And now, with Leagues Cup in the rearview, the home stretch is officially here. We’ve got new faces leaving their mark – for good and for bad – in places like Minnesota, New England, St. Louis and Carson. We’ve got both New York sides missing an opportunity. We’ve got Dallas flowing from back to front.
Lots of stuff to cover. But we’ll start with an Inter Miami side that might’ve made the Supporters’ Shield race academic:
The Herons didn’t officially win anything on Saturday night. The Supporters’ Shield race is still, factually, a race. I mean, they didn’t even technically expand their lead, since their 2-0 win over visiting FC Cincinnati was matched by the technically-second-place Galaxy’s 2-0 win over Atlanta. Miami came into the night up four; they exited the night up four.
But Miami have a game in hand and a softer remaining schedule than the Galaxy (six of LA’s final seven are vs. playoff teams, and the one that’s not is next week’s trip to a St. Louis side that could very well score a touchdown). Miami have, as per Tata Martino in the postgame presser, the greatest player in the sport’s history training again, and he's expected to make his return in the coming weeks. They have the ability to survive red cards and the ability to change shape when they need to – as they did vs. Cincy.
They have answers everywhere. They have had them all year, save for one-night blips scattered here and there throughout the season, though with ever-decreasing frequency as Martino’s side has gotten healthy, and jelled.
If they were going to falter, I think it would’ve happened by now. The Copa América absences of Leo Messi, Luis Suárez, Mati Rojas and Diego Gómez would’ve proved too much. Or there would’ve been playing time-related internal friction. Or Sergio Busquets – a genius, who is also forever underappreciated as an innings-eating workhorse – would’ve broken down. Or the defense would’ve fallen apart.
None of that has happened. The one moment when it looked like it might’ve was the last time they met Cincy, which turned into a 6-1 rout for the Garys.
“I think they were up for this game," head coach Pat Noonan – who was suspended for Saturday night’s affair – said after that win in July, his side’s best this year. “Of course, they understand the magnitude and the implications, but you still have to have a level of focus and understand how we're trying to approach this game to have success.”
That focus was nowhere to be found for Cincy this time. Instead it was Miami who came out focused, relentless and ruthless, as it took Suárez less than 30 seconds to crack the defense:
Five minutes later, after an uncharacteristic giveaway from Obinna Nwobodo, Suárez made it 2-0. And that was pretty much game, set, match. Even when the Herons went down to 10 men, following Toto Áviles’ deserved red card just before the break, the visitors could not find a breakthrough, and only twice did they come particularly close.
“We didn't suffer very much,” Martino offered in Spanish afterwards, pointing to his team’s “organization, commitment, sticking to our style of play, because staying organized was crucial to closing out the game … the order of the team meant that we didn't risk the match.”
That order and organization came out of a 3-4-2-1 with Busquets in the middle of a back three, flanked by Áviles and David Martínez. I think three things underpinned the formation shift:
- Mirror Cincy’s shape to deny them an advantage in width, which the Garys had used to good effect in that 6-1 win.
- Get Busquets on the ball as early in the build-up as possible in order to drag Cincy’s press higher and create gaps between their lines.
- Get Yannick Bright out there as a pure, box-to-box midfield destroyer.
Busquets and Bright don’t make a ton of sense together in the same midfield. But the balance changes when Busquets drops back a line, and while Bright is, first and foremost, a ball-winner, you can see his game evolving as the year pushes on. That’s him with the secondary assist on Suárez’s opener, with a nice little angled pass to put Marcelo Weigandt into space.
They are deep, flexible and adaptable. They have avenged their one true humiliation this year (in the league, anyway; I’m hoping they get to meet Rayados in next year’s Concacaf Champions Cup), and they are actually looking healthier and fresher down the stretch. They have not quite evolved into a thundering, pitch-controlling juggernaut, but it feels like that step is entirely possible by the end of next month.
And so now it’s about finishing the job. Miami’s players were quick to point out in the postgame that they hadn’t done anything (except qualify for the playoffs, which they clinched on the night) yet, and obviously that’s the attitude they have to take into the final eight weeks of the season.
But the writing’s on the wall. Cincy’s Shield defense almost certainly came to an end, as they’re now down eight points with eight games to play. The Galaxy need to hold serve and hope Miami slip. The Crew could win all three of their games in hand and Miami would still have a four-point lead. If LAFC win both of theirs, the lead would be three.
It feels, now, like the Herons are playing not just for a trophy, but for some history. They’re on 2.15 ppg, the exact, record-setting, Shield-winning pace set by the Revs in 2021.
They have faced endless questions. They have had almost all the answers.
Peter Luccin has been the interim head coach of FC Dallas for a little over two months now, and they have been, by and large, two pretty good months overall. This is in spite of a surfeit of injuries, both short (Asier Illarramendi, Jesús Ferreira, Patrickson Delgado, too many others to list) and long-term (Alan Velasco, Geovane Jesus, Paxton Pomykal). And it’s in spite of a still-under-construction backline and a roster that’s kludged together to the point that it’s hard to tell what formation they should actually be playing.
Then the Leagues Cup came, and with it, Dallas’s good vibes went. First, they lost 2-1 at a St. Louis team that simply had more firepower. Then, with advancement to the knockout rounds on the line, they more or less didn’t come out of the locker room in a limp 2-0 home loss vs. FC Juárez.
So when Petar Musa was a late scratch for Saturday’s match at D.C. United, and then when Christian Benteke headed the hosts to an early 1-0 lead, it looked like Luccin’s spell had been broken. Dallas were winless away from home on the season, and now all three DPs were out of the XI. The good vibes were gone.
But this is a different los Toros Tejanos team now. One that harkens back to some of the very best Dallas sides of the 2010s. That means they can do stuff like answer directly back on a set piece – which they did through Nkosi Tafari – and can also do stuff like this:
That kind of flowing, relentless build-up is the one thing that had most gone missing under previous manager Nico Estévez. Estévez, like Luccin, had put a premium on having the ball. Unlike Luccin, Estévez’s teams had baked into them a caution bordering on timidity, to the point where having the ball seemed like an end unto itself.
Not now. You can actually hear color commentator Jalil Anibaba talking about it in the above clip – Luccin giving Dallas’s players confidence to play forward. Often when they would break a press under Estévez, they wouldn’t capitalize, and would instead settle into standard build patterns out of their 3-2-2-3 possession shape. Getting to that shape and those patterns seemed to be the goal.
Under Luccin, the core principle seems to be: When you beat a defender, or a line of defense, make sure they stay beat. If they recover well and catch up to the play, then ok, go into your possession patterns.
But that’s not plan A. The whole point of having the ball is to disorganize the opponents, and if you’ve done that, then keep doing it. Never let a scrambled defense go to waste!
They basically never did on Saturday, eventually walking away with all three points thanks to a wild, 4-3 win.
“I am so proud of this group. The last two weeks helped us grind as a group. Peter Luccin\] really pulled us together and we wanted to fix things that we felt were not good enough,” said midfielder [Sebastian Lletget, who had 1g/2a and is, I would argue, playing his best soccer in half a decade. “We showed a lot of that today, but as a group we still want to minimize the amount of goals we concede. We move forward and we got the first three points away from home and that is huge for us.”
It’s huge from an emotional standpoint, as well as from a postseason standpoint. The win brought Dallas up to 10th, a point behind Austin, with eight games to play
D.C. are both dead last in the East, and only two points out of a play-in spot. Their attack is fun, but their defense remains mismatched and undermanned, as has been the story all year long:
I would suspect that, at the very least, we’ve seen the last of Cristian Dájome at right back.
10. Brad Stuver.
There is a lot to like so far about the summer window retooling that Rodo Borrell undertook for the Verde, but the load-bearing wall upon which any hope of a postseason appearance is built is goalkeeper Brad Stuver. He put in a man-of-the-match performance for Austin in their 2-0 win at Nashville on Saturday night, with a saved penalty early in the first half to keep it scoreless and then an absolute stunner on a Brian Anunga blast early in the second to keep his side ahead. He rounded it off with a 1v1 stop of Sam Surridge late, when it was still just 1-0 and sprinkled in solid, unflappable positioning throughout.
This was Austin’s final game of the season vs. a non-playoff team. They needed it badly if they were to have any hope of making the postseason.
Stuver got it for them. He was amazing.
Nashville… were not. Not only did they lose a winnable home game, but they also had to sub out new midfielder Pat Yazbek (who was having a good & influential game) just past the half-hour, after “allegations of the use of offensive language.”
The ‘Yotes are down to 14th in the East. They’ve lost seven straight in league play, and have been shut out in their past three.
9. The other team truly in the race for the final spot out West is Minnesota, who got a dose of the duality of the transfer window: New DP striker Kelvin Yeboah was awesome, with a well-earned brace. New center back Jefferson Díaz had a disasterclass, playing a central role in each of Seattle’s first two goals in what eventually became a 3-2 Sounders win:
Minnesota are down to 11th in the West, below the playoff line for the first time all year. They haven’t shown signs of life in months.
The Sounders are up to fifth, a point back of Colorado. They played in their typical 4-2-3-1 in this one, and I think they’ll keep that shape for the rest of the year – especially since Pedro De La Vega came in and looked good on the left wing.
But I am convinced they’ll be switching to a 3-5-2 for Wednesday’s US Open Cup semifinal against LAFC. Brian Schmetzer was so insistent that second-half sub Reed Baker-Whiting was definitely not playing as a wingback that it absolutely felt like a “doth protest too much” situation.
8. I thought Charlotte manager Dean Smith sufficiently summed up his side’s disappointing 1-1 home draw vs. the Red Bulls:
“Frustrating game, I felt,” Smith said. “Both teams looked rusty, untidy at times… can’t make that many unforced errors in the final third and that’s on us.”
The road point kept the Red Bulls in fourth, three points ahead of their next-door neighbors and four points up on Charlotte. They’re now unbeaten in nine – two wins and seven draws. They’re up to 12 draws on the season now, and have a shot at the single-season club record of 16.
They outshot the hosts by a 2-1 margin and nearly doubled them up on xG. This game is maybe exhibit A in the “good team that lacks the attacking quality to be a great team” argument.
7. Could I say the same about the Pigeons? Alonso Martínez staked his team to a 2-0 lead thanks to a first-half brace, and yet New York City FC kind of collapsed in the second half in what ended up being a 2-2 home draw with Chicago.
I’m not sure it’s a lack of quality, though. It feels more like a lack of clarity – there are times when they appear unsure as to whether they’re supposed to be on the ball or playing against it – and, for lack of a better word, ruthlessness. They have a habit of… it’s not quite taking their foot off the gas, per se. But letting go of the rope a little bit in terms of dictating the game AND playing with attacking purpose. Sometimes, with this team, it feels like one or the other, and that’s how this current five-game winless skid was built.
Credit to the Fire, though: this was a very good point that keeps them within touching distance of the final play-in spot. They’re on 26 points, just two back of Atlanta.
6. The Revs went up to Montréal and battered the hosts, coming away with all three points via a 5-0 win. I’m giving Carles Gil our pass of the week for this, though obviously he has to share it with Giacomo Vrioni, since the big man’s dummy is what makes the goal:
New England are now up to 12th in the East, a point back of Montréal and Philly and just two points back of Atlanta in ninth. They are, however, dead even with both Atlanta and Philly on 1.08 points per game, and since the start of June, they are 6W-4L-1D in the league, which is pretty clearly a playoff-caliber pace.
Obviously Gil’s health is a primary concern. They also got a strong performance from newly healthy Dylan Borrero on one wing, and newly arrived Luca Longoni on the other.
I’m gonna focus on the oft-maligned Vrioni, though. How many center forwards – especially ones just returning from injury (the Revs have a lot of that happening, obviously) – leave that for a defender when the game’s more or less already decided? I feel like it’s not a lot.
Vrioni got the karmic payback later when he picked up New England’s fourth goal on the night. He’s now up to 12g/3a in about 2000 minutes across all competitions, and has led the line both unselfishly and well. New England are absolutely in the hunt.
Montréal still are as well, technically. But they’ve won three games in the past four months, and have two of their next three on the road. I’m not sure I see a path up above the red line for them.
5. Toronto pulled off something of a shocker, going to Houston and coming away with all three points thanks to Prince Owusu’s goal off a Federico Bernardeschi (thankfully healthy after that Leagues Cup scare) corner. They’ve now got six points of breathing room between themselves in eighth and the chasing pack in 10th.
Of course, it came at a cost: both Bernardeschi and Jonathan Osorio picked up yellow cards that will keep them out of next week’s home game against D.C., so that six-point margin could get sliced up pretty quickly.
“It’s been the story this season,” manager John Herdman said afterward. “I tend to expect that it’s not going to go as planned. Even some of the subs we had to make tonight weren’t ones that were planned because of fatigue, potential injury. So you know, this is the wild MLS.
“We keep saying this: we have to go next man up with TFC. It’s been like that this season. To lose your skip is never good, and to lose Federico and the impact he has is never good.”
The Reds have a must-win Canadian Championship semifinal on Tuesday, so it’ll be a busy week.
Ok, now I will acknowledge that Dynamo fans are grumbling at my characterization of this result being “something of a shocker,” because, at this point, Dynamo fans are in fact not shocked at dropped home points. Even when they play pretty well, which I honestly feel like they did in this one, they’re finding a way to drop points, and are now just 4W-3L-5D at home this year.
I made the case on Extratime last week that they were well-positioned to charge into the top four, and maybe even top three.
Now they are eighth, and staring at a trip to LAFC next weekend. Things could get worse before they get better.
4. An actual shocker: RSL face-planting at home against the Quakes, who clearly carried some of that Leagues Cup momentum forward with them into this stretch run. Well done to the Quakes, who capitalized on a series of bad RSL turnovers playing out of the back, which they turned into a 2-0 lead that became a 2-0 win.
Poorly done by RSL, who weren’t helped at all by Zac MacMath’s howler on the opener, and then had injury added to insult when Chicho Arango limped off on the half-hour with what’s been reported as a hamstring tweak.
This doesn’t quite end RSL’s hopes of finishing atop the West – they still have a very soft schedule – but, well, it’s hard to feel all that confident given the way they’ve played over the past six weeks, the ongoing issues in goal, and Arango’s injury mixed with the departure of Andrés Gómez.
3. Sporting KC have slowly been digging themselves out of a massive hole, and that continued with a dominant 3-0 home win over Orlando on Saturday night.
Moving Jake Davis to d-mid a couple of months ago has been a catalyst for this run of good form for Sporting, who are 4W-2L-1D in their last seven in the league, and who are into the US Open Cup semis this week. They’re winning more balls in central midfield because of Davis’s energy, and as he showed on the night’s opener – a true golazo – he is not unskilled out there.
Part of it, though, is that things are kind of breaking their way right now:
Two months ago this is an Orlando equalizer. Instead it goes down the other way and Dániel Sallói drives home the dagger. Funny little game.
That’s our Face of the Week right there. Sallói’s a good player who’s had a tough, snake-bitten year. It’s nice to see him with reason to smile.
I still think Sporting are out of it – they’re seven points below the line and everybody they’re chasing has a game in hand. But between Davis’s ascent, the play of William-not-Willy Agada and Stephen Afrifa, and maybe a Sallói rebirth, you can see the makings of a better 2025 side.
Orlando saw their five-game unbeaten run snapped, and they are now just one point above the play-in. Their next three, however, are at home. They have a chance to make up some ground.
2. St. Louis had their chance to make up some ground in the West, and for most of Saturday night’s epic 4-4 draw at Portland, it looked like they would do it. Instead, they coughed up three separate two-goal leads – 2-0, 3-1 and 4-2. And thus they remain 10 points below the line.
The good news: all the summer window attacking signings (Marcel Hartel, Cedric Teuchert, Simon Becher) look good-to-excellent. I think they are a better and more dynamic all-around team now, meaning that they can change phases of play more quickly and can actually do stuff with the ball now because of the quality those guys bring.
The bad news: Even with the additions of Henry Kessler and Jannes Horn, that backline still needs a lot of work. And I remain unconvinced about the ability of the deep-lying central midfield duo to do the defensive work against top attacking teams.
And that, of course, is the rub: Portland are a top, top attacking team. They’ve scored the second-most goals in the league and, in Evander, have a No. 10 who can dominate games in typical No. 10 ways (he’s in the 90th percentile or higher for basically every relevant playmaker stat), but can also just physically impose himself in a way that, say, Lucho Acosta or Carles Gil can not.
Just dunking on a fullback at the back post, eh? That is vicious.
Between Evander, Jonathan Rodríguez and Felipe Mora (who got a very naughty red card and will be lucky to avoid an extra game or two tacked onto his suspension), the Timbers have three guys with at least a dozen goals. Only four other teams have ever done that.
Even with the dropped points they are right in that 4-through-8 mix in the West. And with games against Seattle, Colorado, RSL and Vancouver coming up, they can definitely start climbing.
1. And finally, welcome to MLS, Marco Reus!
Under no circumstances should that man have that much time and space in the box with a game in the balance, but Atlanta found a way.
The Galaxy took care of business with their 2-0 win, keeping them top of the West on points. Atlanta are down in 9th in the East, hanging on for dear life.
