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.

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…

Level Set 13, Red Bull New York: The Difference Between Success and Happiness?

This tracked as a bad omen when MLS launched.

What follows is a brief history of Red Bull New York(/New Jersey), 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
Born as the New York/New Jersey MetroStars (and with a logo inspired by, yet embarrassing on, the bottom of a skateboard), aka, Red Bull New York, aka, New Jersey’s finest soccer team, has always been a weird one – e.g., the first time they reached MLS Cup (2008), they made it on a run through MLS’s Western Conference. Despite later, praiseworthy successes (wait for it), few things have defined the MetroStars/Red Bull franchise like the once-famous saying, “that’s so Metro.” It gets more complicated from there…

Their Red Bull/energy-drink era started, both on and off the field, with the 2006 season and, setting aside second slap from the Wooden Spoon in 2009 (the first came in 1999), the deeper pockets and connections have moved the team in a…broadly positive direction. Playing in the nation’s biggest media market obliged them to swing bigger than most MLS teams when signing players, even before the rebrand, and they have signed some infamous egos…er, players including Rafa Marquez and Lothar Mattheus, plus another gaggle of high-profile signings who, for whatever reason, missed more than they hit – e.g., Youri Djorkaeff, but old heads remember famous U.S. internationals like Tab Ramos and Claudio Reyna. Going the other way, they have launched a dozen or so famous careers for domestic stars. One could build the short list a couple ways, but I’m going with Jozy Altidore, Michael “Coach’s Son” Bradley, Tim Howard, Tim Ream (still going, like the undead), Tyler Adams, and Luis Robles. Those bright shining stars laid the foundation for the big signings to finally pay off, and that combination allowed them to put together some of the most consistent teams in league history. Circling back to “that’s so Metro,” notice I used the word “consistent,” as opposed to successful. Their best seasons started with the signing of French legend Thierry Henry and continued with Bradley Wright-Phillips – notably, one of the two players, with Robles, who was present for the three Supporters’ Shields the Red Bulls won between 2013 and 2018; it was raining Shields (Hallelujah!) over New Jersey through the mid-2010s. All it took from there was landing the supporting cast, which the Austrian/Red Bull brain-trust did with aplomb by singing players like Tim Cahill, Dax McCarty, (too briefly) Sacha Kljestan, and even Joel Lindpere, Daniel Royer, even deeper cuts like Sean Davis. Perhaps most important in the formula: calling in a succession of rugged, successful defenders like Aaron Long, Tim Parker (for a minute), and Jeff Parke. Those players turned games the Red Bulls would have otherwise tied into wins, the golden formula in MLS, insofar as the league has one. And yet, for all that consistency and success, the Red Bulls have never won a cup final. No, not even the U.S. Open Cup (runners-up twice, the last attempt in 2017). All that has made the Red Bulls the team that MLS fans know today – i.e., the one that qualifies for the playoffs every season (until, um, recently; also, give or take recent “wild card” entries), but never wins it all. They came close, to be sure, in 2024…but, again, they didn’t win it.

Portland Timbers 2-1 Red Bull New York & A Roll-Call

So, the MLS season is...a hug that lasts hours?

Officially taking the next step in the ever-evolving, attempted-shrinking approach to these posts (didn't work) – something that makes ever more sense as the Major League Soccer season shrinks to its borderline tantric close. This might read like a glorified, long-winded reddit post, but I feel like I’ve put readers through enough over the past 20-some-odd years.

By way of framing, I’d call Saturday’s 2-1 win over Red Bull New York great and on a couple levels. Allow me to explain…

The Game, Still More Briefly
With the pressure to post on the same night now alleviated, I’m coming back around to the live game experience. I caught this game from the Multnomah Athletic Club deck (weird experience, which I both do and don’t recommend; and is a mother/son LEGO build the equivalent of a purity ball, or…?), which, despite flattening the vertical space, afforded me a fantastic view of how wide the Timbers spread the field. That felt like a good choice given the Red Bulls’ style of play and, throughout the first half, that held up. Portland piled on the pressure and scored one offside goal (see the full highlights) before Kristoffer Velde engineered a real one at the 28th minute. The Timbers carried that one-goal advantage into the half and well beyond, but the Red Bulls tightened their press at the start of the second half and squeezed it until Emil Forsberg scored a follow-the-bouncing-ball equalizer that matched Matias Rojas’ opener for unlikely good fortune. Portland answered back mere minutes later with a solid team goal that makes a fella want to stand up, salute, and believe in The Product. This season’s budding star, Antony, scored it, but I was lot more excited about the break-neck poise and pace that created it. If Red Bull came close to an equalizer I don’t remember it – the final stats don’t really hint at one - but the main thing that stood out about the performance as a whole was how much Red Bull struggled to play through the Timbers all night. I appreciate that’s hardly their forte, and it did the soul good to see Portland handle a mid-table team like they knew their way around the pitch and, total bonus, neutralize the Red Bulls game-plan.

Long-form thoughts on the Timbers are below, but, before touching on that, let’s do a…

Notes on the MLS Stretch-Run, with the Portland Timbers, FC Cincinnati & Spinal Tap

I've always wanted a girl who believes in Chicago.

We’ve reached that special time in the Major League Soccer calendar when pundits start stitching together posts that look like proofs – i.e., the ones that breakdown all the permutations that will see your local team either eliminated (aka, ded) or alive to fight for one more…let’s face it, almost certainly pointless weekend. A few teams have already been eliminated, of course – goodbye, DC, adieu, Montreal – but that still leaves plenty of teams counting long-dead chickens and hoping they can pawn them off on somebody.

With that in mind, you can add the following to the games I’ll be ignoring for this look ahead at this MLS Week, I dunno, 29? (Nope! It’s Week 33.)

Club du Foot Montreal v St. Louis CITY FC
New England Revolution v Toronto FC
Real Salt Lake v Sporting Kansas City

That doesn’t mean I’ll cover every other game at length, especially when the stakes fall short of existential – i.e., I don’t have much to say about Atlanta United FC v Columbus Crew beyond noting that Columbus needs to win this one and it’ll say something if they don’t, because it’s been a minute since that team saw a W (I count four games). One could argue the same applies to FC Dallas v Austin FC, but that one hits too close to home for me to ignore it.

At any rate, I pulled this together with an eye to get myself back in a sexy regular season mood after the international break. More whip-around than analysis – this will be the biggest possible picture, don’t expect anything on absences (unless I remember them; rare) and keep dreaming on a tactical breakdown - the facts and theories will come fast, but hopefully enough with enough meat on them to make it worth the time. Think the protein blast of riding down the highway on a motorcycle with your mouth open.

Right…starting with games of the most local interest (born in Cincinnati, live in Portland, OR):

FC Cincinnati 1-0 Red Bull New York: Pour One Out for Daniel Edelman...

The Dream, circa June 2025.

To start with a biographical note, for context: I followed FC Cincinnati really closely through the second half of 2018, damn near all of 2019, through the second half of 2020, barely in 2021, through the middle of 2022, and sporadically in 2023. Based on the number of Word docs I have saved in various folders, that came to around 120 games total of attentive viewing, if with the balance coming in seasons when FC Cincy, for lack of a smarter pair of words, fucking sucked…

…a normal fan/person would have been utterly enrapt in the 2023 Supporters' Shield run, but that just meant less to write about for me. I ran out of ways to say, “still killin’ it, full-time and every day.”

After what looked like a complicated 2024 season – i.e., they looked genuinely competitive until the middle of July and/or the defense broke – I decided to reconnect with Cincinnati as my main East Conference squeeze. If nothing else, it felt like a good anchor for keeping an eye on the East, but it came with the added bonus of watching a team that went through at least two ambitious changes in personnel – e.g., the signing of forward Kevin Denkey and swapping Luciano Acosta for recent Portland Timbers transplant, Evander. Both moves speak to the “not-fucking-around” mentality that Cincy’s front office has embraced after those searing, worst seasons.

Part of the work of getting back into the swing with FC Cincy comes with humbly accepting that I’ll need some time to get to know the latest iteration; the first eight-to-ten games of season will be more about learning than dropping judgments from the mountain top (also, not my style). The goal is to be in full, limbs-swinging double-Dutch mode and capable of seeing what's up with clear, perhaps even cold, eyes by mid-summer. We'll see how that goes, but let's start with (the wild guesswork) and...

Getting Reacquainted with Red Bull New York, MLS's Kings of Falling at the First Hurdle

To some, an insurmountable obstacle.

Thumbnail History
Born as the New York/New Jersey MetroStars (and with a logo inspired by, yet embarrassing on, the bottom of a skateboard), aka, Red Bull New York, aka, New Jersey’s finest soccer team, has always been a weird one – e.g., the first time they reached MLS Cup (2008), they made it on a run through MLS’s Western Conference. Despite later, praiseworthy successes (wait for it), few things have defined the MetroStars/Red Bull franchise like their franchise-long failure to take that final, winning step; the once-famous saying, “that’s so Metro” was coined for real and persistent reasons. Their Red Bull/energy-drink era started, both on and off the field, with the 2006 season and, setting aside second slap from the Wooden Spoon in 2009 (the first came in 1999), the deeper pockets and connections have moved the team in a…broadly positive direction. Playing in the nation’s biggest media market obliged them to swing bigger than most when signing players, even before the rebrand, and they have signed some infamous egos, er, players including Rafa Marquez and Lothar Mattheus, as well as some high-profile signings that didn’t quite hit – e.g., Youri Djorkaeff and maybe famous U.S. internationals like Tab Ramos and Claudio Reyna. Going the other way, they have launched a dozen or so famous careers for domestic stars. One could build the short list a couple ways, but I’m going with Jozy Altidore, Michael “Coach’s Son” Bradley, Tim Howard, Tim Ream, Tyler Adams, and Luis Robles (here's their all-time roster, so you can name your own). Those players provided the foundation for the big signings to finally pay off and that combination allowed them to put together some of the most consistent teams in league history – and notice I used the word “consistent,” as opposed to successful. Their best seasons started with the signing of French legend Thierry Henry and continued with Bradley Wright-Phillips – notably, one of the two players, with Robles, who was present for all three of the Supporters’ Shields the Red Bulls won between 2013 and 2018 – leading the line. Yes, it was raining Shields (Hallelujah!) over New Jersey through the mid-2010s. All that star-power relied on getting the supporting cast right and their Austrian brain-trust did with with players like Tim Cahill, Dax McCarty, (too briefly) Sacha Kljestan, and even Joel Lindpere, Garrin Royer, even deeper cuts like Sean Davis. Churning out a succession of rugged, successful defenders like Aaron Long, Jeff Parke, and even Marquez bought a succession of attacking units time to win games the Red Bulls otherwise would have tied. And yet, for all that consistency and success, the Red Bulls have never won a cup final. No, not even the U.S. Open Cup (runners-up twice, the last attempt in 2017). All that has made the Red Bulls the team that MLS fans know today – i.e., the one that qualifies for the playoffs every season, give or take a couple (even if all of those recent “wild card” performances don’t count on the Joy Points Scale).

Total Joy Points: 39

Wrapping Round One of the Playoffs & Pondering a (Potential?) Hole in the Timbers' Roster

This machine, like pundits, lies. I am all man.

With Major League Soccer taking its annual embarrassing mid-playoffs pause (mid-playoffs! nuts!), the urge to jump in and gently pick it apart got hold of me last weekend. The Portland Timbers started their pause a couple three weeks before that, and I’m going to close with some loose notes on that, but let’s start with the post-season.

First and foremost, and as much as it made me giggle immodestly, I’m not going to join in the circle-jerk around Inter Miami CF’s early exit from the 2024 playoffs as The Greatest Upset of All Time – not with the way crowned heads fell off across MLS’s Eastern Conference. Miami’s (admittedly shocking) fall versus(!) Atlanta United FC cleared a path wide enough for Columbus Crew SC to line-dance their way to a second straight title, but they crashed out against a revived Red Bull New York before that path even opened. I’m calling anyone who claims they saw that coming a liar, not least because the Crew survived a mosh-pit of a season and (and!) they beat the Red Bulls on the road, on Decision Day. With everything they had going their way – claiming second in the league after an achingly slow start, a coach all observers mooned over like a young, slim Frank Sinatra, and a roster deep as the Marianas Trench – seeing them get swept rises every inch as high on the Shock-o-Meter as Miami’s early ouster.

FC Cincinnati’s failure to capitalize was far less surprising – especially given that long stumble down the stretch. Having to rebuild the defense late in the season had a lot to do with it, but, from my vague look from a distance, the way the goals and confidence dried up did them in as much as anything. Those particular symptoms notwithstanding, Cincy’s demise highlights a recurring theme across MLS playoffs history the positive power of momentum and its damning opposite. Pat Noonan’s team had labored since the middle of July, which makes that less backing into the playoffs than commuting to and from work in reverse every day. To be clear, nothing about that felt inevitable – New York City FC trekked across their own wilderness before a three-game wining streak lifted them past the play-in (that was with them losing at Montreal on Decision Day in the mix) – and Cincy had enough chances and half-chances to score the go-ahead in Game 3. Maybe it’s something about how long the poison stays in your system after the snake bites.

The Ten Most Interesting Things That Happened in, on, or Before MLS Week 21* (Really. I Did the Math.)

To kick this off with some programming notes:

1) Any and all preview posts I write will go up on reddit from this day forward. It’s the only way I can think to a) rein in the length, and b) keep myself from getting too far over my skis.

2) Portland Timbers match reports will continue go up in this space until a) the heat-death of the sun, b) my own death, c) I move those over to reddit with an eye to reining in their length and keeping myself from getting too far over my skis, or d) I lose interest and close this blog for the 10th(?) time.

3) I have spent literal years figuring out how to both minimize and maximize my soccer/MLS-watching time – which, unless you either get paid to do it or have absolutely nothing else you want to do, truly is an economic exercise.

Up next, a new concept and/or gimmick, depending how you look at it.

Pursuant to Article No. 3 of the preamble, any random fan with a job, a wife, two kids, a cat and a dog (fine, two cats, no dogs; also, one of my all-time favorite movies!), and another hobby can know only so much about the triumphs, sorrows and general goings-on of the 29 teams currently competing in Major League Soccer. With that in mind…and I think I’m still on the preamble…

This post officially launches the [Number] Most Interesting Things That Happened in, on, or Before MLS Week [Number]. Over the first…currently going with 10 weeks of the regular season, it will be Five Things, Week 10-30 (or 25; we'll see) will be Ten things, and Week 30-34 will go back down to Five Things – unless circumstances force me to keep that number higher, which, honestly, I don’t believe they will.

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 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 3: Less Brief Notes on Many Topics

What's new is old, mfs.

Grand Narrative

Major League Soccer Week 3 served up some actual upsets – e.g., Minnesota United FC shivving Orlando City SC in Florida, the Colorado Rapids stunning Rocky Mountain rivals in their fascist-adjacent stadium (i.e., America First is a bit freighted in 2024) – one head-fake upset - e.g., Club du Foot Montreal tripping MLS’s very favorite team on its way to the coronation the league wants like cocaine, fine cigars and cured meats – and at least one blowout – e.g., Atlanta United FC’s stroll over the New England Revolution. It’s all more or less normal from there, if with some noteworthy wrinkles, but there’s still 31 largely meaningless games to go. Plenty of time for rewrites in the script. For most teams, anyway.

In other news, The Mothership’s stubborn refusal to fill in the Form Guide forced me to create a sad old guy version of one (Viva Excel!), but I’m glad I did because, oh, the tiny trends that would have slipped down the memory-hole without it. Don’t get me wrong: a lot of teams are having something close to the normal ups-‘n’-downs – e.g., let’s go with Charlotte FC and RSL or, hell, even Colorado – but then you’ve got New England’s flop-sweat start to 2024, or Sporting Kansas City or Nashville SC’s dead-cat bounce string of draws. Again, these are tiny trends – and I pick at some of them below – but, with some exceptions (hello, San Jose Earthquakes!), not many of those present as permanent conditions thus far. Moving on…

I’m introducing a new segment this week. It’s nothing more or less than stuff that pops in my head as it drifts off during extended highlight sessions (see below for clarification). I haven’t come up wht of a name for it yet, so let’s go with…

Shouts from the Peanut Gallery

1) MLS should be raiding the bench of Europe’s good-to-great clubs looking for high-end depth pieces – the kinds of players the bigger teams sign as either development or insurance. That doesn’t mean they should stop looking for the latest hot, young thing from Central/South America…hold on. I think MLS is already doing this, only before they get to Europe. Still, I’m guessing there’s talent a-wasting on the benches of Europe’s more ambitious clubs, if not the bigger ones.

1a) Is it just me or has MLS essentially and/or completely given up on Central America? If so, is that wise? Half of me thinks probably, but the other half feels like they may be missing out.

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 Red Bull New York, MLS's Ugly Duckling (And All That Means)

Pow.

[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
Born as the New York/New Jersey Metro Stars (and with a logo inspired by, yet embarrassing for, the bottom of a skateboard), Red Bull New York, aka, New Jersey’s finest soccer team, has always been a weird one – e.g., the one time they reached MLS Cup (2008), they made it by way of a run through MLS’s Western Conference. Despite later, praiseworthy successes (wait for it), the Red Bulls have been…haunted, I suppose(?), by a failure to take that final step – hence, the once-famous saying, “that’s so Metro.” Did that start over the earliest seasons when they missed the playoffs almost as often as they made them (they even felt the cruel caress of a Wooden Spoon in 1999), or when they seized their second Wooden Spoon in 2009 (yep! the season after their only MLS Cup)? I don’t know, honestly. What I do know is that the rebrand from MetroStars to Red Bull came in 2006, immediately before that sharp rise to and fall from glory. And yet, that second Wooden Spoon season aside, the Red Bulls became the team that MLS fans know today – i.e., the one that qualifies for the playoffs every single season (which, per one in-house source, is a sportz record). They’ve crossed that threshold with a heavy limp, at times, and more lately than before (i.e., four of the past five seasons). In some ways, that has become the Red Bulls new normal…

Best Season(s)
It’s gotta be one of the three seasons that Red Bull won the Supporters’ Shield, so that’s 2013, 2015 and 2018. All that started with the arrival of France/Arsenal legend Thierry Henry, but he was only around for the 2013 Shield and probably mattered most in terms of creating a culture of success and/or embracing the full potential of having one of the world’s most famous cities (NYC) as a recruitment draw. Only two big-name players were present for all three Shields, both of whom belong on the MLS all-time lists for me: Luis Robles, one of the more underrated goalkeepers in MLS history, and Bradley Wright-Phillips, one of the best pure, poaching goal-scorers the league has ever seen. Midfield machine Dax McCarty deserves honorable mention for being present for two of their Shields, but how much this succession of Red Bull teams rotated and still found good parts to replace the departing ones – e.g., Tim Cahill, Jamison Olave and Tim Cahill in 2013, Damien Perinelle, Sacha Kljestan and (why not?) Mike Grella in 2015, and Aaron Long, Sean Davis and Daniel Royer in 2018 - is more or less the story.

Red Bull New York 1-2 FC Cincinnati: Tactics & Strategery

No, I can't explain the W references...

Sometimes I get strategy and tactics confused. It’s less a question of knowing what one word/concept means versus the other, so much as deciding where one meets the other on its way in the other direction.

I had a whole narrative banged out for this game. It had smart little sub-plots, intrigue between the characters, maybe even a touch of hubris. Then FC Cincinnati went and won the damn thing with a late goal by, yeah, I’ll say it, my favorite who likes to match orange & blue, Obinna Nwobodo. [Ed. - The Mothership didn't provide much for individual highlights, so you'll have to dig into the full ones if you want video on, say, the penalty calls.]

Cincy beat a rising(?) Red Bull New York team in its own house, but that’s not the important thing about this game; moreover, just naming Nwobodo opens up a path to talking about what happened in last night’s 2-1 win. [Ed. – Fuck me, man. Just spit out the final score.]

I did some preliminary research on the Red Bulls yesterday, stuff I chose not to post on the grounds that I was looking at it last night, Cincy played them last night, etc. Most of what I learned dealt with characteristics that simultaneously define and limit them as a team. Famously, they press, they play “energy drink soccer,” etc. But it’s also not that – and I have to credit Calen Carr for giving me the right thought process during RBNY’s stomping of Atlanta United FC a few weeks back. They don’t press so much as they try to dictate where on the field the game gets played; to borrow another phrase Carr uses all the time, “they tilt the field.” “Pressing” and “energy drink” soccer conjure mental images of players chasing ball and players like headless ‘roided-up greyhounds and that misses it; if you watch them, the move close to the ball, often at a walk, then they start with the chasing. They mind their Ps and Qs before setting the defensive posture to “MY BALL!”

That strategy (right?) worked very well through the first half. Cincinnati didn’t do much over the first 25 minutes of the game and they couldn't do anything for the next 20. New York (I know it’s New Jersey....just roll with it) got and scored their penalty at the beginning of that period – and, just to note, I wouldn’t have called that, letter of the law be damned; sure, Hagglund’s hand strayed to face, but Kyle Duncan wasn’t gonna make shit out of that, he didn’t really unbalance him, etc. – but they way they controlled the game struck me as more significant. Cincy barely got across the center-line until something like the 46th minute when they (don’t remember who) finally fired a decent shot from a quality chance on goal and, yes, I do think that’s how xG should work. (I’ve got issues all over...)

MLS Week 22 Preview: On the Clout Maintenance Parade

Apt. And possibly copyrighted.

Gonna just kind of riff through the match-ups. Make it conversational...if in the espirit d'escalier vein.

Just to note it, I have two questions in my head when talking about any game: what is the likeliest result and how much would any other result matter?

To be clear, I mean the word “matter” in the context of Major League Soccer, a league where meaningful change occurs at geological speed. On with it...

Major League Soccer’s Week 22 kicks off smartly with the New England Revolution visiting FC Cincinnati – and no doubt scheming about how to batter or otherwise breach the walls of Fortress TQL. I imagine the U.S. Men’s pulverizing of St. Kitts & Nevis means Cincy won’t have Matt Miazga for another week, so maybe that’s the lever to finally crack Cincy’s home form. Only bad gamblers believe random events can be in any way “due,” so I’ll only say this: a Revolution win would make a good argument that they’ve pushed through their blues. Related/unrelated, FC Cincinnati has built a reputation they’re now damned to uphold until that burden falls from their shoulders.

That theme carries through a lot of the other games, or at least the good ones. I’d call...let’s go with “clout maintenance” as the primary theme of Week 22. To wit: Club de Foot Montreal will want to maintain his Cincy-esque home form – and their lifeline – by beating a limping New York City FC; the same goes double for the San Jose Earthquakes, who face the horror of waking up Sunday morning knowing that thousands observers will no longer say “yeah, but their home form,” with the same breezy confidence that people say, “yeah, but it’s a dry heat” (as you’re sweating off eight pounds just talking to them) if they hand even one point to the visiting/suffering Los Angeles Galaxy; finally, St. Louis CITY FC should expect to feel a similar heat (now, with humidity!) if they drop points to a visiting Colorado Rapids team with a straight-up shitty record of picking up any points no matter how hard the other team drops them. Another commonality in all those games: wins by any of NYC, the Galaxy or the Rapids won’t change many minds or raise low opinions.

MLS Week 21 (Probably?) Review: All the Thoughts I Had Before Falling Asleep on Monday

Okay, forward passes enable communism!

In order to get these league-wide wraps posted timely, I’m sticking with reviews and posting on Mondays (or Tuesdays). That simplifies the format (woot-woot), which goes something like this: I list all the games I look at – some of them longer than others (and [see the brackets] after every final score) – pass on the better notes that came to me as I watched what I watched in varying degrees of consciousness, embed a link to the MLSSoccer.com game summary in the final score (but otherwise don't link to shit), then move on to the next one. Now, please make sure your seat belts are fastened and extinguish any smoking materials, because this flight’s about to take off...starting with some loose thoughts that interrupted my fugue state...

At this point in the season, a growing number of games come down to which team of the two playing have more things nailed down. About 90% of that thought comes from watching Real Salt Lake and Atlanta United FC for long stretches – and, to flag which is which, RSL always looked like they had a chance to come back; Atlanta, meanwhile, played like a team that had been conditioned out of doing anything decisive by shock collars. Start watching for this. Also, don’t expect it to be a permanent condition. Only the good teams do that.

Something else that struck me this weekend: you don’t always see a goal coming – and not just in the “against the run of play” sense of the word. I think fans still get skittish about admitting this, but this game really can deliver a whole lot of running about and little more by the scores of minutes.

Finally, I imagine every week sees a Goal of the Week that wasn’t, but, Hector Herrera’s divine-but-for attempt against Austin? Better than 60% of the goals you saw and more inspired than all of them. R.I.P.

Well, that’s it for the chit-chat. Let’s talk about the games! Or at least the ones I care about.

The Weakly, MLS Week 11 & 12: A (Long) Telephone-Style Conversation Between Two Weekends

And we are sad about it.

Just a wee wrinkle to the formula for this week’s Weakly: I’m making these posts more of a dialogue with the previous week’s post (here you go, for reference). So long as these Weakly reviews amount to an examination of expectations, why not build the Grand Narrative from that?

Also, and to spare all y’all a little time, I’m going to reduce the review notes for MLS Week 11 into a succession of bullet-points with some links tossed in. With that, let’s have...

The Story of MLS Week 11...
...and in the order they played the games.

New York City fed the doubting rumors about their road form with a 3-2 road loss at a Charlotte FC team suddenly showing the faintest of pulses; Enzo Copetti scored a nice pair.

FC Cincinnati keeps doing the business at home – where they are perfect, btw – with a 2-1 win over DC United (and Alvaro Barreal's net-buster deserves a shout!), while DC reverted to playing the valiant losers...and here’s where I acknowledge that, yes, we have no bananas...I mean, I won’t be doing stand-alone Cincinnati posts anymore. No audience, you see...

Inter Miami CF both exceeded expectations in their 2-1 home win over Atlanta United FC and supported my theory about Atlanta’s shaky defense – i.e., it’s the second shakiest in the East (hello, Charlotte!) and tied for the second-worst defense in MLS with...fuck me, the Portland Timbers. Josef Martinez stepped into history (100 goals scored) with a fun one.

Did Club de Foot Montreal turn the corner with its 2-0 home win versus Orlando City SC, or has Orlando simply become the living symbol for MLS famed unpredictability?

Red Bull New York has looked nothing if not beatable all season long, but would a CCL-weary Philadelphia Union team be the victims they need? Nope! Philly won 1-0 on the road and Gerhard Struber hit the road this morning. Tidy!

The San Jose Earthquakes also got a potentially innervated side, but, as noted below, I think that only helped them see out their 2-1 home win over Los Angeles FC.

A Casual Fan's Review, MLS Week 7: A Good Weekend with a Major Blemish & Another Cincy Win

Massive lint ball on fire. Who knew?

To get the mechanics out of the way, I’ve sprinkled the final results for every game in Major League Soccer’s Week 7 somewhere below in this post; I’ve also embedded links to The Mothership’s roundup/data in the final score for each. The commentary includes three featured matches – one of which will always be what FC Cincinnati did that weekend (and almost all good stuff so far), and I'll note how much and where I watched of the other two games – plus a round up the rest at the end in a section titled, “Now...The Rest Of It.” And, yes, I do watch too much Last Week Tonight, but aren't we all aging together in the end? After that, it's whatever insights and agreements I get from Matt Doyle's weekly roundup, whatever stuck from Sam Jones' Daily Kickoff and a bunch of brain lint from previous posts that somehow stick in my head. For good or ill...

Up next, some bullshit...

The Red Bull New York/San Jose Earthquakes game exploded into chaos and ended far, far later than it should have courtesy of a now-confirmed use of a racial slur from Dante Vanzier. I don't want kick around the fact patterns overly - at least not behind noting how much sentences like this, “Further information will be provided upon completion of that investigation,” piss me off, and the fact that the highlights skipped the incident entirely, even as The Mothership gently buries it - but I can't think of one meaningful question that needs answering. Vanzier said what he said or he didn’t and that doesn’t take much investigating. And, per this press release, it’s pretty goddamn clear that he did. What to do about it is less simple.

First and foremost, unless you can prove a toxic culture with the Red Bull organization, the main thing I want is a punishment that communicates to the player, in the clearest possible terms, that he crossed the wrong goddamn line. I saw people call for Vanzier's expulsion from the league and, sure, that's an option, but I would also gently suggest that most foreign players don't fully appreciate just how fraught race relations are in this country right now - and I make that point with real fucking firm opinions as to who's making them fraught (the right wing, the rural and the religious). My own thought is, so long as you believe that even a rabid skinhead can be rehabilitated – and I do because it does happen – you treat Vanzier like something less than an unreconstructed racist. I’m fine with a chunky suspension, something along the lines of a quarter of the season (8 games, basically) and a very rigid probation period that results in the termination of Vanzier’s contract if he fucks up again. And I’d suspend Gerhard Struber for at least four games for his refusal to sub Vanzier out as a gesture toward restoring calm. And, hey, maybe a suspension feels too much like collective punishment for a one-(ish)-man crime, so I'd also be okay with fining the bejesus out of Vanzier; hell, maybe that's what you go with because that's what Vanzier, personally, will feel most. He fucked up, so kick him, but then see where things go from there. [Update: I'm still kicking this around, so think of the above as thinking out loud.] [Update to the Update: Charlie Davies made a case, and a damned good one, for a season-long suspension. Hit this link and scroll down to the video. He's right in my mind.]