Austin's new look, New England find chemistry & more from Matchday 9 | OneFootball

By Matthew Doyle

A few promising shape changes, an unexpected hero in Cleveland, a Designated Player's breakout game and some real MLS After Dark energy in the late games. We’ve got it all ahead, folks.

Let’s dive in:

The Eye

We finally saw Nico Estévez shift out of the 4-4-2 Austin have been playing this year into what I feel pretty comfortable calling a fairly standard 4-3-3 in their 1-0 home win over the LA Galaxy. You can see it in the network passing map:

This was pretty promising in virtually every way. Austin had:

Taken solo, any of those numbers could mean not all that much. Taken together, it paints a pretty comprehensive picture of a team that was more comfortable with the ball than they’d been through most of the season, and were better about using it to get into dangerous spots.

Owen Wolff, in particular, was great as a two-way, pressing menace in a free 8 role, shaded way to the left (he’s No. 33 in the graphic above). Wolff led Austin with 11 defensive actions, which was the most on the team – unusual for any attacker in any set-up – and generated four chances, which also led the team. Defaulting him to that center-left channel and then allowing him to pick and choose when to shift into wide overloads, rather than starting him out wide and then having him pick and choose when to come inside, makes a lot of sense to me in the way that it weaponizes his brain and his motor.

He’s not a natural chance creator, per se, but if you put him in a spot where he’s attacking teams in their build-out phase, he will create turnovers. And turnovers in that phase lead to chances.

The issue? Their $30 million front line is not finishing those chances. Good on Brandon Vazquez for eventually getting himself a tap-in – finding tap-ins is the most important skill any goalscorer can have, and it’s good to see it’s still in Vazquez’s bag – but there’s still little chemistry between him, Myrto Uzuni and Osman Bukari.

The other issue here is they could easily have been down 2-0 at the break if not for some Brad Stuver heroics. The 4-3-3 remains my favorite formation in soccer, but it only really works in the modern game if there’s clarity on who’s sliding over (or up) next to the single pivot (everything becomes a double pivot in modern soccer). Yet too often Besard Sabovic was all alone in the eye of the storm.

And then, the few times Sabovic actually pushed forward, the storm just passed him by entirely:

That’s far too easy. If the 4-3-3 is going to become Austin’s go-to, they need to both solve the defensive rotations and tighten up the space between the lines.

I do have some other questions about Sabovic in the No. 6 role based upon his issues in distribution – he was eighth on the team in progressive passing distance, which, uh, not great; and he’s not much of a tempo-setter either (at least not yet) – so it’s not like all problems have been solved.

But this felt like a better process than we’ve gotten from Austin through much of the season, and was certainly the type of bounce-back you’d like to see after the beating they took last week.

"Overall, to be honest, for me, it's been the most complete game that we've played so far here at home, on the offensive side and in the defensive side," Estévez said. He’s not wrong, even if the finishing was frustrating.

Time, of course, is already running out on the Galaxy’s season. They are now 0W-6L-3D through nine games, with just six goals scored.

Injuries and all, they should not be this bad.

Announcement

A big 2-0 win for the Revs! They once again went with the 3-4-1-2 that worked well last week in Atlanta, and once again deserved their win, this time at home over a sliding New York City FC side (one win in their last five).

Arguably even more important than the three points was the fact that Leo Campana and Ignatius Ganago finally looked dangerous from the run of play, and in fact looked dangerous together. This is just lovely stuff:

“A guy like Ganago has just kept grinding,” head coach Caleb Porter said in the postgame, as reported by our good friends at The Blazing Musket. “He has played well in most games. He has been in good spots, he just hasn't finished.

"I actually sat down with him and Leo individually on Friday. In Leo's case, I showed him all his goals in MLS. Just went through about three minutes of goals and reminded him of his quality. And then I went through, with Ganago, all his goals in Ligue 1 to remind him his quality. I think sometimes, even good players, they need to remember they can hit the back of the net. They need permission to watch themself, and I gave them permission. We watched their goals, and then they went and did it.”

I’m sure that’s part of it, but the bigger part really has been New England’s ability to progress the ball into dangerous spots and actually generate looks for the attackers. They’re actually playing against the ball more often, but are generating 50% more chances per 90 since the formation change, and more than doubling their expected assists (that Ganago assist above was literally New England’s first of the year).

They’re playing more through-balls and hitting fewer crosses from open play even though they’re playing with wingbacks – getting those guys to the endline for pullbacks instead of settling for crosses from out wide has been a key philosophical change that’s been pretty clear to see.

The other effect of having wingbacks is it’s pushed Carles Gil inside a little bit more. He’s at his best in the right channel, and he’s now getting more touches there (about 30% more of his touches have come there and in the actual center channel over the past two games than in the first six) since right wingback Ilay Feingold is just motoring endline-to-endline.

Getting your best player on the ball in better spots is a good plan. New England, after a miserable start to the year, are executing it.

Ganago certainly thinks so.

“We have Carles, one of the best players in the league, who is just behind us [in the 3-4-1-2]. Sometimes it's easy to play with him, because Carles is a top player, and Leo also is a very good player,” the Cameroonian said. “The chemistry is coming, and I think we will do better the next games, I think.”

Can’t do much better than six points from two games, but I don’t blame Ganago for being optimistic. New England’s played pretty well for the past 180 minutes after a brutal start to the season, though I want to see them showing a little more comfort killing games off with the ball.

The Pigeons, as mentioned, are spiraling (don’t buy the relatively even xG total from this game; NYCFC generated the vast majority of theirs after they were already down 2-0). Pascal Jansen has had no more luck with the U22s than Nick Cushing did, and they’re not particularly dangerous on set pieces, so right now it’s Alonso Martínez or nothing.

A few more things to ponder…

13. Charlotte FC freaking whomped San Diego in Charlotte on Saturday night, a 3-0 win that could pretty easily have been worse.

Even before Andrés Reyes’ 39th-minute red card, the Crown looked more comfortable dictating things with the ball than they have traditionally been. They were up 1-0, had out-shot San Diego 4-0, were completing almost 90% of their passes and were around 50% possession. This was not just an absorb-and-counter performance; this was pure pitch control with a “Do Not Enter” sign hung up outside their own defensive third.

San Diego looked helpless for really the first time all season, and I think Mikey Varas will have learned some important stuff about his depth pieces. He pretty heavily rotated the spine of his team, with Reyes getting his first start at center back, two new midfield starters, and Tomás Ángel getting a run at the No. 9; it didn’t go great.

Face of the Week here on the Reyes red, by the way:

12. Every week Atlanta United give us multiple clips to sort of shake our heads in wonder at. Make sure you go to Backheeled, because it seems like Joe Lowery’s got something cooking.

For me, this is the Atlanta United season (decade, really) in a nutshell:

Philly smoked ‘em 3-0. Quinn Sullivan had himself a banger and Tai Baribo got himself out of a little rut, coming off the bench for the last quarter-hour and scoring the final goal of the night.

Atlanta at home is a “get right” game and the Union got themselves right after having won just once in their past five. Well done.

11. Well done, as well, to D.C. United, who survived an injury to Christian Benteke, then scored a Route 1 goal that would’ve made him proud before João Peglow completed his brace in stunning fashion:

That is outrageous stuff, and United held on for a 2-1 final in Harrison.

Another listless performance from the Red Bulls, and there’s starting to be some grumbling that none of the young core – all so crucial in last year’s run to an MLS Cup appearance – have shown any kind of year-over-year improvement. This is, for the first time in a long while, a team that looks to lack an identity more than quality.

10. Montréal picked up a point but remained one of the league’s two winless teams with a scoreless home draw against a very injured Orlando City side. Marco Donadel definitely has this team playing more defensively sound soccer, though they’ve yet to show the type of final-third quality needed to consistently create high-level chances.

The Lions, meanwhile, are just holding on in the absence of starting central midfielders César Araújo and Eduard Atuesta. Dagur Dan Thorhallsson – who’s historically the starting right back, but has been in central midfield for the past few games instead – had thoughts.

“I am a little frustrated if I am completely honest,” Thorhallsson said in the postgame. “It is always good to have a clean sheet– but we were scoring a lot and conceding a lot at the same time, but now we are keeping the goal clean and also not scoring a lot. We need to find a balance.”

An underrated thing here: Ramiro Enrique is one of the best pressing forwards in the league, and he’s been out for a bit as well (like Araújo and Atuesta, he’s slated to come back in mid-May, though MLS injury timelines can be… tricky). Having a guy like that who can change both the tempo of the game and where on the pitch it’s being played is something that Orlando have really been missing for a few weeks.

They also need to, you know, stop getting red cards.

Anyway, three straight 0-0s for the Cats.

9. I thought Jon Marthaler from the Minnesota Star Tribune summed up the Loons’ scoreless home draw against FC Dallas nicely: “Not much from Joaquín Pereyra, not much from Robin Lod, not much from Kelvin Yeboah in this one. MNUFC has got to figure out how to attack when they can't just run in behind the defense.”

We know Minnesota’s floor is high. What Jon described is what they have to do in order to raise their ceiling.

Really good road point for a short-handed Dallas team.

“We had the belief to stay in it, when we were suffering a bit, we competed,” head coach Eric Quill said afterwards. “We had some decent chances to maybe steal it. We played hard. Can we add some more quality? Probably. But this was never going to be an easy game.”

8. The battle of the unbeatens was decided by this spectacular diving header from Benja Cremaschi:

Miami didn’t really have much else to offer in their 1-0 win over Columbus in Cleveland, as Leo Messi was held to his second straight quiet outing and Luis Suárez continued to show signs of fatigue (other than on that spectacular diagonal to start the sequence above). They were mostly behind the play to start the game…

And then they were hanging on for dear life at the end…

The Crew were brilliant basically everywhere, but the tweet says what it says. And I’m not the only one who felt that way.

I do expect Columbus to add another high-level piece. But with the Primary Transfer Window closing Wednesday, I don’t expect that piece to come until July.

7. St. Louis followed up a promising last 25 minutes against Columbus last weekend with a promising 90 minutes against Vancouver this weekend in what ultimately became a fairly entertaining scoreless draw.

St. Louis are still struggling to get their wingbacks involved in the attack, though I feel like their positioning has been more aggressive the past two weeks (it’s more of a 3-4-2-1 than the 5-4-1 than it was to start the year). I don’t think you’ve got lyin’ eyes if you’re seeing signs that they’re headed in the right direction.

That said, I still think the personnel here is much better suited to a 4-2-3-1.

Vancouver will take the point.

“Going to St. Louis and take a draw, take a clean sheet once again, I think is good,” is what head coach Jesper Sørensen said in the postgame. “There’s nothing bad with that. We always hope to play well and play spectacular, but it’s not always possible because the opponents won't allow it, so today was a game where we didn’t really hit the high point from our side.”

6. Colorado played a 4-4-2 for the second straight game and for the second straight game put together a very good all-around performance. This time, though, they could only come away with a point after a spectacular diving header from new DP Ondřej Lingr gave Houston the 2-2 home draw.

The Dynamo are still very much a work in progress. The Rapids… Chris Armas seems to have made a calculation that it’s worth sacrificing the theoretical pitch control afforded by the 4-2-3-1. I call it “theoretical” because Colorado haven’t been able to establish control in central midfield all year, and so the 4-4-2, with its emphasis on attacking partnerships in transition, feels like a better solution for the time-being.

This, of course, is catalyzed by the fact that Colorado’s wingers mostly haven’t shown up this year. I’d love to see Ted Ku-DiPietro (who might actually be better as a second forward anyway, but still) and Kimani Stewart-Baynes change that in the coming weeks, and long-term I think the 4-2-3-1 is where this team will end up.

But for now Armas is pretty clearly going to stick with what’s worked the past couple of weeks, even if this game had a disappointing end.

Lingr’s spectacular introduction was the big story for the Dynamo.

Welcome to Houston, sir.

5. Toronto removed themselves from the ranks of the winless with a 1-0 win at RSL thanks to a goal off a bad, bad, bad RSL turnover in the 9th minute.

And that accounted for half of TFC’s shots on the day. They were outshot 23-2, and almost didn’t cross the midfield stripe for the game’s final 80 minutes (save for a little flurry just before halftime).

And honestly, who cares? They reached the “whatever it takes” portion of the season a month ago, and with the defense solidified – they’ve now conceded just once in their past four, and Sean Johnson is back to his very best – I don’t blame Robin Fraser at all for just packing it in and daring a punchless RSL side to beat them.

Even after the Claret-and-Cobalt went down to 10 men via a (make sure you check out Instant Replay this week) Diego Luna red card on the hour mark (very worried about what that means for season 2 of Andor), Toronto were pure “safety first.” Good for them.

RSL have now won just once in their past five, and have been shut out four times this season. They badly need a No. 9, but with the transfer window closing Wednesday, we’ll see how quickly their new owners are willing to move (Róbert Boženík, anyone?).

4. You can see what Gregg Berhalter is building for the Chicago Fire – they’re comfortable on the ball in tough spots, use it well in chance creation, and there’s an element of creative freelancing in how they play within the structure he’s putting together.

You can also see that this is a team that will occasionally hurt itself trying to play out:

It’s worth it for Chicago. They’ll take their lumps now, but if they keep playing like this (and if they eventually get healthy) they will win more games than they lose. And certainly, down the stretch in this game, they had enough chances to equalize. Jonathan Bamba is going to spend all week in training trying to stay over the ball.

Still, Cincy won 3-2. Their high-powered DPs played like high-powered DPs (Kévin Denkey had one goal; Evander had two) and Matt Miazga returned to the XI for the first time in almost a year (he, uh, doesn’t quite have his speed back).

They have a four-game winning streak and have not yet gotten out of third gear.

3. The Timbers pushed their unbeaten run to six games, but Portland head coach Phil Neville was not best pleased with the officiating in their 3-3 home draw vs. LAFC. This was probably the most diplomatic of the quotes:

“From a player’s point of view, that was a brilliant advertisement for MLS football. It was not an advertisement for the officials.”

I’m sure Andrew Wiebe will get into this in some depth on Instant Replay (hate to keep recommending it, but it was that kind of weekend), especially the late foul that led to Denis Bouanga’s equalizing PK in second-half stoppage time, in addition to LAFC head coach Steve Cherundolo’s sending-off (Neville didn’t just have an issue with the penalty call; he was also pretty upset about Cherundolo’s red).

Tactically, the Timbers decided to sit in and force LAFC to carry the game – Neville himself said his side played like it was a road game – and this was the type of LAFC attacking performance that has made it so frustrating to see them so often play like they’re allergic to the ball. They were constantly able to get to the endline for pullbacks, and they constantly got multiple runners in the box, and even Olivier Giroud (who finally got his first MLS goal) was a net positive on the night.

2. Sporting KC made it two wins in three under interim coach Kerry Zavagnin, heading to San Jose and coming away with a wild 5-3 win over the ‘Quakes. Dániel Sallói had 2g/1a; Manu García had 1g/2a. Everyone else in the attack got involved to one degree or another as well.

They are playing with a freedom and a fearlessness that they haven’t had in quite a while, and the pieces are fitting. Things are still too open – they’ve conceded seven goals in the past two games, and it easily could’ve been more – so I don’t think there’s any path for them to be a contender. But it’s at the point where it wouldn’t absolutely shock me if they snuck into a Wild Card spot in the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs, because the vibes have been good and the attack has been good.

And as for the Quakes…

“You concede three goals in the first 30 minutes; you don't deserve to win,” is what Bruce Arena said in the postgame. And later on in the presser: “Some players played pretty poorly tonight and made some big mistakes. I’ll take the responsibility for that. Those particular players are not going to step on the field again unless they can get it right and be more consistent in their play.”

The two big issues for San Jose:

Pass of the Week, though!

Not only is the weight on that pass absolutely perfect, but Daniel Munie does a great job of holding onto it and forcing the Sporting defense to commit, and then Preston Judd sells that dummy so hard that Luka Modrić would be proud.

1. And finally, has Pedro de la Vega arrived for real? 2024 was a lost season for the Argentine DP because of injuries, and though he got off to a better start in 2025, that promising beginning was once again marred by time on the sidelines due to a quad strain.

He was back in the XI last week for the Sounders in a 1-0 win at Dallas, in which both he and his team looked pretty good. He was once again in the XI this week for a 3-0 win over Nashville in what was pretty clearly his best performance as a Sounder (and Jesús Ferreira’s too), and the Sounders’ best performance as a team this season.

All three goals were from collective play – the type of use-the-ball-to-create-the-space-and-make-the-run-to-force-the-rotation stuff that Seattle had, at times, struggled with this season. And all three had either Ferreira or de la Vega or both making the types of plays that you need your attacking focal points to make, which is something Seattle had really struggled with this season.

Will it last? Not sure. But at least Sounders fans have an idea of what it’s supposed to look like when it’s all clicking.

Nashville fans have that as well, though this game, which was probably their worst since B.J. Callaghan took over, was definitely not it. In particular there will be, I think, some harsh words about how to react defensively in transition moments. Because for some reason in this one, Nashville’s default was to not react at all.

If you’re a ‘Yotes fan looking for a reason Gastón Brugman and Ahmed Qasem got yanked at halftime, watch their reaction on this one when Qasem loses possession. It’s not pretty.