But we’ll start with the most expensive signing in MLS history making his debut.
In we go:
The story writes itself: second half at SeatGeek Stadium, the game 1-1, both teams pressing for space, possession and a winner. Legs are heavy, ideas maybe even a little bit heavier. The game hits the hour mark, and a ripple of murmuring pulses through the crowd, then a cheer, then screaming and applause. Because for the first time in Black & Gold history, Son Heung-Min – the most expensive signing in MLS history, the man who led Tottenham to unimaginable glory (one trophy) – is about to step between the lines.
This would be the moment LAFC turned into a juggernaut. This would give them a burst of energy that few in the league could hope to match.
Except… not really! The Fire got that surge of energy when Son came on in the 61st minute, taking control of the game (temporarily, it turned out) and hitting a gear LAFC couldn’t match. It was the DP winger in red, Jonathan Bamba, who scored an absolute scorcher of a goal, roofing it past Hugo Lloris in the 70th minute. And it looked like the Fire would walk away with a huge, landmark win, spoiling the most eagerly anticipated MLS debut since Lionel Messi took his bows in pink two years back.
Except… not really that, either! Because the Chicago Fire are still a little bit cursed, Son is still really good, and this was, in fact, a post and a penalty:
Denis Bouanga stepped up and made it 2-2. That’s how it would end, as Son presented LAFC fans with a debut that was, if not quite legendary, at least legend-adjacent.
“This was an exciting time for a whole week joining LAFC, it was huge,” Son said afterward, as reported by The Athletic. “There was only one thing I wanted to do and today, being on the pitch, I think it was fantastic. With the result it’s a little bit disappointing, because I think we should’ve gotten three points here, but generally I think I’m very, very happy and excited.”
Let me give you a few takeaways about his first half-hour in Black & Gold:
• Son’s spent most of his career as a left winger who cuts inside, but we saw him, two years ago, have a superb season as a run-the-lines center forward. This isn't an unusual progression for goalscoring, inverted wingers as they age (think Cristiano Ronaldo).
It always made sense that LAFC would ask him to do this job, since so much of their game is about playing into space (Son is still very fast, and is obviously world-class about knowing how and when to use that speed), and since they already have probably the best left winger in MLS on the roster in Bouanga. So the question is less about position and more about fit, as both guys will probably spend time in that left channel no matter where their name is on the team sheet.
The very early returns were… not great. Son and Bouanga didn’t really play off each other much, and couldn’t figure out their timing or spacing on a potential breakaway in the 98th minute. It’s going to take reps.
• Not so with the other winger for the final 30 minutes, Nathan Ordaz. He provided the through-ball that led to the PK, but there were other moments of impressive interplay.
Ordaz is busy, skillful, and kind of positionless – head coach Steve Cherundolo has talked about how they’ve had to teach him some of the basics of being a center forward, which is where Ordaz has gotten most of his minutes this year. What he clearly needs less schooling on is how to orient his movement around star players; he’s just got a natural knack for being a sidekick (complimentary).
As such, we saw a few glimpses of Ordaz dropping into the right half-space as a playmaker, which allows Son to make an inside-out run through the lines, and also gives a potential playmaking platform to right back Sergi Palencia.
The upshot there? If Son’s getting through the lines like that, flaring out towards the right side of the box, know who’s now charging toward the back post to one-time a pullback across the six? Bouanga. Who, of course, knows a few things about scoring goals in this league.
My guess is the partnership between those two guys functions better – in the short term, anyway – when they’re further apart than when they’re closer together. That’ll happen naturally when Son is pulled out to the right side.
• The "Ordaz dropping into the half-space as a creator" piece is super important because if you look at Son’s goals (not just his goals as a center forward, but those that came when he was playing on the wing), he’s very often running in behind for line-breaking passes from deep. LAFC haven’t had much of that this year.
This is an obvious point, but an important one: You want to give your most expensive player the kind of service that allows him to justify the price. Ordaz might have just become indispensable.
Anyway: LAFC already good. LAFC now better. LAFC not yet best. LAFC still need center back.
For Chicago, this was a microcosm of their year against the league’s elite. They reliably dispatch the sides they should, but their only win against a top team this season, in either conference, was 3-1 over the ‘Caps back in March. And that, mind you, was a severely depleted ‘Caps team in the middle of the international break.
Against the rest of the best – the top five in the Eastern Conference, as well as San Diego and now LAFC – they are 0W-7L-2D, with a -13 goal differential.
I’m sorry, Fire fans: I know I’m updating that stat every week now. But it matters for this team, which is a piece, or maybe two, from beating the big boys.
The summer transfer window closes on Aug. 21, by the way. Let’s see if the Fire can get a Son of their own.
Sixty-five minutes into Saturday night’s Copa Tejas clash between Austin FC and Houston at Q2 Stadium, the Verde & Black were sitting on a comfortable, 2-0 lead. They had scored their first at the half-hour mark, when Ilie Sánchez swept home a loose ball in the box after the visitors hadn’t been able to clear a corner.
They also had control of the ball, and often the game with it. This wasn’t, say, the Crew in full flight – Austin aren't hitting those levels just yet – but they were blunting any cutting edge from the visitors, and occasionally slashing through in the other direction.
Then, four minutes before halftime, they scored what is simply one of the best team goals you’ll ever see, anywhere:
This is how it was all supposed to look for Austin this year. The fact that it mostly hasn’t, but they’ve spent the entire season above the red line anyway, is a tribute to the collective buy-in Nico Estévez has gotten defensively. While I’ve had my quibbles with Austin this season, and don’t love the game model, they've been a decent enough team and the effort has rarely been lacking.
So on Saturday, 2-0 up against a Dynamo side sliding into the abyss… game over, right?
No.
You can see from the momentum chart that it finished 2-2. I honestly think Austin were 25 minutes from both ending Houston’s season and juuuust about punching their own Audi MLS Cup Playoffs ticket (to be clear, I still think Austin will get there eventually). Instead, they’re just two points above the red line, and Houston are just four points below, so the door stays open for at least another week.
"We played extremely well in the first half. We controlled the game, and then as the game went on, they made adjustments, we made adjustments, and we just didn't keep up with the flow of the game,” goalkeeper Brad Stuver said afterward.
"And we have to realize that going into the final stretch of the year, at the end of games, we're going to get a little bit of chaos, and we need to match that intensity, and we need to match that kind of knowledge that it's not always going to be pretty. We needed to learn our lesson from the D.C. match, when we went into halftime up two, came out a little bit flat, and they scored a goal.
“We didn't learn our lesson."
So, what happened? I think Stuver’s right about the increased intensity – I’d actually call it urgency – the Dynamo started playing with as their season was ticking away. I also think personnel has something to do with it, because around the 65-minute mark, it suddenly stopped being so easy to build right up the gut:
This isn’t all on one guy – almost nothing in our game ever is. But Ezequiel Ponce hasn’t been a 90-minute player for almost a month (sources indicate he was on a minutes restriction on Saturday), and he hasn’t scored in five weeks. He got just 13 touches in this one and didn’t put a single shot on target. He didn’t manage a shot on target in his previous two MLS outings, either.
Head coach Ben Olsen has said some cryptic things lately about not knowing who his best attackers are, and I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine he’s talking about the DP No. 9. Yes, there are mitigating circumstances since Ponce hasn’t been 100% fit. But even when he has been… meh.
"We have to take confidence from the way we responded tonight,” Olsen said. “The substitutes also did a very good job, and that is something we have to recognize as we continue figuring out what the best group is.”
Anyway, this ended up being a very good point for the Dynamo, who were rampant over the final 20 minutes and got a brace from Jack McGlynn. I wouldn’t be shocked if the attackers that finished the game are the same ones that start next week’s trip to Vancouver.
12. Matt Turner celebrated his return to MLS by helping the Revs pitch a shutout, 2-0 at home over D.C. United. It’s three points that snapped New England’s nine-game winless skid, and is their first win since late May.
Is it indicative of an upcoming stretch-run push? Well, D.C. at home is as close as this league gets to a gimme right now, and five of the Revs’ next six are against playoff sides. So let’s get more data before we decide whether or not Turner’s return (and a reversion to the 4-2-3-1, which the Revs were in for the second straight week) has salvaged an otherwise disappointing season.
It’s not just that this is a lovely pass, but the fundamental principles underpinning it: If the defense disengages, then lets you turn and play through the lines, then you absolutely have to. Do not let them off the hook for playing soft. Even if that pass is intercepted or weighted poorly, you can immediately re-press.
Owusu understands that moment (as does Caden Clark, who makes a nice run while Tristan Muyumba is chasing dandelions) and takes it. He’s been very, very good this year.
That goal – which came completely against the run of play, as Atlanta had been dominant to that point – is indicative of some of the chemistry and quality Montréal’s front three of Owusu, Clark (primary assist) and Dante Sealy (goalscorer) have developed over the past six to eight weeks.
Atlanta haven’t been able to develop chemistry all year, but at least they’re starting to develop some of their homegrowns, as both Will Reilly and Luke Brennan have gotten a decent amount of minutes over the past month. Still, that is cold comfort as, even with Alexey Miranchuk’s late equalizer, the Five Stripes’ winless skid is now nine, and they are 14 points back of ninth-place Chicago.
10. Portland’s improved record in 2025 was not built so much on improved overall play – by the advanced numbers, they’re actually a worse team this season than last, and considerably so – but by limiting mistakes in their own box. James Pantemis played out of his mind the first few months of the season, and they regularly won the set-piece battle. In a league of parity, that’s often enough.
Well, Pantemis has not been the same since a springtime leg injury, and Maxime Crépeau, mostly restored to the starting role since then, has been up-and-down. In conjunction with that, the set-piece defense has sort of collapsed. Since mid-June, they’ve conceded almost once a week on restarts – in league play. Leagues Cup, where they went unbeaten (no, I don’t count a PK shootout loss as a loss), was obviously a different story.
So: On Saturday, just eight minutes in, Crépeau fumbled a catch right into the stride of FC Dallas striker Petar Musa. 1-0.
About an hour later, Lalas Abubakar beat the entire defense to an inswinging corner delivery from Sebastian Lletget, and that made for the 2-0 final.
Here’s the question: Are the Timbers the team they looked like in Leagues Cup? Or are they the group that’s gone just 2W-4L-2D in regular-season play over the past two months (and just 5W-6L-4D since Pantemis’ injury)?
The answer will come from Crépeau (or maybe a Pantemis return?) and set pieces.
Dallas looked good – like they were playing without a 1,000-pound weight on their shoulders – in their first game post-Lucho, and they're somehow just four points below the red line in the Western Conference. I need to see more from them before I cast judgment, though, because I have my doubts about “Lalas Abubakar, overlapping left back” being a path to the promised land.
Still, they’re now 2W-1L-1D in their past four, with 10 goals scored. Something is happening here.
9. St. Louis got probably their best result of the year with a 3-1 win over visiting – and suddenly slumping – Nashville SC. And while it wasn’t perfect (CITY gave up a ton of chances; this one could’ve ended 3-3), the goals themselves were straight out of the playbook:
- The first was an outrageous finish off a semi-recycled corner from Jaziel Orozco.
- The second was on the break after they won possession in midfield.
- The third came off the high press.
The door is closed on their playoff hopes (no matter what interim head coach David Critchley says), as they’re 11 points back with nine to play. It’s not going to happen, even if they’ve sorted out a few attacking issues and new center back Fallou Fall is all he’s cracked up to be (he’s certainly fun out there). But at the very least, they can start stringing some good performances together and create something to build on for next year.
Nashville, after a three-month, 15-game unbeaten run across all competitions, have suddenly lost three of five over the past month and have looked a little bit leggy in doing so. Finding a reliable third goalscorer remains the limiting factor for this team, and on top of that, it now looks like they have to find a fourth left back after Wyatt Meyer joined Daniel Lovitz and Taylor Washington on the injury heap.
The good news is they’re still in the Supporters’ Shield race, because…
8. Philly dropped home points to Toronto FC, conceding a very late equalizer when Malik Henry came off the bench to change the game and find DeAndre Kerr with a perfect cross into the six-yard box (more on them in a minute).
It finished 1-1, and Philly’s goal was so good I’ve got to post it:
But the rest of their performance was not like this. It wasn’t bad, per se – they had a few quality chances, like Tai Baribo’s hilarious Video Review-annulled finish just before the hour mark, and Danley Jean Jacques’ laser from 16 yards out in the 86th minute. But they weren’t squeezing the life out of the game the way they had against the Rapids in their most recent outing, and so the door was open.
Henry and Kerr walked through it. Which means for the third time this year, the Union coughed up home points by conceding a stoppage-time equalizer. It’s officially a trend, and if Philly fall short of the Shield via a tiebreaker, or by a point, dropping these will be why.
Ok, back to the Toronto kids: TFC have been the second-biggest offenders in terms of not developing local players, when controlling for the size and talent of the market, behind only the Galaxy. Well, both Henry (who was officially signed to a first-team contract this weekend after tearing it up in MLS NEXT Pro with TFC II) and Kerr are local kids, and both had spent some amount of time in TFC’s academy (though neither is what you’d call a true, beginning-to-end academy product).
Kerr put up 5g/1a in about 1,200 minutes two years ago for the first team. He put up 8g/1a in about 1,250 minutes last year, and this year (which has been marred by injury) he’s at 3g/0a in around 540 minutes. That is officially a track record, and there's simply no reason to continue starting Ola Brynhildsen (who is on loan, and has not been good) over him.
Henry, meanwhile… I’m not going to say he should start. Not yet, anyway. But he was, by the underlying numbers, one of the very best players in NEXT Pro, and we’re starting to see a strong, league-wide correlation with lower-tier excellence (primarily NEXT Pro and USL Championship) and MLS success (just look at the Sounders’ roster, or the Crew’s). Come the 55th minute of literally every single game for the rest of this season, if Henry’s not already on the field playing, he should be on the sidelines stretching out and warming up because he’s about to come in.
TFC’s got to stop recruiting mediocre and expensive internationals over local guys or SuperDraft picks they can turn into high-level contributors. I really, really hope that, this week, we finally saw that pendulum start to swing.
7. Did Sporting KC play their best game of the year on Saturday? Probably! I thought they were good in meaningful ways in what ultimately became a 2-0 home loss to San Diego, and I’m gonna take a victory lap about that because I was just saying to a buddy on Saturday morning that they needed to switch to a double-pivot.
Which they did! They’ve clearly hacked my WhatsApp.
Anyway, Los Niños beat them anyway. Sometimes in this sport of ours, one team has two Best XI-caliber attackers, the other does not, and that’s the whole story.
Anders Dreyer and Chucky Lozano, ladies and gents.
6. There haven’t been as many breathtaking, match-winning moments from Wilfried Zaha this year as I suspect the Charlotte braintrust would have hoped for. But he came up with an absolute scorcher on Sunday evening for the game’s only goal in a 1-0 win at FC Cincinnati:
This one felt like a playoff game: tight, no flow, hard-fought, etc. Brian Anunga got a fully deserved red, and there was just a level of physicality throughout that says the stretch run is officially here.
Absolutely fantastic result for the Crown, who’ve now won five straight.
For Cincy, it was a missed chance to move back to the top of the Shield race. And while Kévin Denkey returned for a late cameo, they saw Luca Orellano subbed at the half with reported hamstring tightness.
5. The Red Bulls rallied back from an early 1-0 deficit to take what I will refer to as a controversial 2-1 home win over Real Salt Lake. I am mostly going to stop my analysis of this game there and point you to my colleague Andrew Wiebe for Instant Replay this week.
I will, however, drop this highlight in, because this was very, very good stuff from the Claret-and-Cobalt:
I’d imagine, though, that the frustration coursing through RSL this week will burn as bright as the sun.
4. It’ll probably be a different, colder type of frustration coursing through Minnesota because their 2-1 home loss against Colorado was self-inflicted. Twice they got their rest defense wrong; twice they let the Rapids get out on the break; twice, Darren Yapi finished off that break with a well-taken goal.
The second of those made it 2-0 in the 70th minute, and it became a hold-on-for-dear-life proposition for the visitors. And they did, just barely.
Colorado, in their first outing of the post-Djordje Mihailovic era, played a 5-4-1 with a much deeper line of confrontation than we’ve tended to see from them this year. They don’t really have a playmaker anymore, so they’re going to trade possession and field position for space to attack into.
It worked this week, which they finished in eighth place in the West. I have major questions about what it looks like for the rest of the year.
3. Luis Muriel from May 21 to August 2: zero goals in 14 games across all competitions. And as I wrote in this spot a couple weeks back, it’s not like he was snakebit in front of net – he wasn’t even generating shots. He wasn’t doing any playmaking, either, with just three assists in that span.
So when Ramiro Enrique started getting real minutes at the start of summer, and started putting the ball in the net (five goals in seven games from June 25-July 25), it felt like time was up on Muriel as a starter.
Muriel in his last two games: five goals and an assist. That included a hat-trick midweek against Necaxa to see the Lions into the Leagues Cup quarters, and that includes 2g/1a from Orlando’s huge 4-1 derby win over Miami during Sunday Night Soccer presented by Continental Tire.
This is the goal of a killer:
I have no idea how a guy with that burst and that touch goes scoreless over 14 games.
Anyway, it’s now three straight wins in the regular season for Orlando, who are up to fourth in the East (though still sixth on PPG). They are healthy and clicking, and very much part of that top group now. It’s no longer a gang of five; it’s a truly big six.
Miami are still up there as well, but this was their worst defensive performance (non-PSG variety, anyway) for quite a while. And without Messi – still nursing that hamstring issue – they don’t have the firepower to hang in a shootout.
2. I said on BlueSky this week how the 2025 Sounders are the deepest team in MLS history. Let’s take stock of how that played out in their 4-0 win down in Carson against what had been a pretty good LA Galaxy side over the past two months:
- They were without two of their DPs, their starting No. 9 and their starting No. 10.
- They were without two other guys who have been DPs at various points in their career, each of whom were supposed to be major contributors this year.
- They rested their best center back, who’s been outstanding all summer.
- They’re easing their legendary goalkeeper back into the fold (by that, I mean he hasn’t played yet, even though he’s been medically cleared) after a nasty concussion.
I could go on – their starting right winger is now filling in (very well) as the No. 10, and that means the former starting left winger is now the starting right winger, and that guy had a hand in each of the first two goals. He’s no longer the starting left winger, though, because Seattle’s lone remaining DP finally got his chance at left wing three weeks ago and has looked like one of the very best players in the league ever since.
Anyway, I think this is one of the very best teams in the league, and I think they’re the only ones who could still look it with this number of injuries to/absences of cornerstone players.
The only question is whether they now have enough top-end talent to win knockout round games against the best. We’ll see if they can answer it in Leagues Cup, and then we’ll see if they can answer it again in the playoffs.
As mentioned above, LA have been pretty good: entering this game, they were 4W-2L-4D across all competitions since the start of June. But there are levels, and on this night, they were nowhere near it.
1. And finally, our Face of the Week goes to this kid:
Just when the season was threatening to slip away from the Quakes – and it really was, and still might, even with all three points thanks to this 2-1 win over the ‘Caps on that very late Preston Judd winner – you get a moment like that.
Leagues Cup is great, as is Concacaf Champions Cup, US Open Cup, etc. They’re events, and I know we all love Event Games. We should. But to me, the best thing about following a team or a league over the course of the year is the “over the course of the year” part. You get the ebbs and flows, and honest to god, if you’re a hardcore fan, it always feels like there’s more ebbs. Certainly has been for San Jose.
So this was a special moment. I’m a grumpy old sportswriter; not much brings a smile to my face. This did.
Anyway, the Quakes played up a man for about an hour against a ‘Caps side that’s already short-handed thanks to injuries and Thomas Müller awaiting his debut. They badly needed this win, and looked like they were going to get it right up to the 88th minute when Brian White took a Berbatov-level touch that dropped Bruno Wilson like a rock before finishing past Daniel to make it 1-1.
But then San Jose threw the kitchen sink at ‘em, and Judd found that magical moment this team really, really needed.
Judd, like White before him, is one of those lower-tier stars – he tore up the USL Championship at the start of the decade – who’s starting to come good in MLS. He’s got 6g/4a in about 950 minutes across all competitions this season, and spectacular underlying numbers.
From a roster-building perspective, MLS is a resource allocation puzzle, and developing lower-league guys like Judd into high-level contributors is a super-efficient way of winning on the margins. It’s how you get to the playoffs, and that’s somewhere San Jose haven’t been in a long, long time.
They finished the week ninth in the West. Just eight games left to go.
