Unlike last season where Columbus returned 96% of team minutes played, this offseason has seen more turnover for the Crew than has been seen in years but has also resulted in impressive depth throughout the squad. After a disappointing and injury-filled 2019 season, Caleb Porter will be looking to bring his team to the playoffs for the first time under his watch.
Read More“Dumpster fire” has several meanings, most of them fairly parallel, but it’s rarely used to describe something dull enough to feel like it’s taking weeks, maybe even months off your life. “Life-sucking” sums up FC Cincinnati’s 2019 season tidily as anything. You never knew quite what would happen when the whistle blew, but you understood it would hurt and that you wouldn’t enjoy it. Even down the stretch when they dialed back the defensive incompetence, they rarely won. All in all, it was…unpleasant.
2020 can’t be that bad, surely. I don’t know that, obviously, but I literally cannot think of a way that Cincinnati could be worse on all sides of the ball than in 2019. But let’s see if we can’t find some ways.
Read MoreIn 2019, de Boer came in claiming he’d “fix the defense” of the MLS Cup winners and leave the attack the same. They started in a 3-4-3, which after some early failings, morphed almost immediately in the opening weeks to a 4-3-3 which after an extended ramp kept Atlanta United towards the top half of the east but angered basically everyone involved. What de Boer brought to the club was a more conservative approach to defense and a more possession-oriented approach to attack, which looked pretty boring until the ball made its way into the final third at which point you’d see some creative interchange and risk-taking by the front 3/4, with the idea that you just had to accept that turnovers would happen and the team would need to “lock on” in those transition moments to win the ball back high or force a clearance and then go again. And there would be turnovers. Or this was the concept at least. Change is hard. Hold that thought.
Read MoreFor the first time in what feels like a long time, Toronto FC have had a smooth off-season.
Well, other than that their club captain will miss 4 months due to ankle surgery that took the club 3 months to decide to have. Oh, and after Jozy Altidore has spent so much time injured he’s become a medical expert himself, and criticized the club’s handling of said ankle surgery. ( And also after the club opened up a DP slot and signed an almost 31 year old winger with 3 goals in his past 50 appearances, who has just come off a cruciate ligament tear.
However, TFC have kept most of their roster intact, with 90% of their minutes played from last season coming back (and the vast majority of their goals). Their whole front office and coaching staff remains in place, after losing a GM and longtime assistant manager last season. They actually have a platform to build on, instead of a sinking ship of scrambling pieces Greg Vanney has to make work in 15 minutes of preseason because they have to fly to Costa Rica to play Saprissa in the first round of CCL on what feels like the day after MLS Cup.
Somehow, this is smooth.
Read MoreLet me start by saying this, there are a lot of things I think the Chicago Fire could have done better this off-season related to their move to Soldier Field, their new logo, and their roster decisions. Rather than focus on what they’ve gotten wrong, I’m going to try to focus on answering one question: Will the Chicago Fire be a better team in 2020 than they were in 2019?
Read More2020 is shaping up to be a make or break season for Ben Olsen. Or, at least, it’s shaping up to look like it should be a make-or-break season. There’s nothing to actually suggest that there’s real pressure from the DC United front office, but considering how recent seasons have gone for DC United, and how strong their lineup looks going into the season, there probably should be.
I wrote back in December about how 2019 was supposed to be The Year for DC United. Despite making the playoffs for the 5th time in 6 seasons, last season didn’t live up to expectations. After a thrilling end to 2018, everyone assumed the 2019 version of Rooney, Acosta, and Co. would take the next step: contend near the top of the East and make a real push towards MLS Cup. That didn’t quite happen.
Read MoreIn 2019, Nashville SC was an elite defense coupled with an above average attack in the USL Championship. The side that will take the field as a Major League Soccer expansion team in 2020 will look almost completely different from the team that spent two seasons in the USL Championship. However, with head coach Gary Smith leading the side into MLS, many things will remain the same.
Read MoreFor FC Dallas and their fans, the 2020 season feels like sophomore year in college. You’ve settled in to your new digs, figured out how to get the best class schedule, have your core group of friends, and you know the best spots to get a cheap slice of pizza at 1 a.m. After turning over a good chunk of the roster from 2018 and installing a new coach in Luchi Gonzalez, just about everything was new in 2019. For 2020 Luchi’s still running the show, and aside from the departure of Dominque Badji, the roster is mostly intact from the end of 2019 as this team heads into Gonzalez’ sophomore year in charge. The club and the fans know what to expect for the upcoming season.
Read MoreMajor League Soccer and the MLSPA engineered one of the quietest Collective Bargaining Agreements in the history of American sports last week. There was no public discourse. No mudslinging. No use of public opinion for leverage. The players obediently showed up to preseason without so much as a whisper. Both sides were obviously close and had an agreement to be amicable this time arounde.
New CBAs result in players getting more of what they want, and this one was no different. The players successfully negotiated for more money, greater freedom of movement, and amenities like more charter flights. Public opinion, colored by the excitement of a new season, reflected that the players did well. Opinions were also colored by seemingly impressive claims that the players could be making 36% more money by the end of the agreement. Very few of us could imagine 36% more in income five years from now. The numbers sound impressive, but as usual lack context. Let’s add some, shall we?
Read MoreLook, if we do this whole preview in serious pundit voice there’s going to be nothing to say about New York City Football Club. They're the exact same team as last season! Which was pretty much the same team as the season before that! They’ve been good for years, and if you’re crazy enough to bet on MLS you’d have to be even crazier not to bet on them being good again this year. Like some jerk wrote, boringly, on this website a couple of months ago, there’s no reason NYCFC shouldn’t be a playoff team in 2020.
But screw that, right? There’s a reason nobody likes Nate Silver. You know who everyone likes, deep down, whether they want to work through this uncomfortable personal truth with their therapist or not, is very loud men who go on TV to yell their loud sports takes loudly. And if those men gave even one tiny airborne molecule of a crap about American club soccer, boy would they have some news for you: NYCFC is not going to make the playoffs this season. Not even close! In fact, you’re an idiot for ever thinking they might.
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