Charlotte get flashy, Cuypers finds form for Chicago & more from Matchday 5 | OneFootball

By Matthew Doyle

The March international window means this weekend’s games were going to provide us with only limited relevant, long-term data.

With that in mind, it seems like this is a good opportunity to just go through the games, one-by-one, and get an assessment of where we stand:

FC Cincinnati 2-2 Atlanta United

I’m mostly impressed Cincy found a way to come back from a goal down and take a 2-1 lead despite missing virtually all their relevant center backs. It really is being held together with popsicles and toothpicks back there (which, I think, is an explanation for their struggles building out and with their defensive shape).

What I’m saying is that there just aren’t a lot of teams that’d be pitching shutouts with their fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth-choice CBs out there. So while there is some sturm und drang in the fanbase, and while I share some of that (the Garys haven’t looked great even when they’ve had a relatively full complement of starters), the personnel realities of this particular game demand moderation in its assessment.

As for Atlanta, Emmanuel Latte Lath has been worth every penny. Even when he’s not scoring goals he’s putting pressure on opposing backlines with his movement.

Alexey Miranchuk, though… look I hate to harp on this every single week, but there were moments in transition, moments in possession and moments when they won the ball back off the press where you’d expect an MLS-caliber No. 10 to make something happen. And it repeatedly did not, in what I think were very obvious ways.

Atlanta are down to 24th in the overall league standings, but have three straight at home coming up. They need to start winning.

Also, Face of the Week here:

Minnesota United FC 2-2 LA Galaxy

My two big notes for the Loons:

That’s not to say they weren’t the better team – they clearly were, and by a good distance. On a different day, this one ends 4-2. But by being a little complacent with where they were drawing their line, and by being both a little too unsure defending on the front foot and a little too willing to defend in their own box, they opened the door for late disappointment. Again.

The Galaxy got themselves a good point (an intra-conference road point is a good point by definition) with the fightback and Emiro Garcés’ opportunistic goal. They also showed, I think, a little more attacking cohesion in this one than we’ve gotten used to this year. Christian Ramirez’s goal was very, very nice.

But they still look like (and, frankly, are) a team just fighting to keep its head above water.

Charlotte FC 4-1 San Jose Earthquakes

As the tweet says, this is wonderful stuff:

New left back Souleyman Doumbia – making his debut in this one – certainly offers something different going forward than Tim Ream (Ream’s passing remains brilliant but he’s never going to get on the ball and take space like that), and the Crown obviously put that to good use right away.

I’m not expecting Charlotte to suddenly become a possession team that regularly strings together minute-long, 15-pass build-ups. It is nice, though, to see them demonstrate the ability to do exactly that when the opponents are daring them.

Anyway, once it went 1-0 they just completely ripped up a Quakes’ side that was waaaay too ragged chasing the game. If you play like that you’re shipping at least two and, well, they hit the over.

Orlando City SC 4-1 D.C. United

Man, I did not have Luis Muriel on my 2025 “Gass Theorem” bingo card, but he’s among the early leaders in that category as he’s outright won the starting No. 9 job. Obviously the goals and assists are the biggest reason why, and his opener in this laugher was just a clinical, thinking man’s goal. He read the shape of the play, slowed his run, and glided to the central channel while Martín Ojeda made a nice near post dash to drag defenders away and open things up.

The second goal, though, came off Muriel’s DEFENSIVE work. What???

He stacked one challenge on top of another, which set the table for Iván Angulo to force the turnover. That kind of effort is shocking, given what he was for this team last year, and it’s what will keep him in the lineup long-term.

D.C. were just out-manned for one, and for two, their tendency toward over-pursuit really crushed them.

It’s a tough thing to balance for any pressing team – how do you get pressure on the ball, but not leave yourself wide open in the other direction? United haven’t figured it out yet.

Philadelphia Union 1-0 St. Louis CITY SC

The Union got an early goal off a set piece and made it stand up in their bounce-back win after last week’s disappointment vs. Nashville SC.

I’m gonna let the numbers tell a good chunk of the story here:

Part of this is the Union being really good and organized and playing with a ton of commitment (and by that I mean they run more – two miles more on the night – than whoever they’re playing, and sprint more often). They look absolutely miserable to play against.

But also, part of this is St. Louis not really having figured out anything this year except how to get numbers behind the ball. They are very much not on the same page.

They did have one good moment – a lovely slipped pass from Marcel Hartel to Cedric Teuchert midway through the second half that Teuchert muffed with his second touch. But if you’re getting only one truly good moment a night, you don’t have much margin for error.

This was the knock on Olof Mellberg’s clubs in Sweden, by the way. Waaaaay too cautious and disjointed going forward. Not great!

New York Red Bulls 2-1 Toronto FC

I’m giving Felipe Carballo our Pass of the Week for this nice little touch across his body to punish the sloppy (disastrous) Toronto offside trap:

That’s just really clever movement and awareness, married to a delightful bit of skill.

And then Carballo followed it up 15 minutes later by chirping his way into what will be one of the funniest red cards of the year, which was a fitting capstone to an amusingly officiated game.

RBNY are unbeaten in four and have scored multiple goals in three of those, so I feel like I’m maybe hitting this too hard, but I still don’t love the way they look in that 3-4-2-1. Their pressing shape is weird and thus far they haven’t made up for it with added comfort on the ball.

Two notes for Toronto:

Armchair Analyst special correspondent Calen Carr was in the booth and got to see Kerr (and Insigne) up close:

Columbus Crew 0-0 New York City FC

Good job by the Pigeons to go to Ohio and come away with a point. There was a lot of holding-on-for-dear-life – they were outshot 23-5 – but there was also some committed defending and a couple of fun debuts as academy kids Seymour Reid (who is, I guess, more academy-adjacent than a true academy product) and Maxi Carrizo both took their first-team bows.

This was NYCFC’s first shutout in their last 15 MLS games, by the way. Much-needed.

The Crew are unbeaten in five, but have scored only twice in their past four, the past three of which are draws. They have been the better team in each of those games.

They are, however, missing that extra bit of final-third quality that won them trophies the past two years. Part of me admires their stubbornness in not rushing a Cucho replacement, but man, they’re leaving points on the table here. And if they come up just short in the Supporters’ Shield race, my guess is it’ll be the points they dropped in March rather than the ones they drop in September that’ll be the difference.

Nashville SC 3-0 CF Montréal

It took 45 minutes for Nashville to figure things out – really, to figure out how to get Hany Mukhtar the ball in the half-spaces – and once they did, they just completely buried a Montréal side that looks completely out of gas.

“We were able to make a small change at halftime, where I think we were able to put one player deep to build, and move another player high,” is how head coach B.J. Callaghan explained it to assembled media afterward.

“Gastón [Brugman] was sort of up underneath the forwards, which was high, knowing that we were probably going to have to play a little bit more direct, and try to get some support underneath there, also potentially drag players away to give us a little bit more time to build up.”

You can see some of that on the opening goal:

As for the Montréal assessment of that goal… yikes. They have no ability to get on the ball and dictate anything about the game, and off the ball they are still just kind of lost.

The ‘Yotes are on a three-game winning streak. Montréal have one point from 15 on offer and haven’t scored since first kick. They are in hell right now. But they are not alone!

Sporting Kansas City 0-2 LAFC

Also in hell with one point from 15 are Toronto and Sporting KC, whose offseason plan of investing heavily in the attack has somehow not fixed the defense (or, you know, the midfield, or the attack).

There are a lot of things going wrong, but a big one that’s jumped out at me is how easy it is to complete progressive passes against them. More than 38% of opponent passes against KC are forward, which is the highest mark in the league. That speaks to an inability to get immediate pressure on the ball.

As such, they allow the third-highest direct speed of opposing attacks, which speaks to an inability to close down space in midfield. And when you combine those two, you get a team without much athleticism that’s spending a lot of time behind the play, chasing the game. Against LAFC that’s death, total and complete.

This is why I thought it was so important for them to get Jake Davis into central midfield from the jump. He’s a guy who puts out fires before they start, and none of the others in the mix currently have shown the ability to do that.

The one slice of good news: the plan is to have Davis back in midfield next week. Sporting really need that to happen.

The Black & Gold looked like what they are: a deep and talented team who absolutely wreck mistake-prone opponents. I’ve had my complaints about them in big games against the region’s biggest teams, but nobody in the league have been better at walking out of games like this one with a comprehensive 2-0 win.

Real Salt Lake 0-1 FC Dallas

A 23rd-minute Ariath Piol red card was the defining moment of this game in that it made Dallas’s win feel kind of inevitable.

The game’s only goal came when Lucho Acosta drifted back post for a diving header off some pretty nice build-up from los Toros Tejanos. And I’ll tell you, there were lots of moments of neat build-up like that from them, as the shift from the 4-2-3-1 they’d been playing into a 4-4-2 diamond seemed to suit not just Acosta, but the rest of the midfield as well. Sebastian Lletget was very good, and new d-mid Ramiro – who’d been pretty ineffective moving play around through the first month – had his best game in MLS.

Here’s the network passing graph. You can see how high Acosta was able to play:

Three questions I have coming out of this one for Dallas:

Irrespective of all that, getting this road win after dropping two straight at home in pretty grim fashion is a big, early, “ok, exhale” moment for this team.

RSL… lose one/win one so far in 2025, which is not entirely unlike their start to last year’s record-setting campaign. Next Saturday’s trip to Minnesota already feels like a huge game.

Colorado Rapids 0-3 Portland Timbers

For the second straight week Portland shifted into a 4-2-3-1 and for the second straight week they looked significantly more comfortable than they were to start the year. They weren’t great, mind you, but they were good in certain ways (mainly defensive organization) that they’d struggled with over the first three weeks, and are now in decent shape heading into next week’s Sunday Night Soccer presented by Continental Tire home date with the Dynamo (7 pm ET | MLS Season Pass).

Part of the equation is the growing comfort of new DP No. 10 David da Costa. He wasn’t great either – he’s still settling in – but he’s been consistently good and consistently available, which matters a lot because having that safety valve means you spend less time chasing the game. You can see the Timbers sort of programming themselves to find him when they’re running out of ideas, and while that’s not the sexiest job of a No. 10 it’s still a job that the No. 10 has to do.

Anyway, they were aided in that regard by the loose and gappy shape of a Rapids team that’s starting to worry me (and also by Josh Atencio's own goal).

While most of the rest of the league had “we were missing guys to international duty!” excuses, the Rapids had something close to their first-choice backline and central midfield and, uh, what’s happening here, fellas:

That’s a catastrophe. And while Colorado were unbeaten entering this game, there’s been a disturbing amount of that to start the year (Zack Steffen’s heroics have mostly blanketed the mistakes; no Steffen, no blanket).

Seattle Sounders FC 0-0 Houston Dynamo FC

Another entry in the big book of frustration for the Sounders, who were the better team and created several good (no great) chances via final-third interplay and getting numbers into the box. I was worried they would look static – they’ve had a habit of being so when Jordan Morris isn’t starting at center forward, and he’s out another month – but that really wasn’t the case. Towards the end of the first half in particular there was some nice stuff happening that was just missing the final touch (and there was a lot of good work from Houston’s Jimmy Maurer in there as well).

At the risk of being mocked, I think the question you have to ask is if they can find that little extra bit of quality in the final third. So far… no.

The Dynamo will be happy to walk out of Lumen with the point, especially since they were down to their third-string ‘keeper by the 67th minute (good job landing the plane by 22-year-old Blake Gillingham in his pro debut).

I’m looking forward to seeing this team with Ondřej Lingr, the DP playmaker they’re reportedly about to sign from Slavia Prague, pulling the strings. Let’s hope he, combined with the return of Jack McGlynn from international duty, can inject this team with a little bit of life in Portland next week for Sunday Night Soccer.

Vancouver Whitecaps FC 1-3 Chicago Fire FC

I mentioned the Gass Theorem earlier, and while folks like Luis Muriel deserve a tip of the cap, it’s a different DP No. 9 who’s the runaway leader through five games.

That’d be Hugo Cuypers. The Belgian is simply made for Gregg Berhalter’s system, which has always generated chances for center forwards who made fundamentally sound decisions with off-ball movement. Kei Kamara benefited from it, and Ola Kamara benefited from it, and Gyasi Zardes benefited from it. All of those guys had their best-ever MLS seasons under Berhalter, and now it’s Cuypers’ turn:

That is a by-the-numbers Berhalter Ball goal: A switch to the fullback out wide; a run from the winger in the seam; a weighted pass into that run; a one-time ball across the six for a one-touch finish. Pull up Kei’s 2015 highlight reel (he was second in the MVP race that year) and you’ll probably find about a dozen of this exact goal.

In total, Cuypers is up to five goals: two from set pieces, one from the spot and the past two being the one above and last week’s variation on the same theme. Only one of the five required more than a single touch.

It has been a hand-in-glove fit, and along the way the Fire have both 1) begun fixing the defensive issues that looked REAL BAD their first two weeks, and 2) have integrated a ton of young talent, both foreign and domestic.

They have also now won three straight road games for the first time since… wait for it, wait for it, wait for it… May of 2009!! And bear in mind, this is all before integrating Rominigue Kouamé (he made his debut and got a late goal for his efforts) and while dealing with some injuries and churn.

The caveat here is the ‘Caps were missing a ton, including a starting center back and their three best players. The only thing really worth writing about from their POV is the Jayden Nelson thing – which I was skeptical about – seems real. His work on the Daniel Ríos goal was excellent.

He’s now got five assists in about 235 minutes across all competitions, and has shown much more clarity and quickness in his final third decision-making.

Austin FC 2-1 San Diego FC

Coming into this game I wrote about how Austin have a thing: gunk up the half-spaces and try to hit on the break, but the problem was the “hit on the break” part. They haven’t been good at it, and I even made a video about it in which the takeaway was “the next step is figuring out how to turn those moments – i.e., moments when teams test them by trying to build through the central channel – into chances and goals.

Well done!

They then got like six more chances off of sequences like that, which is how they dominated the xG battle (and they got their second goal off a quick restart from Owen Wolff, who was absolutely brilliant and has been one of the handful of best young players in the league this year). And look, I don’t think anybody’s going to argue this was a pretty game, and there’s definitely some worry that Osman Bukari 1) didn’t start, and then 2) was very Rigoni-esque when he came on.

But they showed progress in the exact way they needed to show progress over last week. They have three wins in five, and are second in the West. I don’t think anyone’s complaining.

I don’t think anyone in San Diego will be complaining, either, even after their first loss in club history. They will absolutely need to look at the film and figure out why they were suddenly susceptible to the types of breakaways they’d limited over the first month (they changed their midfield shape a bit to something more double pivot-y, which IMO had something to do with it), and obviously without Chucky Lozano and Marcus Ingvartsen – two of their three biggest attacking signings – there is a talent issue in attack.

Nothing that happened in this game made me feel any differently about this team overall, though. They are well-structured and well-coached, and are going to keep being a tough out.