MLS Watch Grid for February 22nd-23rd, 2025
Loons well-wishing, Gregg's return to Columbus, and a sad fistfight in a dry creek bed
The 2024 Major League Soccer season suffered from a sort of myopia among fans and commentators, in which a host of external, long-term issues and talking points overshadowed what was a genuinely interesting season of soccer. If one could cut through the constant consternation and chatter that surrounded it, get through the arguments about the playoff formats and the Leagues Cup's relevance and the US Open Cup's relevance and the annoyances that came from Inter Miami and the conservative additions to the salary structure and the Apple deal, they were rewarded with great team soccer, individual dynamism, and great drama from the season kickoff in February to the trophy lift in Carson in December. I am, of course, perpetuating this myopia by beginning my first piece on the 2025 season with this discussion, but please bear with me.
Perpetual optimist that I am, I believe that we're facing down what should be an enthralling year of Major League Soccer, and I hope that the actual soccer is what comes to define it. I intend to help define it as such by bringing back the Watch Grid, this time in a more constrained format than I originally used.
Graciously, MLS will be showcasing two games on Sundays this season, which takes some of the decision-making burden away from me. My intent is to cap these pieces at five entries each, previewing up to three matches for Saturday and two for Sunday. I'll try to get at least one free match in there if one is presented as well.
Minnesota United FC at Los Angeles FC (3:30pm Saturday)
Tuesday evening gave us our first glimpse of Steve Cherundolo's 2025 LAFC squad, who traveled to a frigid Commerce City, Colorado in Concacaf Champions Cup play against the Rapids and left with a pyrrhic 2-1 loss. They quietly hemorrhaged quite a bit over the off-season, losing starters like Ilie Sanchez, Cristian Olivera, Mety Bogusz, and Jesus Murillo. This amount of turnover, compounded by the cold, the altitude, and the fact that the Rapids honestly strike me as a very good team, makes it understandable that they came out so flat and commendable that they were able to pick up a late goal from Aaron Long off of a setpiece. I would like to dislike LAFC more than I do, but I love how they've rebuilt with proven MLS veterans like Mark Delgado, Nkosi Tafari, and Jeremy Ebobisse. Denis Bouanga is one of my favorite MLS players. Once a team loses three finals in sequence, I start to find them endearing (even when they break their drought against my team).
LAFC is not quite an automatic must-watch (and I blame this on the fact that they're trotting out two aging Frenchmen at Goalkeeper and Striker instead of younger players, it feels like they could be the team turning young and developing talents into stars instead of riding the tail-ends of already-established stars. They're also built on so much speed as it is, Giroud just seems out of place with them, like he's holding them back to an extent), but I enjoy them, especially when they're paired with Minnesota United.
I consider myself a Loons well-wisher. I have familial ties to Minnesota, I've been to Allianz Field, I've enjoyed the interactions that I've shared with Loons fans when visiting the stadium, and I've really come to appreciate what they have turned into under Eric Ramsay. They lack the obvious top-end talent of their opponent (and it showed in their matchup in the Western Conference Semis), but I loved how they punched above their weight class last year, especially after the summer transfer window.
They are the Community to LAFC's The Office, the Wowee Zowee to LAFC's Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, the Villette to LAFC's Jane Eyre. They're not the obvious product for the network to sell, and you have to work a little to understand the bits and pieces that come together to build them, but those willing to put in the effort will be rewarded in the end. It's the versatility of Robin Lod and Bongokuhle Hlongwane, the heroics of Dayne St. Clair (necessitated by a leaky backline that will probably again be their downfall in 2025), and the pure energy of Sang-Bin Jeong and Tami Oluwaseyi that do it for me. I just find them terribly endearing, and I suspect that they'll be even better with a full offseason under Ramsay in tow.
This was not supposed to be the season kickoff match, but will serve as such now that the Miami/New York City match was pushed back to accommodate Miami's delayed return home from their match here in frostbitten Kansas City. This should be a great showcase for what's to come from the top of the Western Conference in 2025.
Chicago Fire at Columbus Crew (6:30pm Saturday)
This is the most narratively compelling event of our first weekend. I realize, as I've sat in front of this keyboard typing nothing for the past ten minutes, that I approach writing about Gregg Berhalter with precarity, with the same tension that accompanies an offhand reference to a political figure during Thanksgiving Dinner, with the knowledge that discussing his work opens doors to tedious, cyclical, acrid conversations that will never be satisfyingly concluded, and it especially complicates what should be a fairly straightforward narrative thread underlying this match: Gregg Berhalter, in his return to MLS, will coach in Columbus against the team he led for five seasons, four of which resulted in playoff berths and one of which resulted in an MLS Cup berth amid an intentionally unstable situation created by ownership.
His last home match as the head coach of the Crew took place on November 4th, 2018 in the first leg of the Eastern Conference Semifinals, a 1-0 win over the New York Red Bulls. Gyasi Zardes scored off of an assist from Federico Higuain, and Zack Steffen picked up a clean sheet. It was six years, two coaches, an ownership change, a stadium change, an in-state rival joining the league, a pandemic, the entire Crew tenures of Lucas Zelarayan and Cucho Hernandez, a Concacaf Champions Cup final, a Leagues Cup win, and two MLS Cup wins ago. The Crew are a completely different animal from that which Berhalter left.
I would have figured that a former coach returning to the league with one of their old rivals would spark more ambivalence from the Crew faithful, but I haven’t seen much chatter about it either way. I imagine that so much winning leaves little room for bitterness, especially for a wounded old foe like Chicago - But that rivalry burned hot for a good while. I remember seeing “I’d Rather Die in Chicago than Live in Columbus” scarves displayed by Fire fans back in the early 2010s, but the Fire have been nudged out by Cincinnati and haven’t played in enough relevant matches to maintain the vitriol. Perhaps this is where it reignites.
The Crew, despite their pedigree, are coming off of a surprisingly disappointing off-season, in which they lost key players like Cucho Hernandez, Christian Ramirez, and Alex Matan, but didn’t bring in replacements. It speaks to the goodwill that Wilfried Nancy has built up in the past three seasons that I’m not worried about them. The Fire, on the other hand, have added significantly, signing attacking winger Jonathan Bamba from Celta Vigo and MLS Best XI-calibre center-back Jack Elliott in free agency. I still think that the Crew are the better of the two teams, but I’m curious to see if the Fire can start Gregg Berhalter’s tenure with a shock upset over his old team.
Charlotte FC at Seattle Sounders FC (9:30pm Saturday) - GAME OF THE MATCHDAY
It's hard to make any recommendations based on form this early in the season, but based on roster strength, this is the most interesting matchup of the weekend in my eyes (and based on the little competitive evidence we have, Seattle looks to be in pretty good form as it is). I could see this as a feasible MLS Cup matchup at the end of the year. Seattle's probably the odds-on favorite to win the West as it is. They were one late Riqui Puig assist on a bad leg away from hosting the Cup Final last season, and that was without the addition of Jesus Ferreira into the attack. If the aggression that Pedro De La Vega showed in the mid-week holds consistently, I think we're looking at one of the most complete teams in MLS to this point in the decade.
Charlotte was sort of the Eastern equivalent to the Sounders last season: Middle of the playoff standings, defensively stout, showed potential but otherwise only scraped by in the attack, played in an NFL stadium, etc. What Seattle added in Jesus Ferreira, Charlotte's adding in Wilfried Zaha. What redemption from a disappointing attacking DP that Seattle hopes to see from Pedro De La Vega, Charlotte hopes to see from Liel Abada. Though the East is loaded with more obvious contenders in Miami, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Atlanta, I think Charlotte will continue to build atop the solid foundation they've created in their first three MLS seasons and break into the upper echelon of the East this year.
Portland Timbers vs Vancouver Whitecaps FC (3:00pm Sunday) - Artisan’s Choice Game of the Week
When I was in the eighth grade, two of my classmates, Kevin and Brandon, filmed themselves getting in a fistfight in a dry creekbed and uploaded it to YouTube. The video was deleted long ago, but in 2008 it made its way around my junior high school quickly, first as whispers and rumors through the halls and then through impromptu screenings in the computer lab during typing classes, which is where I first saw “Kevin and Brandon fight at the creek”.
I was only somewhat acquainted with the two kids, but I thought they were friends with one another, and certainly not the type to need that sort of release in the woods of Lenexa in late-February. They weren’t fighters, they were drama club kids. This wasn't an act, though. I could see, even through the quality of a point and shoot digital camera probably borrowed from a parent, the sincerity in their eyes, the desperation in their futile swings, and the shallowly-seated, banal, but truthful sadness within them. Two teenage boys, bereft of direction or malice, sought truth at the end of each punch in that creekbed.
The Whitecaps and Timbers enter the 2025 season under similar terms. Their last meeting was sort of embarrassing for both of them. Vancouver had to give up their right to host the Western Conference Wild Card game to Portland because BC Place was preparing to host a SuperCross event. The Timbers squandered what good fortune and poor planning had brought them, losing 5-0 in front of their home fans. Both teams lost key pieces to unceremonious circumstances in the offseason; Vancouver fired Vanni Sartini and lost Stuart Armstrong, Portland transferred Evander to Cincinnati in a haze of angry tweets.
It's rare for such bitter rudderlessness to underlie an opening match in MLS. This should be a time for senseless optimism, but both teams enter this Sunday afternoon with severe baggage that they need to take out on someone. Perhaps Providence Park will serve as their dry creek bed.
San Diego FC at LA Galaxy (6:00pm Sunday)
I am very interested to follow the Galaxy in 2025. It's been a while since an MLS Cup felt as culminative as theirs did. Ever since Cameron Porter got everyone to believe that Concacaf runs were possible, the MLS Cup winner has entered the following season carrying an onus to use that Cup win as a springboard into continental success. The Galaxy, now sans Riqui Puig due to injury as well as Mark Delgado and Dejan Jovelic due to budgetary constraints, enter this season with the least hype that I've seen around a defending champion since perhaps the 2016 Timbers. It kind of feels like they had a window, they fulfilled it, and now they'll have to rebuild quietly off to the side before they take their next big swings in 2026. Nonetheless, they still have a lot of talented players and should be a very good team in MLS this season.
I'll have more to say about San Diego next week, when they host their first match, but I'm so glad to see the San Diego/Los Angeles rivalry in MLS. San Diegans have a reputation for being laid back, but nothing angers up their blood like Los Angeles does. It even gets me going, I only lived there for a couple of years, but the Padres/Dodgers series in the National League playoffs last year had me right back in. The long-term project of San Diego FC impresses me much more than the team they'll bring out in the 2025 season, but I am excited to see this rivalry take its first steps.