Offseason Outlook: Toronto FC

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After finishing the 2019 regular season on a hot streak Toronto FC were comprehensively dominated in every playoff game (except against DC United) but somehow found their way to MLS Cup. Losing the best two out of three to Seattle hurt, but making the final was a surprise for a team that didn’t quite look like putting it all together until the end of the season. Before the playoffs I think it would be fair to say most fans were fixated on the team being headed for a rebuild. However, with most of the departures being fringe players or squad reclassifications, Toronto looks ready to re-tool rather than rebuild for 2020.

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Offseason Outlook: Montreal Impact

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Offseason Outlook: Montreal Impact

Montreal head into the offseason with a lot of open questions. Does Ignacio Piatti stay? Does Orji Okwonkwo return? How will new head coach Thierry Henry try to play?

I don’t know what formation Montreal will play in 2020. Henry doesn’t have enough head coaching experience to be able to pick out his tactical preferences. And Montreal played seven different formations last season while trying to get their best roster on the field. So I don’t know how they’ll line up. I’ve fit them into a 4-3-3 for the purposes of this article, but, who knows?

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Offseason Outlook: Real Salt Lake

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Offseason Outlook: Real Salt Lake

In my SKC offseason article I wrote of Kansas City that “In MLS 3.0, lacking an elite striker up top is a little bit inexcusable.” Real Salt Lake over the last five seasons deserve at least as much criticism as Sporting. Since 2015, RSL has only three double digit goal scorers - Damir Kreilach in 2018, and Albert Rusnak in 2018 and 2019. Neither of those two are a true striker. Sam Johnson, RSL’s most likely candidate, registered just 0.41 xG per 90 last season, which is roughly 2019 BWP, Tesho Akindele, and Ola Kamara levels. That’s not great! And he led the team in that stat! The only three teams with a worse best forward last year were Dallas, Montreal, and Vancouver.

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Offseason Outlook: Chicago Fire

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Offseason Outlook: Chicago Fire

The only thing the Fire have handled worse than their rebrand this offseason is building their actual soccer team. Quick status update on the soccer side of things for the Chicago Fire: Sporting Director? Nope. Coach? Vacant. Designated players? Zero.

Here’s the thing that makes the least sense in all of this: if you look at underlying metrics, the Fire were really good in 2019. They probably should have made some minor adjustments heading into 2020, maybe a star signing to replace Bastian Schweinsteiger, and then rolled into Soldier Field as a really good soccer team.

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Offseason Outlook: Minnesota United

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Offseason Outlook: Minnesota United

Minnesota ended the season with 53 points and fourth place in the Western Conference. This represented the team’s best finish in MLS, and first playoff appearance since a 2015 NASL encounter against Ottawa. 

The team’s improvement was largely due to the dramatic improvement of the defense; conceding 28 fewer goals than 2018 (accounting for most of the +31 improvement in goal differential). And it’s worth noting the team evolved over the course of the season. Team captain Francisco Calvo was traded after seven games; midfielder Romario Ibarra was sent on a loan (his request as I understand it). And an influx of new faces over the summer meant the team entering the playoffs looked different than the team that started the season. At the start (first seven games), Minnesota conceded over 2 goals per game and scored over 2.4 goals per game. Since then, Minnesota conceded about 1 goal per game, and scored 1.4 goals per game. In short, the team transitioned from a high-risk, high-reward approach to a defense-first mindset. 

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Offseason Outlook: Sporting Kansas City

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Offseason Outlook: Sporting Kansas City

Since sending Dom Dwyer to Orlando halfway through 2017, Sporting Kansas City have been without an above average center forward. Dwyer’s 2016 season was the last year an SKC player finished in the top 10 in MLS in goals. Since then, Kansas City’s leading scorers have logged just 8, 11, and 12 goals. In MLS 3.0, lacking an elite striker up top is a little bit inexcusable.

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Offseason Outlook: DC United

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This was supposed to be The Year for DC United. After moving into a new stadium in 2018, signing Wayne Rooney, bringing Bill Hamid back, and managing to keep Luciano Acosta from leaving for PSG, most people had DC among the Eastern Conference favorites for the 2019 season.

Things didn’t quite go that way, though DC did manage to finish 5th in the East and make the playoffs.

There’s a lot of different things that went not quite according to plan for DC, but the biggest disappointment was the attack. After finishing 2018 in great form the attack looked positioned to lead DC to great things in 2019 and it simply fell flat.

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Offseason Outlook: Seattle Sounders

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Offseason Outlook: Seattle Sounders

"Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" - The Red Queen

If I were a General Manager in Major League Soccer (and if my writing for this site has made anything clear, it’s that I definitely should not and will not be), I’d have that quote hanging above my door. Not only was Lewis Carroll the Bill James of the literary nonsense genre, but it’s a good reminder that in the world of professional sports even the king of the mountain needs to keep climbing if they want to stay on top. Yes. Seattle are entering the offseason as champions, but if they want to defend that title, they’ve got a lot of work to do between now and opening day

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Offseason Outlook: Philadelphia Union

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Offseason Outlook: Philadelphia Union

The Philadelphia Union are still enjoying their tenth and best season. They won their first playoff game against the I-95 rival New York Red Bulls. They won their most ever road games and finished third in a competitive eastern conference. Jim Curtin was given the freedom by SD Ernst Tanner to change formations, and he implemented enough tactical diversity to maintain an edge. It was the culture building season the franchise had been working toward, but their ability to continue this momentum will come down to the key new faces that Tanner is working diligently to add.

First, let’s document some visual proof of the relative Union’s success. The below chart reveals the five game moving average of the Union’s points per game over their history. Even a five game average is rough on the eyes, so I added one of the all-time great smoothing techniques to help. Velleman’s Smoother, developed by Paul Velleman, is the Johnny Walker Blue of smoothers. Let your eyes drink it up.

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Offseason Outlook: FC Dallas

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Offseason Outlook: FC Dallas

For better and for worse, FC Dallas is in the tween years with their current squad and head coach. First year head coach Luchi Gonzalez was very adamant about his team playing a certain style and cemented an identity in the team that the players embraced. It did not matter who they were playing or where the game was being held, Dallas was going to line up the same way (hybrid 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1) and were encouraged to play out of the back.

At times they were brilliant and managed sequences of 40+ passes before the opponent could even get close to the ball, but there were also moments of awkwardness when pressed out of their comfort zone and they lacked ideas of how to get the ball out or how to move forward. Just like a prepubescent kid, they occasionally appeared uncomfortable and completely unsure of themselves.

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