2022 MLS Season Previews: Columbus Crew, Inter Miami CF, Nashville SC
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2021 MLS Season Preview: Los Angeles FC, Inter Miami, and Real Salt Lake
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We’re publishing three team previews every weekday until MLS First Kick on April 16th (THAT’S TODAY!). You can find all of them here.
Today we’re looking at three teams which have all approached their roster construction and team-building in completely different ways.
Read MoreMLS according to g+: The Overperforming, the Underperforming, and the Ugly Part 3
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We have reached the conclusion of the 2020 MLS season, and it happens to coincide with the conclusion of the long, LONG 2020 US election. And the two things share a lot in common - first and foremost among them being the all-important question of “who won?” and “who lost?”
But when the contest is at its end, or a season is nearly over, hand-wringing and analysis is all that’s left - the ‘woulda-shoulda-couldas’ of the world that keep a veritable army of pundits employed in our country. The most important thing for these folks to look at is underperformance: how did we do this thing, expecting it would have a certain result, and not get the desired result? For the election, a few things obviously underperformed; namely, pollsters, who had predicted a robust blue wave that did not manifest; and Democrats, who faced a let down across the country, from the results of the presidential election in Florida to the Maine senate race between Sara Gideon and Susan Collins.
Read MoreOffseason Outlook: Inter Miami
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For better or for worse, we now inevitably place modern MLS expansion teams in one of two camps. First is the Minnesota/Cincinnati Camp, which is really the “they chose poorly” category. Teams in that class mostly didn’t spend much money, wasted the cash they did spend, and found themselves among the worst teams in MLS history, expansion or otherwise. The second category of expansion side is the Atlanta/LAFC version, which consisted of wise strategic planning that led to their teams competing for trophies in their inaugural seasons.
It’s probably not fair to force each new team into one of those two boxes, but we do it anyway because it helps us frame our preconceptions of them. As the league continues to expand at a rapid rate, we will continue to get more chances to unfairly label expansion teams in one column or the other. The labels for the 2020 expansion teams are still unclear, but Nashville SC looks to be on the fast track to follow in Cincinnati’s footsteps. For Inter Miami CF, the trajectory is still unclear. Despite being linked to nearly every star player in Europe over 30, they still haven’t dropped the cash. No matter if reality ultimately meets expectation, it is clear is that Miami still has a lot of work to do before their season starts on March 1st.
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