MLS/Liga MX Season Thread Now Featuring Inter Messi
Your Defending Champs:
Canada - MONTRÉAL
MLS Cup - Seattle
US Open Cup - Atlanta
Liga MX - Los Rayados de Monterrey
CONCACAF Champions League - Los Rayados de Monterrey
2020 MLS Cup Odds:
CONCACAF Champions League Bracket:
Biggest Departues:
Nacho Piatti from Impact to San Lorenzo
ZLATAN from LA Galaxy to AC Milan
Wayne Rooney from DC to Derby County
Brian Fernández from Portland to jail (I think)
Nico Gaitán from Chicago to Ligue 1 side Lille
NEW Players (w/summaries just for 72o):
Chicharito to LA Galaxy (age: 31) - needs no introduction. All time leader for El Tri (México) w/51 goals. Broke in w/Man Utd, notching 3 straight 10+ goal seasons, more recently bagged 16 goals in 55 matches for Westham, and comes to LAG from Sevilla.
Claudio Pizarro to Inter Miami (age: 25) - another fairly important piece for El Tri where he has 23 caps. Comes from los Rayados where he's already won a few titles in only a couple seasons. Although probably not a top 3 player for Monterrey, they'll be glad to part with him for the 20 million price tag Inter Miami agreed to pay. When he's on he's very good, but he's also very inconsistent. Should dominate in MLS though imo.
Jürgen Locadia to Cincinnati (age: 26) - IMO, the most interesting signing. Notable in that he's the only player in the top 8 most valuable MLS players who doesn't play in LA or ATL. I'm still not sure how Cincy pulled this off. Big time goalscorer w/45 in 127 matches for PSV Eindhoven. He's be a golden boot frontrunner if he played for a better team.
Mauricio Pereyra to Orlando (age: 29) - Uruguayan attacking mid comes from Russian side Krasnodar w/23 goals in 154 appearances. Caps w/Uruguay's U20s but never made an appearance for the nat'l team.
Alan Pulido to Sporting KC (age: 28) - The Mexican isn't really in the nat'l team picture anymore, but is coming off a great season for Mexican giants Chivas where he finished as joint golden boot winner.
Robert Beric to Chicago (age: 28) - 25 caps with Slovenia and comes from Ligue 1 side Sainte-Étienne w/a pretty solid goal scoring record, 26 goals in 81 matches over 5 seasons.
Lucas Zelarayán to Columbus Crew (age: 27) - The Argentine attacking midfielder has been a key player for Liga MX's best side in recent years, Tigres, with 113 appearances and 21 goals over 5 seasons.
Edison Flores to DC United (age: 25) - Yet another player from Liga MX. The Peruvian winger has been a stalwart for their national team with 13 goals in 47 appearances and was a regular for Morelia over the past 2 seasons.
Felipe Mora to Portland (age: 26) - Wildly inconsistent, but can bang in goals when he's on. Comes from Liga MX's Pumas.
Lucas Cavallini to Puebla (age: 27) - Has been great for Canada w/11 goals in only 17 apps. Another player from Liga MX (Puebla) w/ a very respectable 29 goals in 75 matches for a Liga MX bottom feeder side that doesn't score often.
Luis Binks to MONTRÉAL (age: 19) - Comes from Tottenham's academy thanks to Thierry Henry's connections. Supposedly Tottenham's 2nd best young CB.
Intra-league Moves:
DARWIN from Minnesota to Houston
Walker Zimmerman from LAFC to Nashville
Wil Trapp from Columbus to Inter Miami
Katai from Chicago to LAG
Nagbe from ATL to Columbus
Gressel from ATL to DCU
Romell Quioto from Houston to IMFC
I'm your resident MLS hater. Maybe it's the shine and excitement of the league just starting out, but I'm very much legitimately into MLS this year. Last year I got Season Pass free through T-Mobile and this year I actually dropped the $79 on it.
I feel like we're finally building teams the right way. The teams that are already good and established are bringing in second tier stars from Europe (I can't wait to see Muriel in this Orlando side) without going for the totally past it huge names.
The teams that aren't that good yet are buying young South Americans with high potential and building an actual team.
There's enough compelling teams this year to find a few matches each night that are worth watching.
The trick will be avoiding complacency in a couple months, which is tradition for all American sports, when teams don't really care about the shield and know they have a playoff spot locked up.
The format of MLS still blows and makes no sense, but for the actual on field product I feel like it's improved significantly and has got me interested...at least for now
very cool, LFC
I feel like we're finally building teams the right way. The teams that are already good and established are bringing in second tier stars from Europe (I can't wait to see Muriel in this Orlando side) without going for the totally past it huge names.
The teams that aren't that good yet are buying young South Americans with high potential and building an actual team.
There's enough compelling teams this year to find a few matches each night that are worth watching.
yeah i say it all the time, but i do think that the league quality is consistently trending up, i just wish that like half the teams were like 50% more ambitious, instead of just purely lining their pockets. it's absurd how some of these teams basically never spend money buying players, some only have 0-1 designated players (haven't looked lately, so this might no longer be true). maybe we need a bored billionaire to drop in buy a team and really shake things up
season officially starts tomorrow, with the peoples' champion vancouver whitecaps finally in action (miami has already played twice? lol). though their week 1 bye did help me realize that there's an odd number of teams this season
Minnesota United - Columbus Crew
Real Salt Lake - Los Angeles FC
Inter Miami - Orlando City
Vancouver Whitecaps - Charlotte
Chicago Fire - FC Cincinnati
Houston Dynamo - New York Red Bulls
Sporting Kansas City - Philadelphia Union
St. Louis City - New York City
FC Dallas - CF Montreal
Colorado Rapids - Nashville SC
Portland Timbers - DC United
San Jose Earthquakes - Los Angeles Galaxy
Seattle Sounders - Austin FC
sunday: ne revs/tfc
Really wish Messi v Muriel was tonight. 430 on a Saturday is a near impossible time to sit and watch a soccer game with a toddler
4' Suarez L. (Gressel J.) () [INT]
11' Suarez L. (Gressel J.) [INT]
29' Taylor R. (Suarez L.) [INT]
57' Messi L. [INT]
62' Messi L. (Suarez L.) [INT]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWUqs9Eu...
got dam
was at this game ... mls club record 30k+ crowd, good atmosphere, pretty eventful 0-1 match
building off of last season apparently, an estimated 30k back today vs charlotte, a record home opener crowd they're saying. kind of impressive considering that they didn't really do anything in the offseason
Vancouver look abysmal
true story. think they were saying whitecaps have lost 4 of their last 5 home openers, and the win was the covid year they were playing in salt lake lol. zero excuse for how bad this is. almost total continuity from previous seasons, had some ccl warmup games vs tigres, a week 1 bye, playing at home in front of a good crowd...
edit: ball lies? 1-1 at the half
absolute screamer from ryan raposo (mis-hit cross that rolls in)
building off of last season apparently, an estimated 30k back today vs charlotte, a record home opener crowd they're saying. kind of impressive considering that they didn't really do anything in the offseason
i just realized that this is probably due to messi, because they've never been able to build off of positive momentum before. like again, the team didn't do anything of note in the offseason. i bet a lot of rich dbags bought season tickets just so they might be able to see lil leo once lol
lol orlando gjge. luis suarez finally providing some bite offensively
Spoiler
dum, dated & pathetic. yes I know but I couldn't help myself
good thing I don't bet on MLS. 3 goals out of nowhere today in the final seconds to turn a win into a draw for an underdog. Which would be bad if u had played the underdog on the M/L!
also my MLS fantasy team that LFC_USA sucked me into signing up for is currently ranked 11820 out of 11773 total teams (there are no typos). Is that bad?
Suarez was 2 posts away from 2g 4a (Alba and Gressel hit the bar after nice passes by Suarez).
Miami seems to actually have a defense this year and Callender is one of the best keepers in the league. I guess the playoffs might be good this year, otherwise Miami would probably be the runaway champs.
Galaxy look the best team in the league after 2 games. Best front 4 in MLS by a mile and Paintsil looks a hell of a signing
Maybe, but the lolGalaxy is strong. They haven't won any hardware in 10 years.
Puig was a sick addition. Probably the best midfielder in the league, and by a wide margin.
Maybe, but the lolGalaxy is strong. They haven't won any hardware in 10 years.
Puig was a sick addition. Probably the best midfielder in the league, and by a wide margin.
Puig is nice. And love MLS is getting these types of players. I still have Almada and the best MF in the league by a wide margin. Might even go Carles Gil over Puig too which is more a testament to where MLS is at right now
I know it's early but man Orlando's offense is woeful.
I was pretty hyped on them preseason.
lol apparently Sporting conceded very last minute like they like to do, and Vermes went full jarhead on the media or the refs
That Nashville Miami CCL (why tf did they change to the dumb sounding CCC?!?) game last night was awesome. I've long had a man crush on Jacob Shaffelberg and holy **** did he deliver last night. Game was awesome throughout and super harsh on Nashville dominating 80% of the game and only drawing while conceding 2 away goals
That Nashville Miami CCL (why tf did they change to the dumb sounding CCC?!?) game last night was awesome. I've long had a man crush on Jacob Shaffelberg and holy **** did he deliver last night. Game was awesome throughout and super harsh on Nashville dominating 80% of the game and only drawing while conceding 2 away goals
I watched the last 30 minutes or so and it was great action.
I have no idea if the nashville guy was offside on the disallowed 3rd goal late or not. the brief TV view of the offside that was shown didn't look offside to me. that was a great goal the guy scored - pretty unlucky to get it waived off.
toronto won their home opener today, now 2 wins and a draw on the season, tied with messi fc on 7 points. loltfc and the herd man confirmed big time back!?
i forgot they still have insigne and bernardeschi. maybe they actually want the former, but feel like they're stuck with the latter because of his salary
funny they could have just kept shaffelberg, but he's one of those guys they gave away for nothing, for no reason. they only seem to keep the worthless ones lol
Sporting fittin to get 3 points at LAFC.
Sporting have yet to trail this season, a very alien feeling for the squad.
74' Schopf A. (Gauld R.) [VAN]
86' Ahmed A. (Blackmon T.) [VAN]
somebody wake up royalblue, alessandro schöpf scored a goal!
the peoples' champion vancouver whitecaps win away. by 2 goals. and they said it couldn't be done
loads of late and laaaate winners today
80' Insigne L. (Longstaff M.) [TOR]
90+6' Hlongwane B. (Oluwaseyi T.) [MIN]
90+7' Evander [POR]
90+10' Farsi M. (Rossi D.) [COL]
and a late equalizer
90+3' Pompeu C. (Totland T.) [SLC]
mls baby, catch the fever
somewhere out there Fossilkid is smiling
😃
Smart of Miami to save Messi b/c they know there's no beating Montreal.
7 pts from 3 road games is a nice start. Last year's Shield winners only averaged 1.65 ppg on the road last year.
Montreal has a nice little roster, but like most years where this happens, they're probably only a player or 2 from being serious contenders, but that player will never arrive. Wanyama doesn't even play much anymore, and he's the team's only DP. Imagine if you added 2 DPs to this squad.
