Pochettino named USMNT head coach
U.S. Soccer announced Tuesday that Mauricio Pochettino will take over the USMNT. After weeks of reports and speculation, the Argentine coach replaces Gregg Berhalter, who was relieved of his duties in July following the USMNT's group-stage exit at Copa América 2024.
New England Revolution coach Porter fined & suspended for public criticism
Major League Soccer today announced that New England Revolution head coach Caleb Porter has been fined $20,000 and suspended one match for his comments regarding officiating following New England’s match against St. Louis CITY SC on September 7. Porter will serve his suspension on September 14 against Orlando City SC.
At this point in the year, the top of the MLS hierarchy is clear. We know who the true contenders are. We know who’s proven throughout the season they’re good enough to win a trophy. Columbus, Inter Miami, LAFC are the clear favorites followed closely by the LA Galaxy and FC Cincinnati. RSL has seen some changes in the last few weeks, but we can put them in that second tier relatively comfortably. But what about everyone else?
A knockout tournament setup allows teams who get hot at the right time to make an impact. All it takes is a few breaks and a few standout performances. We’ve seen it plenty of times before. Sometimes you even get a team like 2016 Seattle winning it all.
A few teams are already hot at the right time. A couple of others could get hot at the right time if their newest talent makes an immediate splash. Starting with…
Yeah, we’re definitely working back to front here as far as odds go. But we’re talking about long shots. Not sure-fire winners.
Atlanta United is coming off an impressive 1-0 win at Charlotte where they looked a lot like the team that went down to Miami and won 3-1 against a fully healthy Herons side. Those two road performances this season are enough to inspire the smallest possible sliver of optimism.
They’ve had good-to-great underlying numbers for most of the season and now new DP Alexey Miranchuk seems like he might be good enough to lift the whole team. If the ball just starts going in when Atlanta has big chances (and maybe some additional smaller chances), they could be looking at a stretch run reminiscent of last season.
This is entirely contingent on new DP Stuart Armstrong. We haven’t seen him for a notable amount of time yet, but his numbers with Southampton last season were fantastic. Riqui Puig-esque.
If he can play at that level in the English Championship, we have to assume it will be something close to a 1:1 translation to MLS. If that’s the case, the Whitecaps may finally have the kind of firepower they’ve been missing to compete with the top teams in the league. The knock on Vancouver has always been that they didn’t have the talent to match up in the biggest moments. Armstrong can change that.
The Dynamo are also going to be dependent on a new DP. They’ve been one of the best defensive teams in the league this year. Only Seattle, Columbus and Charlotte have been better. But they’ve been something close to awful in attack. They’ve brought in forward Ezequiel Ponce to change that.
They also brought in attacker Lawrence Ennali to help, but Ennali tore his ACL minutes after scoring his first MLS goal. It’s narratively one of the most brutal injuries I’ve seen a team have to deal with. That’s a lot to overcome for this group. Perhaps Ponce can do enough by himself to carry this team to a run though. They didn’t need him for last year’s U.S. Open Cup win, right?
Ok, take pretty much everything we just said about Houston except the catastrophic injury and switch out Ponce for new DP Pep Biel and old/new DP Karol Swiderski. Charlotte’s defense has been the best in the league this year on goals allowed per game. Charlotte’s attack has only been better than Nashville SC. They desperately need production from their attacking DPs. We know Swiderski has it in him. We’ll see about Biel. If he hits, they’re going to be extremely dangerous in a knockout tournament setting.
I didn’t really know what to do with both New York teams here. They’ve been getting genuinely bad results over the last couple of months. The Red Bulls have averaged 1.3 points per game over their last 10 games while NYCFC have averaged 1.00. It’s been rough.
To be fair the Red Bulls’ underlying numbers have at least been good over that span. Without an elite striker though, it just doesn’t feel like they’re going to have a breakthrough moment in the postseason. Even if Emil Forsberg gets healthy.
Still, it would have been weird not to include two teams that have talent and have played good-to-great soccer at times this season. So. Here they are.
We’re moving out of the “Well what if these new guys are good?” division and into the “Already getting hot at the right time” division. The Lions keep slowly but surely working their way toward a home playoff spot in the East. No one else seems all that interested in grabbing it right now, so why not Orlando?
Like any Oscar Pareja team, they have improved as the year has gone on. Over their last 10 games, they’ve picked up 2.00 points per game. Only five teams in MLS have been better over that span. They haven’t quite put together the same second-half run that launched them to second place in the East last year, but it’s something close.
The problem is that, just like last year, they’re overperforming their underlying numbers by a significant amount. Not as significant—they were an all-time lucky second-half team last year—but still significant. They still have a lot to prove over their final seven games. A home playoff team is a home playoff team. Even in fourth place, that’s enough of an edge to give a streaky team a shot at a run.
Only one team has earned more points since June 17. That may sound like an arbitrary cutoff point, but that’s the halfway mark for Seattle’s season. Since they moved into Second Half Seattle mode, they’ve earned 2.2 points per game over their last 10 games. Only Inter Miami have been better.
Weirdly though, they fit into both of our potential dark horse categories. They’re getting hot at the right time, but they also need a DP to step up. It wouldn’t be a Seattle blurb if we didn’t mention how much they need Pedro de la Vega to stay healthy and prove he’s the genuine product, right?
Only one team has had better underlying numbers over the second half of the season. We’ll get to them in a second, though. And we’ll point out that the Rapids are coming off a run to third place in Leagues Cup too. You could easily argue that makes them the hottest team in this group right now.
They also get an added bonus of avoiding the two big bads out in the East. LAFC are still as scary as ever and the Galaxy are dangerous, but it feels like Inter Miami and Columbus are a step ahead right now. The West could be winnable for a team putting up big numbers down the stretch, especially in attack. Only one team has had a higher rate of xG per game in the second half and well, I guess since we keep mentioning them without saying their name, we should just go there now.
There’s a really good argument that the Timbers are the most dangerous dark horse of the bunch. It’s not just that they’ve had the best underlying numbers of any team in the league over their last nine games, it’s that they have the talent at the top of the roster to compete with the best teams in MLS.
Evander is putting up MVP-caliber numbers, Jonathan Rodriguez has been excellent in his first year in MLS and Felipe Mora has come into his own as a striker. The trio has 38 goals between them and 27 assists. There isn’t really a more productive trio in the league.
The Timbers are as hot as anyone in MLS. They aren’t waiting for a DP to come good. And they’re playing exciting, attractive soccer at a high level while their defense puts up solid underlying numbers. The math and the eye test tell us this group is good enough to make something special happen. Now we just have to see if they can turn all of that into consistent performances down the stretch.
Charlotte FC sign Westwood to new contract: Charlotte FC have signed captain Ashley Westwood to a new contract through 2026 with an option for 2027. The 34-year-old midfielder joined Charlotte in January 2023 after a 10-year career at English sides Aston Villa and Burnley.
USMNT settle for New Zealand draw after late equalizer: A shock equalizer forced the US men's national team to settle for a 1-1 draw in their Tuesday friendly against New Zealand at FC Cincinnati's TQL Stadium.
Canada battle Mexico to goalless draw: Canada played Mexico to a contentious 0-0 draw in an unfriendly international friendly At AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas Tuesday night. The draw comes on the heels of a historic 2-1 win over the United States, Les Rouges’ first against the USMNT on American soil since 1957.
- Joe Lowery explained why Hell Is Real is a matchup between two MVP contenders.
- MVP Power Rankings.
- Here’s what the playoff bracket would look like if it started today.
- FC Dallas’ Jimmy Maurer provided the Energy Moment of the Matchday presented by Celsius for Matchday 31.
Good luck out there. Take a moment to become a hero.
