So I think we don’t need all 3 of Berhalter, Roldan, and Cardoso though I currently have them all projected to make it. A big part of that is both Roldan and Berhalter seem like guys Pochettino really likes and also values what they bring off the field. I just don’t see either missing. As for Aaronson I genuinely think he’s the last man on the roster right now and more broadly if we were doing 23 man rosters he’s likely not going. I do think he’s a useful player in terms of his work rate defensively and what not but I view him also as a luxury player as I don’t think he plays a ton if he does come. But if he did miss the mostly likely person to take his spot is Reyna not Gozo. But either way I stand by the notion that no matter who the player left off at his expense is that based on current form Pochettino needs to take Gozo.
Depends how Poch wants to play the stars. In a 4231, will he start Tillman at CAM and Wes on the right? Or will Tillman start in the pivot with Wes at CAM? This remains a fairly unsettled team that saw the manager--unsuccessfully--experimenting the last window.
Both Vazquez and Wolff are back. Don't feel bad about spelling Owen's name wrong when even the MLS twitter account does it! After 300 days, Brandon Vázquez is available for Austin. Will we see him or Owen Wolf tonight? 👀Watch @austinfc vs. @stlCITYsc on Apple TV: https://t.co/gTQdcwdcfD // Sunday Night Soccer pres. by @continentaltire. pic.twitter.com/ZzkhSP4Cqs— Major League Soccer (@MLS) May 3, 2026
WS Team of the Week * = 23-and-under ** = 20-and-under Player of the Week: Luna(9.34)MOTM Celentano(8.9)2nd Markanich(8.3)2nd 23-and-under: Luna(9.34)MOTM Gozo(8.2)2nd Norris(7.9)MOTM 20-and-under: Gozo(8.2)2nd Habroune(7.8)1st TJohnson(7.3)2nd MOTM: (GK)Thomas(7.9) (GK)Turner(7.8) (CB) Norris(7.9) (AM)Luna(9.3) Brooklyn Raines looks to be hitting his stride. improving numbers from Cavan(7.0)4th** Kohler(7.0)6th** and Chirila(7.0)5th** and Norris will be stud CBs Luna had 10 key passes 18 y/o Cooper Sanchez(7.2)4th got he start at d-mid for Atlanta Andrei Chirila(7.0)5th** did well despite Cincy's 56th in red card in the 3-2 win over Chicago Turner continues to roll. Too bad the Gozo and Luna duo won't last passed the number, at least at club level.
Austin gets all excited about Vazquez being back from injury, and then his emergency replacement they signed off the scrap heap has a great game. Vazquez and Owen Wolff both appeared in the game in the second half. That team needs the jolt. St. Louis? Eek. Not much to say. Some young Americans do see time. Miguel Perez. Myki Johner. I swear the next USMNT coach is going to watch MLS and say "Wait a second. Why isn't that Jesus Ferreira guy involved?" What's cool is that we as have two of the top three league leaders in assists. Berhalter and Tsakiris are one behind Son of LAFC. 3rd place in assists amongst US-eligibles is Jesus Ferreira. A bunch of guys are tied for 4th. Some are interesting. Logan Farrington of Dallas. Valenzuela of Cincinnati. LeRoux of San Jose. Gozo and Arfsten as well.
In the end, this will end up being a captain/locker room pick, and we should be really damn frustrated with the CB's developed from the 1997-2005 or so era, because all of them have either just hit their floors, got injured repeatedly or just sucked.... He shouldn't be going, but his leadership role, and position as one of the few elder statesman is going to get him a ticket that he shouldn't be getting. We have how many 30 years olds? 2? He's going, and yep, I'm enormously frustrated, I get the importance of glue and chemistry, but dude is 38 and it really, really shows, we can't afford to be taking him, let alone rolling him out, but we are anyway. So frustrating.
Its just the issue. Its kind like the late 2018 and early 2022 cycles when the guys who were supposed to develop in order to take the role of Bradley and Altidore didn't develop. We were using guys like Wil Trapp and Jackson Yueill. And people were mad when Berhalter turned back to Bradley in 2019 [In that case it didn't help that Adams went thru a lot injury problems. Which he always does.] Its like when we thought a guy like Agudelo would develop to replace Altidore and he didn't. We went back to experience. The problem really isn't Ream. He's been fine in a US jersey. The problem is that for him to not make the roster, we'd need 4 (or so) guys to beat him out. Maybe if Banks had committed, the conversation would get interesting. ...................................but the guy is literally USMNT captain. He's the incumbent. Has captained the USMNT in almost every single window under Poch. CB development hasn't gone great................. Who were our CBs on the 2020 Olympic qualification team (the failed one)? Henry Kessler, Justen Glad, Mauricio Pineda. [If I remember, Miles Robinson wasn't released by Atlanta.] Our 2024 Olympic qualification team was so weak at CB that we took two overage CBs to fill the gap. Robinson and Zimmerman. Its nice to see we have a group of young CBs getting time in MLS. We'll have to see how it goes from here, though. Kessler, Glad, and Pineda were playing in MLS too.
An absolute MLS legend retired today. Kei Kamara just called it a day. He helped build our league. Wish him nothing but the best . Wonder if coaching is in future
Nashville did themselves justice, but lost 1-0 on the road to Tigres last night. So they go out 2-0 on aggregate. Nashville actually had 57% possession. Got some participation by young Americans that are certainly in the picture for the Olympic team. Reed Baker-Whiting started at left back (Has he won the job over Lovitz?) and Matthew Corcoran came off the bench.
Looking likely that we will go another year w/ a Liga MX CCC winner. Not at all confident that LAFC can go to Toluca and get a scoreless draw, 2G+ draw or a win.
I don't know...................... Toluca's actually not in the best of form in Liga MX. If there's a team in MLS that I think can do it, its LAFC. Toluca did absolutely hammer San Diego and LAG at home in this event. Tigres versus LAFC would be a really fun final.
I thought Nashville was toothless. I watched the second half and didn’t remember a single shot. I checked the stats and saw one open play shot and one set piece.
They were toothless in the first game, too. Yet, they looked so much more likely to score with the way they played last night. But, yeah, I remember John Strong noting that there had only been one shot on goal sometime during the 2nd half. So I guess looks can be deceiving. Despite the dearth of SOGs, I think it was a pretty even game with the edge to Nashville.
Even worse than I thought. 4-0. Embarrassing. The gameplan was such a joke from the beginning... sitting back and playing scared. LigaMX still dominates when the competition is home/away.
I gave up on the LAFC-Toluca game at around the 60th minute. They were very poor last night. In the 2/3 of the match that I watched, LAFC created one good (or, rather, a very, very good) opportunity which Tim Tillman flubbed so epically that it made me think "I'm glad he's not really in consideration for this WC roster".
Marc Dos Santos was never a very good hiring decision for a team as ambitious as LAFC usually is. They really must have wanted continuity there instead of making a big swing. The Nashville result was pretty disappointing because Tigres was absolutely a winnable tie for them. They'd probably get rocked down in Toluca but more ambitious MLS teams need to go take their lumps in Mexico so we can get over the hump more than once.
LAFC was in it until the 92nd minute of the second leg. Hardly an embarrassment or disaster. If Tillman puts that chance away, who knows....
I had a whole long write up with some images, but I can't get uploads to work for some reason. I'll post it anyways and you can imagine the graphs. A small trend 1/3 of the way through the season - the best teams in the league are also teams who have figured out that playing Americans in some way will help. On the contrary, teams who don't play Americans are struggling to keep up with the leaders. Compare that to 2022, where it was obvious that Americans were not necessary to win: Other years were less clear in any direction. Notably, these teams are chock-full of guys who are very good MLS players in their prime, but not necessarily too good for MLS. These teams are built around pretty good guys who will remain key players for a while: Vancouver: White, Berhalter, Blackmon, Tate Johnson, Sabbi SJ: Munie, Judd, Tsakiris, Roberts, Leroux, Kikanovic, DeJuan Jones Seattle: Ragen, Roldan, Ferreira, Rothrock RSL: Glad, Gozo, Luna, Quinton Nashville: Schwake, Lovitz, Muyl In 2022, American minutes as a percentage of league total were on an unending plummet downward. But that plummet has stopped. This year, we're seeing a bump in American minutes, especially those for U27 players, which have the highest allocation since 2017! If I had to guess why, it's that the American player is simply better. U27 Americans in 2026 represents 1999 and later. We're finally getting to the point where the prime years of MLS is filled by post-lost year development years, and there's a lot of available value there since these players often go for peanuts. Notably, I'd argue only Seattle and RSL have a functioning academy -> first team pathway for Americans. The others are mostly acquiring players, and developing them. This style of roster construction doesn't sell a lot of jersey like star academy players and international acquisitions, but it wins games, and these teams have great attendance because of it. Teams like Atlanta, NYCFC, Portland, Charlotte, and Austin who think their international scouting networks will carry them to the promised land are overpaying for bad value. *this data isn't perfect, as it takes a player's nationality based on their primary nationality affiliation
Good post. I wish I could see the images. I’m curious about the paragraph about Seattle and RSL…why didn’t it include Philly and Dallas?
Interesting theory. Would FCD with four academy products not count? I know they aren't where they were but if Morris counts for going to Stanford and then signing for Seattle then Collodi should after playing in college. Shaq Moore and Christian Cappis are a bit dicier withy the caveat that FCD tried to sign Cappis but Houston was able to tank it even though he never played for the academy but did play for FCD academy. Some other youngsters have gotten a few minutes this year as the academy and pathway are being slowly rebuilt.
I wouldn't put NYCFC in that category. They've been a consistent playoff team, won MLS Cup in 2021, and have produced quite a few professional players from their academy. Atlanta didn't have much of a scouting network prior to Lagerwey taking over, and it hasn't really built one since either. RSL's academy heavily recruits. Diego Luna was signed from USL, and actually attended San Jose's academy. I'm surprised Red Bull New York wasn't listed as they have relied on their academy for the past decade to produce pro players for their first team, and up until last season were a consistent playoff team. I would also say this: Teams led and coached by Bruce Arena have clear identities and playing styles. When he leaves, he takes that with him. See DC United, New England, LA Galaxy after he left. MLS teams all have a domestic heavy portion to their rosters because there are limits on international players. Green Cards do increase the "domestic" talent pool though. The teams that consistently perform year over year have a clear club identity of how they want to play. They recruit players based on this identity. The teams that are consistently underperforming, or just inconsistent don't have a clear club identity. No clear identity: San Jose Atlanta Orlando Austin Chicago Toronto Montreal* DC United Houston Sporting KC* New England Real Salt Lake* Minnesota Colorado Charlotte St Louis FC Cincy** Teams with a clear identity Red Bull New York NYCFC Philadelphia FC Dallas LAFC Vancouver LA Galaxy Portland Miami Nashville Seattle Columbus San Diego** * MLS 2.0 teams who at one time had a clear identity, but drifted away from it, or didn't evolve as the league changed. In the case of Montreal, their ownership doesn't have the patience to see it through. ** Too early to really tell. San Diego seems to have a clear identity of how they want to play. I suppose we can call Win Now FC an Identity for FCC, though that really isn't sustainable long term. I'm starting to get some Garth in Atlanta vibes with Albright in Cincy. By that I see someone who now has a larger budget, with far fewer guardrails than either had in Seattle and Philly.
FCD, RBNY, and Philly all use plenty of Americans right now, but they aren't winning like the others. It's a case of teams that win use lots of Americans, but not all teams that use a lot of Americans win.
I hear you on NYCFC. In the invisible image, their US minutes are underreported since Tayvon Gray comes in as Jamaican, which is unfair. However, as someone who personally lives in New York and is extremely excited for the stadium to open, it's hard not to notice how foreign the team feels. Take this Reddit post from the other day: https://www.reddit.com/r/NYCFC/comments/1t4sirf/the_perfect_line_up/ It's a lineup with an American goalie (no one goes to a game to watch a goalie) and a defensive American right back who plays for Jamaica. There's no one on the field that I look at and go "that's our guy" for NYCFC. Maybe Maxi, but he's 39.