Vancouver stay surging, Charlotte's historic run ends & more from Matchday 35 | OneFootball

By Charles Boehm

The Armchair Analyst has grabbed a well-earned bit of vacation time before the MLS run-in cranks up to its full levels of insanity. So I’ve been called off the bench for a substitute cameo as we try to make sense of a lively Matchday 35.

Let’s make the most of these minutes and leap straight into the fray…

Crown ‘Em

The league’s two hottest teams, led by arguably its top two goalkeepers, raised the curtain on the weekend in an early kickoff for ‘Kids Day’ at sunsplashed Yankee Stadium. And if all that sounds like a nice, happy vibe, we should clarify that New York City FC, Charlotte FC and referee Tim Ford duly combined for 27 fouls, nine yellow cards and three penalty kicks, reflective of the postseason-level intensity that rolls in at this time of year.

When the dust settled, The Crown’s MLS record-tying nine-game win streak was dead and buried, put to the sword by Alonso Martínez’s brace of PKs and NYCFC’s savvy pitch control in a 2-0 win. Matt Freese put a bow on it by commemorating his freshly-signed contract extension through 2030 with a penalty save on Wilfried Zaha to secure his eighth clean sheet of the season, and clinch his side’s spot in the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs.

“Charlotte has become a very solid team throughout the season, defensively, very well-organized. So for us it was very important in our strategy to get this first goal in whatever way,” said Pigeons boss Pascal Jansen postgame. “So we get them in a defensive structure where they were struggling at those moments, which gave us obviously a good lift in the game, because you're 2-0 up and then you know their defensive structure has to open up.

“For us it's the third game in eight days. So you could feel the legs at some point in the game and we changed our setup defending in our own half a little bit, which allowed us to play more from transition as well,” he continued. “And apart from the penalty that we conceded, we didn't give any chances away.”

The Cityzens are now 7W-1L-1D dating back to mid-July (it’s probably not a coincidence this run corresponds with new Designated Player Nicolás Fernández’s arrival). They’ve pushed into the Eastern Conference’s top four, and showed admirable range in this six-point week they just had.

There was the resilience and attacking verve required in Wednesday’s 3-2, injury-time comeback win over slick-passing Columbus – as the cracks over at the excellent Hudson River Blue noted, that’s now 23 points NYC have clawed back from losing positions this season – followed by the measured, tactical grinder against CLTFC.

Another weighty week lies ahead. The Pigeons welcome Leo Messi and Inter Miami, who are a step behind them in the table but on a higher points-per-game rate with games in hand, to Citi Field on Wednesday, a true six-pointer in the race for the top four and the Round One home-field advantage it confers in the postseason. Then, at the weekend, they’ll cross the Hudson River for a derby against the Red Bulls in which they might just get to close the casket on their rivals’ playoff qualification hopes.

Meanwhile, Charlotte’s limitations away from Bank of America Stadium remain, as does their attacking danger when required to step onto the front foot and chase a game. The consolation is they’ve got two of their last three matches at home, sandwiched around a very winnable visit to D.C. United.

“We didn't play enough combination play around their penalty box, with all the possession that we had today,” said Dean Smith. “It felt it was almost 70/30 in terms of possession, that's how it felt on the sidelines. So we didn't combine as well as we could do, and use the space in behind them.”

WATCH: NYCFC snap Charlotte's streak to punch postseason ticket

Central Ohio slide

Over in Columbus, a side whose identity revolves around rhythm has slipped into a dreary tempo of one step forward and two steps back, and the Crew have slid down the standings precipitously as a result.

With Saturday’s drab 1-1 home draw against cellar-dwelling Toronto FC, Wilfried Nancy’s men have plummeted all the way to eighth in the East. As brightly as the night started, with new DP Wessam Abou Ali netting his third goal in as many games, it all turned sour just minutes later as the Palestine international left the game before halftime with an ankle injury, and Richie Laryea broke clear into acres of space just after halftime to net an equalizer that Patrick Schulte could probably have done better with.

They’re already missing Diego Rossi, Sean Zawadzki, Rudy Camacho and Mo Farsi due to knocks, and the reserves just haven’t kept up the level required for Nancy’s high-wire possession act to really click and flow.

“This is a tough time,” said defender Malte Amundsen, and man, you can tell.

This game had many of the usual hallmarks of a disappointing Crew result: Plenty of possession but not enough big chances to show for it, a brittle back line which looks chronically vulnerable in transition and an increasing sense of desperation as they chased the game down the stretch to no avail.

“We have faced a lot of adversity this year, this is a fact,” said a frustrated Nancy afterwards. “Wes just came in, and now he's injured. Diego was OK, but now he's injured, too. This is the situation. At the same time, yeah, we still believe. We have to face this. This is not easy. It was not our best game tonight, but we had enough to win the game, but we didn't do it.

“It's a difficult cycle.”

They’ve won just one league game in the past two months, and haven’t won two in a row since June. Lower.com Field is nothing like the fortress it was during the MLS Cup and Leagues Cup runs of the previous two seasons, and they’ve got just three games left to stabilize this listing ship: At playoffs-chasing Chicago, at Orlando City and home to RBNY on Decision Day.

Columbus probably won’t fall below the line entirely. But a Wild Card berth would present a long, arduous road they simply don’t look capable of navigating.

HIGHLIGHTS: Columbus Crew vs. Toronto FC | September 20, 2025

The Chicago way

Though the Fire have turned out to be a markedly more effective road team than at home, the Crew will have their hands full against their old boss Gregg Berhalter at Soldier Field next time out.

The Men in Red popped up to Allianz Field and took full advantage of Minnesota United’s midweek US Open Cup semifinal heartbreak, bossing the Loons in all categories en route to a 3-0 win that draws them a few precious steps closer to snapping that seven-year postseason drought. The Fire remain in the East’s ninth and final playoff spot and with a game in hand on the teams around them (Nashville, Columbus and RBNY), they could not merely hold off the Red Bulls, but even pass the Crew and/or Nashville.

Classy winger Philip Zinckernagel remains the headliner for Chicago, scoring his third goal in as many games to run his MLS season total to an outstanding 14g/13a. My talented colleague Tyler Snipes has more on CF97’s big night in the Twin Cities.

Conversely, the Loons will be glad to see the end of a pretty wretched few days. They’ll have to get their heads right after letting a trip to the Open Cup final slip away, and must do so without striker Kelvin Yeboah and defender Carlos Harvey, who are both out injured for the rest of the regular season.

The good news? A very manageable run-in of Colorado, Sporting KC and the LA Galaxy offers them every chance to remain in the West’s top four and refocus for the playoffs.

WATCH: Chicago Fire inch closer to playoffs with emphatic win at Minnesota

Whitecaps cresting

The Vancouver Whitecaps seem to have found their groove again, and then some.

VWFC advanced to the Canadian Championship final with a firm 4-0 thumping of Forge FC at midweek, then made light work of SKC to the tune of a 2-0 W in Kansas City that sets a new club record for points in an MLS season (55) with five games still to go – and did so while allowing Thomas Müller to rest a sore adductor.

That’s four wins in a row for the British Columbians, six unbeaten across all competitions and they’re 14W-0L-2D in league play when they score first.

Even the bad news turned out to be not so bad for the ‘Caps, as they learned that the ominous knee injury that forced Tristan Blackmon out of their CanChamp victory was an MCL sprain that will sideline him for a month or so, rather than the longer-term setback they feared.

When you glance over at the Supporters’ Shield table and click on the ‘PPG’ column, you’ll note Vancouver have now surged up to second in the league by that measure. While they’ve got some tricky fixtures ahead – mainly two Cascadia Cup clashes and a cross-continent trip to Orlando – those games in hand give them every opportunity to sneak ahead of Philadelphia, Cincinnati and San Diego.

Though I haven’t made any final decisions about end-of-year awards yet, it’s going to be very difficult not to vote Jesper Sørensen for Sigi Schmid Coach of the Year. Because his ‘Caps don’t just play stylishly and intelligently week after week – they do so in the face of a brutal injury list that would sink most MLS teams. This time out it was new signing Kenji Cabrera who stepped up with a goal and overall man-of-the-match outing in his first Whitecaps start.

WATCH: ALL CAPS! Vancouver stay in Supporters' Shield chase

Plodding Portland

Houston’s Shell Energy Stadium has traditionally been a house of horrors for the Portland Timbers, and so it was again this weekend with a 1-0 Dynamo win that keeps La Naranja’s playoff hopes alive.

Jack McGlynn to Ezequiel Ponce is a combination the Dynamo hoped would be a foundational element of their 2025, and while there hasn’t been quite enough of it to date, you could see the virtues of Ben Olsen’s Joga Benito approach on this occasion. McGlynn is now up to 6g/8a on the year, career bests for the young American regista and a vindication of Houston’s big swing to bring him in.

On the other side, this one raises another round of troubling questions about Portland’s contender credentials, even while taking into account the absence of their influential Colombian fullbacks Juan Mosquera and Jimer Fory.

Phil Neville’s side have now won just two of their last 10 matches and are down to seventh in the West, with the Englishman sounding more frustrated than usual by his team’s lack of urgency and aggression in his postgame presser.

For more detail on this front, take a dive into veteran Rose City scribe Jeremy Peterman’s in-depth breakdown, which lays out some of the fundamental shortcomings and concerns at this stage of Neville’s PTFC project:

Messi + 10 others

Matt Doyle, the inimitable ace who usually pens these weekend wraps, is fond of the concept of ‘the tactics-free zone,’ those delightfully chaotic periods in a match where clutch players make stuff happen and a manager’s best-laid plans can go poof in a matter of seconds.

Down in Fort Lauderdale, Inter Miami and D.C. United decided to see if they could fashion an entire 90-minute match into a TFZ, rife with slack defending, dodgy goalkeeping, one end-to-end-to-end sequence after another and a big dose of Leo Messi doing Leo Messi things, as our Harrison Hamm adeptly documented.

The Herons got back to winning ways with a 3-2 barnburner of a win powered by Messi’s 2g/1a, which pushes him into the Golden Boot presented by Audi lead and keeps IMCF in the Shield mix, but… jeez, I don’t know. This team just can’t defend reliably, they don’t control games with the ball as well as they should and there’s not much margin for error left, as they’ll be playing six games down the home stretch when many others will be playing three.

Betting everything on a 38-year-old GOAT with magic in his boots but ample mileage on his legs might seem like an imperfect strategy for hunting a Shield/MLS Cup double. And yet… there are worse plans out there. Would you really bet your hard-earned wages against him?

WATCH: Lionel Messi takes Golden Boot lead with brace

Quakes collapse

Bruce Arena has done quick, laudable work to make the San Jose Earthquakes relevant and competitive again, and until this weekend I still thought they’d probably figure out a way to slip into the playoffs despite their obvious defensive frailties.

HIGHLIGHTS: San Jose Earthquakes vs. St. Louis CITY SC | September 20, 2025

But THAT? Letting a down-and-out STL CITY SC side do THAT to you on your home pitch? That just can’t happen. The Quakes’ whopping 4.9 expected goals were about double that of STL’s, yet it simply didn’t reveal itself on the scoreboard, and I suspect that’s all she wrote for their postseason hopes.

Brutal scenes.

Purple and Gold

Orlando City vs. Nashville SC was something of a Rorschach game. From one perspective, it exposed weak spots that will ultimately limit their prospects of a championship run this autumn – NSC’s vulnerability out of possession, Orlando’s tendency towards passivity with a lead, for example.

It was a ton of fun, though, and I’d rather just ask the soccer gods if they can treat us to a rematch in the playoffs. Come to think of it, a Best-of-3 series might be nice.

HIGHLIGHTS: Orlando City vs. Nashville SC | September 20, 2025

Double trouble, tripled

While they remain tenacious as usual, Real Salt Lake had no answer for LAFC this week, and duly walked away from back-to-back meetings with the Angelenos with some heavy wounds, to the tune of an 8-2 aggregate.

On Wednesday, it was a virtuoso hat-trick showing from Son Heung-Min that pushed LAFC to a 4-1 road win in Utah. Come Sunday, his colleague Denis Bouanga responded with a historic triple of his own to spark a four-goal fightback after Brayan Vera’s early banger.

No one will want to deal with this version of LAFC in the postseason… except, perhaps, the aforementioned Whitecaps, who’ve seen several tournament runs cruelly crushed by Bouanga & Co. over the past few years.

WATCH: Denis Bouanga scores historic hat trick for LAFC