeles FC sniping the Vancouver Whitecaps in second-half stoppage (2-1) - and nothing left to play but Decision Day, an urge to get things organized one final time before we take ‘em one game at a time (aka, the playoffs) kicked in. The rest of you do this in the privacy of your own mind, and you’re almost certainly better off for it. And yet, here we are…

Don’t expect deep analysis in anything below and I didn't flag more than a couple players by name. Also, judge me, if you must, for giving up early on doing league-wide coverage literally every season, but I still haven’t landed on a way of actually cover Major League Soccer that 1) I trust and 2) doesn't feel like rehashing the same shit everyone has plowed over three times or more. I’ll take another swing in 2025 – i.e., tinker with the methodology, maybe lower the bar for “trust,” etc. – but the best I can offer for 2024 is recollection of half- (or less-than-half-)remembered videos and highlights, a review of undeniable trends, both long- and short-term, and a succession of hiccups percolating up from my gut.

In nuts-‘n’-bolts terms, I’m gonna list every team in MLS, by conference and in their current order, from top to tail, and give a brief read on where they are now and their season as I understand it. Hot takes will come as my gut gives ‘em, otherwise…allons y!

WESTERN CONFERENCE (hey, that’s my home conference!)
Los Angeles Galaxy (1st in West, 2nd overall)
The somewhat rare team that can pull apart the opposition, arguably as good in possession as they are in transition. Vulnerabilities include a middling road record (6-6-4) and a middling defense, but the Galaxy have real talent all over the attacking third (given a preferred starting XI) and they can score from as many places. They’ve been lethal at home all season – only LAFC beat them there (and the last of their three home draws came in mid-May) – and they can beat any team on their day. They’ll have to win on the road to do it, but the Galaxy have a real shot at MLS Cup.

Real Salt Lake 3-3 Portland Timbers: A Tale of One and a Half

The boy who cried wolf as an angsty teenager.

Portland Timbers fans have been invited to a transcendentally ridiculous party this season. What can we do but accept the invitation?

Very much related, the Timbers’ wild 3-3 draw at Real Salt Lake defies rational explanation. It was what it was and is what it is. It was necessary to endure the first half, experientially, in order to understand the full import of the second, it is always darkest before the dawn, and on every bloody morning after, one tin soldier will ride away.

Game Notes
The Timbers were very bad in one half, and just good enough in the second to smuggle one point out of Utah. Call it a Tale of One and a Half. I’m sure RSL fans feel aggrieved at the result, for a variety of reasons, but I’d peg one key moment as a shorthand for how/when the game went off the rails for them.

You could see RSL’s ‘keeper, Gavin Beavers (great name, no notes), scrambling to get his defense organized ahead of the corner kick that led to the Timbers’ first and fairly shitty goal. It recalled the boy who cried wolf barking at the villagers when shit got real, at long last, and it went just as well. The cross came in, Eric Miller nicked it more than he met it, but chaos ensued, and the ball rolled to Antony and he, for lack of a better verb, bumbled the ball into the net. At that exact moment, “the most dangerous lead in soccer” went to high alert.

The punchline to the whole thing: RSL had every reason to ignore that boy crying wolf. Their defensive shape and movement had Portland flustered to where they couldn’t connect more than two passes that didn’t go backwards. The Timbers midfield, in particular, didn’t seem to trust one another on either side of the ball; support failed to arrive on the attacking side, leading to wingers getting isolated and Felipe Mora operating in a void, and no one had a clear grasp on how to pass off players and rotate into cover on the defensive side. Between a defense as disarrayed as the Democrats and an offense that barely got off the couch (the Timbers’ official xG in the first half: 0.09), Portland looked doomed to a blowout.

MLS Round-Up: A Saucy Reset

This one’s going to be a blunt instrument a series of statements, a fair amount of it without showing most of my math. Suffice to say I had wee epiphany about why I bang on into the wee, foggy hours...

With the end of the season on the horizon, I wanted to post a read on the state of play since the…let’s call it gently(?) deceptive Leagues Cup wrapped up. Some of this follows from a personal failure to fully appreciate just how close we’ve come to the regular season – eight games left on the outside, and that’s only for four teams (Columbus, New England, LAFC, and Vancouver). It’s just six (nine teams, I think) to seven (16 teams?) for everyone else, which means shit got real two to three games ago depending.

Below, I lump all 29 teams into the following five categories, defined briefly below to make sure you catch my drift:

Contenders
The teams that look like they have a reasonable shot at reaching MLS Cup, whether by form (East) or conference (still East, but mostly West; more below).

Playoff Team, Dark Horses
The teams that, if they fix this issue or that one, have some hope of knocking off one of the contenders and reaching MLS Cup. That said, the relevant issue makes it pretty damn unlikely they will not. [NOTE: The relevant issue is not brought up much, or at all, below. Feel free to check out!]

Playoff Team, Plausible +1
Teams with a respectable chance, maybe even a decent one, of winning a game in the 2024 MLS Cup Playoffs, brought to you by Audi (probably?), but I wouldn't expect much and/or shit from there.

Bubble Teams
Teams that, regardless of their present merit and future upsides, still has real shit to do if they want to reach the 2024 MLS Cup Playoffs, brought to be Hello Fresh!

The Dead
Teams that I feel confident will fall short of the embarrassingly low bar that MLS has set for reaching the 2024 MLS Cup Playoffs, brought to you Les Schwab Tires.

Checking in at MLS Week 19: Trends, Hard Facts and Notes!

Quicksand is a major theme for this one.

Welcome to the MLS Week 19 Round-Up – and, again, with 14 teams on 19 games played, 12 teams on 20 games, and the remaining teams below that, this is MLS Week (Fucking) 19.

With the rush to stack the schedule before Leagues Cup 2024, plenty of games have taken place since my last global review of “Where Things Stand” in MLS (dated May 19, 2024) – five to six for most teams, seven for some outliers, and just four for the freakshow that is Columbus Crew SC – so today felt like a good day for an update to global picture.

The format for this one departs from past editions in that I’m going to lead with some top-line trends, i.e., items that, now that we have enough season behind us, feel sticky enough to feel real. I’ll close the post with the biggest picture stats for every team in MLS – e.g., their record, the results from the past 10 games, and where they played them – plus the one thing I’d tell someone about them if they asked. Full disclosure, I’m basing that note less on deep, first-hand knowledge of any given team, than on where those biggest-picture stats suggest they’re trending. Speaking of, let’s talk about those trends:

1) The Top 3 Teams From Each Conference
All three of Inter Miami CF, FC Cincinnati and Los Angeles FC have between seven (Miami) and eight (Cincy and LAFC) wins over the past 10 games. All three of Real Salt Lake, Red Bull New York and the Los Angeles Galaxy have racked up fives wins over their past 10. A few other teams are keeping that five-win pace – e.g., Columbus Crew SC, my Portland Timbers, (stunningly) Charlotte FC, and, if in a very much less promising way, New York City FC (see No. 3 below) – but those teams are piling up those Ws from a deeper spot in the table. That’s to say, the top 3 in both conferences look pretty secure for now, even if the Red Bulls have both Charlotte and Columbus nipping at their heels (and the Red Bulls have at least one warning light flashing). The have v have-not gap feels more real in the West and, so far, involves more teams than it has in recent past seasons. We’ll see how long that holds, but to flag one detail that helps explain the widening gap between the top teams and the ones getting sucked to mid-table…

2) The Three Straight Losses Club
All seven of the following teams have lost their last three matches: DC United, New York City FC, the Philadelphia Union, Toronto FC, Minnesota United FC, the San Jose Earthquakes and Sporting Kansas City. Two of those teams – San Jose and SKC – have seen an actually horrifying number of losses fall upon them whilst looking up from the bottom of a pit, but that run of crap form has real potential to tank the 2024 season for the rest of those teams, if with the arguable exception of NYCFC. Fairly related to that…

MLS Weakly, MLS Week 16 (Trust Me, I Did the Math): Trends and Hiccups, but Mostly Trends

The end of Hour 1. Just two hours to go.

I’m attempting to revive the MLS, Weakly concept, only with a trimmed down model.

And, goddamn Inter Miami CF and goddamn the man, yes, I’m calling this MLS Week 16. Know why? I averaged the number games played for all the teams in Major League Soccer, including the ones without Lionel Messi on the roster, and guess what said average came to? 16.1 games played.

Most weeks (assuming I ever do this again), I’m mostly looking for some combination of trends or hiccups – e.g., did [Team X] (which, here, means FC Cincinnati) keep that absurd winning streak going to jam-band states of eternity, or did [Team Y] (which, here, means Sporting Kansas City) keep eating shit like they were participating in the Nathan’s Famous on the Fifth Ring of Hell? (Yeah, I recycled that joke. Shame.)

This time, and this is because I last posted league-wide content on May 19, I’ve got three games’ worth of trends and hiccups to catch up. That said, the format/framing will look should look the same – i.e., this will just be me doing a steam-of-consciousness data-dump – and I’ll be doing the same basic thing – i.e., riffing from the last snapshot post – which is the May 19 post referenced above (LINK), where I posted little data blocks and narratives for every team in the league. Fun fact, that May 19 post referenced a similar snapshot post that went up on April 2 (LINK).

Best case, I’ll keep this going. Likeliest case, I’ll do everything wrong, abandon this and threaten to shut down this blog for what has to be the 10th time. To paraphrase the intro to Black Star’s “Brown Skin Lady,” even my neuroses have neuroses.

With that, time to dig into the meat of this thing.

MLS Snapshot, Week 13/14, aka, Figuring Out What's Really Going On

Take me to your secret garden under the sea!

Back on April 6 of this year, I posted a pointlessly premature league-wide roundup. This post both updates and revisits those early impressions and in a way that, I’m guessing, will embarrass the author in more ways than it won’t. Moreover, I’m taking an approach meant to maximize that discomfort because, to paraphrase the late Bill O’Reilly (…wait, is he dead yet?), fuck it, I’m doing this live.

By that I mean, I pulled the top-line numbers from the current standings (i.e., this link is functionally dead by next weekend) and the Form Guide (never lets one down) for every team in Major League Soccer and combined them into tidy little blocks of data. Those blocks include: each team’s current record, total number of points, goals scored, goals allowed, home and away records, where they fit in their conference and the league as a whole, plus each team’s results over their past 10 games and a note on where they played those games. Think data in high-protein, never-gonna-shit-again granola form.

On the analysis side, I decided against farting around with strength of schedule and instead went with a single snapshot-style statement on each team at this moment – which, for the record, is either 13 or 14 games for 26 teams. That’s to say, the current MLS calendar is on Week 13/14 and the great Inter Miami CF calendar is a lie.

The notes on each team will close with my impression of them as of MLS Week 6. This is where the embarrassment comes in, because I swung wide and wild on plenty of teams.

That’s it for the preamble. Everything else should speak for itself from here. As with that last post, I’m starting with the MLS’s Western Conference and closing with the Eastern and I’ve listed every team according to its current place in their respective conference standings. Finally, and as noted on Bluesky, I’m going back to following the Portland Timbers and the Timbers alone, and then posting some form of league-wide weekly round-up. Not 100%-sure what form that’ll take, I only know I want it to be smaller than this whale.

For now, let’s climb on Shamu’s back and see where he swims.

MLS Week 5: Surprises, Pleasant and Unpleasant

Do, or eat, the things that make you happy.

Grand Narrative

First, we’re in the magical time on Major League Soccer’s calendar when nearly every team can talk themselves into believing they’ve got a shot at something better than last season. Hell, they’ve got Minnesota United FC as a live example. That has a lot of teams playing wide open and I love that like Paula Dean loves butter!

Some teams play open and wild and don't go far as they'd like – I’d lump Chicago Fire FC and, if they had any other way of playing besides pedal-to-the-metal, I’d go with DC United and St. Louis CITY FC – and, on the flip side of the same token, that’s why you’re seeing some hot names from 2023 continuing to smolder in 2024, aka, the Ohio teams, aka, FC Cincinnati, Columbus Crew SC. That doesn’t mean there aren’t some surprises, pleasant and unpleasant – beyond Minnesota, you’ve got Red Bull New York, Toronto FC, and a rejuvenated Los Angeles Galaxy team on the pleasant side, and Inter Miami CF on the unpleasant side, because fuck those guys – but I’m still seeing at lot of the usual suspects careening this way and that in the demolition derby already taking shape in the middle of the table.

Even so, the biggest surprises arguably lurk at the bottom of both conferences. I mean, yes, of course you have the San Jose Earthquakes and Austin FC in their natural state (sucking wind, lagging behind), but dream of the riches you’d see had you bet anyone that the Seattle Sounders and New England Revolution would be at the bottom of their respective conferences and playing like they’ll be rooted there for some time.

That’s it for the preamble, only the round-up remains. I believe the format explains itself with the exception of the symbols you’ll see after each result below (all of which include a link to The Mothership’s game summary for the relevant match). Here those are:

* more or less skipped it, coasting on the fumes of past impressions.

(H) – I watched the highlights and checked the box score to update the opinion.

({Numbers]) – those represent the parts of the full game I watched, before raiding the box score.

MLS Week 2 Review: Brief Notes on Many Topics

Fill up on these faster.

The Broad Strokes

MLS Week 2 served up a healthy heaping of surprises – mostly in the form of eye-catching road wins, but I bet the current Los Angeles FC roster will talk about that snow game for half as long as their fans do (i.e., a damned long time). Somewhat related, I pissed away an hour watching MLS Wrap-Up – so, obviously, don’t recommend. If you like that show, no judgment, gods bless and carry on. I just fill up on hot takes faster than most and I hit my limit before they got halfway through the obligatory-till-His-retirement opening segment on Messiami.

Miami deserved more of the praise than I’d like to admit, but I also don’t know what the fuck Orlando was doing out there besides wasting everyone’s time….wait…fuck me. They made me do it too. I started with fucking Miami. Got played like conservatives play the New York Times…

Result(s) of the Week

I’m going with Club du Foot Montreal’s pretty dang legit (looking) win down in Dallas, with honorable mention going to DC United for wearing down (my) Portland Timbers, Red Bull punching points out of Houston Dynamo FC and both sides of the New England Revolution’s loss at home against Toronto FC. That lopsided sin over LAFC probably should have made the cut - particularly given how it played out -but X-factors make me skittish, so....

Right. Here’s what happens next. The list for all of the scores from MLS Week 2 are listed below, with links to The Mothership’s game summaries under each (i.e., the numbers in the middle). I’ve included a key for how closely I watched (or didn’t watch) each game after said list of scores and, after that, I provide some very short notes that include: 1) a one(-ish) sentence summary of each game/highlight reel; 2) mention one thing that might not have been picked up in summaries and highlight shows; and 3) close with a short note on where I see both teams in the today, or maybe sometime next week. I don’t know how much readers will value it, but all that will make sense. Let’s start with the scores:

Minnesota United FC 1-1 Columbus Crew SC (H)

Real Salt Lake 3-0 Los Angeles FC (H)

Inter Miami CF 5-0 Orlando City SC %

Vancouver Whitecaps 1-1 Charlotte FC *

Chicago Fire FC 1-2 FC Cincinnati %

FC Dallas 1-2 Club du Foot Montreal %

Houston Dynamo FC 1-2 Red Bull New York %

Sporting Kansas City 1-1 Philadelphia Union (H)

St. Louis CITY FC 2-0 New York City FC * (I still have to sit through this one; notes later)

Colorado Rapids 1-1 Nashville SC *

Portland Timbers 2-2 DC United (full game; link below)

San Jose Earthquakes 1-3 Los Angeles Galaxy %

Seattle Sounders 0-0 Austin FC *

New England Revolution 0-1 Toronto FC (H)

Getting Reacquainted with Real Salt Lake, a Team Frozen in Amber/MLS 2.0

Far, far, FAR worse than it looks.

[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’m here to tell the kids that joining MLS as an expansion team today is nothing like what it was in the mid-2000s. Back then, the incoming front office couldn’t sign even one designated player, so, when building their Year One roster, they had to pick through the same crappy buffet as the rest of the league. That’s the league Chivas USA and Real Salt Lake stepped into and, golly, does “stepped into” get right to it. It took Chivas USA just one season to turn over a competitive roster – signing some soon-to-be famous young Americans made all the difference - but it took RSL over three seasons to do the same. And yet, when they finally pulled that off in 2008, they became one of MLS 2.0’s most consistent – and dangerous – teams. The argument for that fleshes out between the Best Season and Names to Know sections below, but RSL made the playoffs over the next seven seasons with two trips to MLS Cup and one to a CONCACAF Champions’ League final thrown in. They turned Rio Tinto Stadium into a fortress on the back of a 29-home-game unbeaten streak that started in June 6, 2009 (their road form, meanwhile…) and the familiar winning formula of having a couple ringers running wild in front of brick wall (aka, an effective attack and a sturdy defense). And then, player by player and season by season, the members of that great team either aged out or moved on. No matter how dangerous they’ve looked at the end of any post-season since, and outside the 2016 and 2019 season (9th and 6th respectively), RSL has finished in 11th place or lower in every season after 2015; they’ve probably forgotten what a trophy looks like by now. They still turn up the odd great attacking player, but they never enough of them on the same roster and in the same season to take them that vital one step further. RSL still rolls reliable center backs off some invisible assembly line, but they otherwise look stuck in MLS 2.0.

Best Season(s)

The easy choice points to their MLS-Cup-winning season in 2009 – aka, the most famous “Rimandoing” in MLS history – but I’m going with the 2010-2011 run to the CCL final. If there’s a better underdog story in CCL history, I haven’t heard it. Moreover, that scrappy little RSL team came achingly close to winning it just three seasons removed from serial failure in MLS. They started the two-leg series by drawing the road leg at Monterrey 2-2, which meant all they had to do to lift the trophy was keep Monterrey off the board at Fortress Rio Tinto – and, to be clear, the final fell within the above-referenced home unbeaten streak. The stars don’t align much straighter than that…but then some guy named Humberto Andres Suavo Pontivo scored at the 45th minute for Monterrey and RSL couldn’t pull back one goal, the end.