Inter Miami CF unveil 2getherness Jersey
Inter Miami CF have unveiled a new primary jersey for the 2024 MLS season, the 2getherness Jersey by adidas. Shop for your jersey at MLSstore.com.
Inter Miami midfielder Cremaschi out with sports hernia
Inter Miami CF are down another key player before the 2024 MLS season, announcing Saturday homegrown midfielder Benjamin Cremaschi has undergone sports hernia surgery. The 18-year-old US international, who remains eligible for Argentina, is expected to be sidelined between two to three months.
New York City FC loan Acevedo back to Bahia
New York City FC have loaned midfielder Nicolás Acevedo back to Brazilian top-flight side Bahia. The new agreement runs through December 2024 with a purchase option at the end of the season, as well as an obligation to buy if certain performance-based goals are met. The 24-year-old was part of NYCFC’s MLS Cup 2021-winning team and is currently rehabbing from a torn ACL in his right knee.
Portland Timbers sign Moreno to contract extension
The Portland Timbers have signed midfielder Santiago Moreno to a contract extension through the 2026 MLS season with an option in 2027. Moreno is entering his fourth season in Portland, having registered 10g/21a in 78 matches since arriving from Colombian side América de Cali as a U22 Initiative signing.
Orlando City loan González to Nacional
Orlando City SC have loaned Gastón González to Uruguayan powerhouse side Nacional through 2024 with a purchase option. The 22-year-old Argentine winger notched 0g/2a in 18 games (seven starts) last season while Orlando finished as Supporters' Shield runners-up. González initially joined the club in May 2022 as a U22 Initiative signing from Unión de Santa Fe in his native Argentina. However, he was immediately placed on the Season Injury List after suffering an ACL injury before his arrival.
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NYCFC loaning Nicolás Acevedo back out got me thinking. The Pigeons are coming off their first year without a playoff appearance since their inaugural season in 2015. In that stretch from 2016-2022, NYCFC racked up more points than any team in MLS, averaging 53.7 points per year. Their worst finish in the East came in 2020. They finished fifth.
Y’all get the point. Last year’s 11th-place finish is an extreme outlier for a club that normally has everything together. Typically, you’d assume 2024 is a year to bounce back and reclaim a spot near the top of the East, but is that in the cards for NYCFC? Or any of the teams who missed out on a playoff spot last year?
It’s MLS. We have to assume there will be weirdness and depth issues and all the things that tilt the league toward parity. But, right now, while we’re still basing all of our opinions on loose depth charts in a spreadsheet every journalist in the MLS community seems to have access to (not a joke), the East is incredibly stacked. We’re talking Best Conference Ever kind of stacked. Teams 1-6 in the standings last year all appear to be good enough to be right back near the top of the standings. Seventh-place Nashville are banking on DP forward Sam Surridge and Hany Mukhtar’s back holding up a little too much to consider them a contender, but they’re going to play a high-floor style that will keep them in the conversation. Where’s the room for everyone else?
The answer isn’t clear right now. But it seems it’s going to take a heckuva year-long performance to break through in the East. And I’m not talking about sneaking into a Wild Card spot just to eventually get smacked by a first seed and probable Shield winner, I’m talking about really breaking through. Who could possibly have that in them?
Oh. Yeah. Right. These guys.
Still, there are questions about how many points they’ll actually rack up, especially now that injuries are piling before the season even starts. Like, long-term injuries to young players who were going to need to help carry the load throughout a congested schedule where they get every opponent’s best shot almost every time out.
Still, they’ll be in a playoff spot barring an apocalypse-level disaster of a season. But I don’t think we can assume they’ll be in the top four. And it’s definitely not clear yet which high-performer from 2023 will be kicked out of a top spot. This is going to be tougher than you think. Probably.
With this version of Inter Miami in the picture, it seems relatively clear who the seven best teams in the East are. Toronto and Chicago will likely be fighting with the rest of this group and/or some team that inexplicably/inevitably blows up from the other group for a Wild Card spot…..at least for the first few games.
As far as non-Miami usurpers go, the Red Bulls are maybe the most intriguing group of the bunch. They had elite underlying numbers last year, but didn’t have the pieces to make it truly count. With the addition of DP attacker Emil Forsberg, they’ve potentially added exactly the kind of piece they needed. If Lewis Morgan is around and healthy this year, that’s another huge boost.
They’re going to make the playoffs either way. That’s in the MLS deep magic at this point. But there’s a chance they could do a whole lot of Red Bullsy things at a high level and work their way into the top seven. That doesn’t mean they’ll be able to break a five-year string of Round One exits, but they could be good. Not like 2018 Red Bulls good. But good.
Look, it seems like new manager Dean Smith got to Charlotte and didn’t necessarily like what he saw. That’s understandable. Even after making the Wild Card last year, it seemed clear The Crown’s roster needed a boost in cohesion and top-level talent. Naturally, Charlotte went out and made a handful of big signings to try and take a decent team and make it a great te…….what’s that?.....[checking]....oh, oops, never mind, their only two signings so far are from MLS NEXT Pro. So. Tough to count on Charlotte right now.
Montréal could be better this year. They should utilize a game model that’s a little closer to what brought them so much success in 2022. But they still seem a long way from breaking into the East’s elite. This is a year for progress under new manager Laurent Courtois and probably not much else.
There is a world where D.C. United is in the West for no explainable reason and they get into the playoffs with like 45 points after outlasting a bunch of other teams with like 45 points. They seem like they’ll be fine. But fine ain’t gonna get you all that far in the East this year.
And, lastly, we’re back to NYCFC. They finished with 41 points last season and the second-lowest goal-scoring total of any team in the East. That’s, admittedly, pretty atrocious. It’s definitely bad by NYCFC standards. But things weren’t always completely terrible.
It took far too long, but NYCFC finally added a striker in the summer window. Once Mounsef Bakrar showed up, things got better. Not great, but better. Over the final 10 games of the season, the Pigeons averaged 1.50 points per game, the seventh-best mark in the East over that stretch. 1.5 points per game over the course of a full 34-game season would have put them at a much more NYCFC-esque 51 points for the year. Fifty-one points would have put them seventh in the East.
Of course, it’s not a given they’ll be at that standard this year. But having an actual striker to start the season helps. Having midfielder James Sands at the start of the season helps. Bringing in winger Hannes Wolf from Borussia Mönchengladbach could help. And pushing a number of moves over the line that have already been rumored could really, really help.
Still, there will be a lot of questions heading into the start of the year. They could be primed to jump right back into the thick of things in the East, or they could be a decent team that doesn’t have the firepower to compete week-to-week with so many good-to-great teams. All told, though, it feels like the most chaotic versions of this year's East run through New York.
New York Red Bulls sign MLS SuperDraft pick O’Connor: The New York Red Bulls have signed center back Aidan O’Connor through the 2024 MLS season with options from 2025-27. RBNY selected O’Connor No. 12 overall (first round) in the 2024 MLS SuperDraft presented by adidas after his time at the University of Virginia. The defender also played NCAA soccer at Western Michigan University.
LAFC end loan for Krastev: LAFC and parent club Lommel SK have mutually agreed to end Filip Krastev's loan. From there, he has moved to Eredivisie side PEC Zwolle. The 22-year-old Bulgarian international midfielder originally joined the Black & Gold last July from Belgium's second tier. His deal ran through June 2024 with a purchase option.
- Charles Boehm took a closer look at LAFC's winter of change.
- Emil Forsberg scored a must-see preseason goal for Red Bulls.
Good luck out there. Shoot from deep.
