Supporters' Shield: Biggest contenders & what will decide the race | OneFootball

By Matthew Doyle

We’re at the halfway mark of the 2025 season for just about every team, which means it’s a good time to take stock of the Supporters’ Shield race.

From where I sit, Vancouver Whitecaps FC are the favorites. I wouldn't take them over the field just yet, but they could create a decent-sized gap this month with their games in hand.

I've got the 'Caps listed first, but the rest are in no particular order. In we go:

Vancouver Whitecaps FC

What’s gone right

It starts with the arrival of manager Jesper Sørensen this offseason. The Dane brought with him a new game model, one that emphasizes short and medium-range passes to keep the ball, build from the back, disorganize opponents through midfield, and then do murder in the final third.

Star center forward Brian White, who’s probably the Landon Donovan MLS MVP frontrunner at this point, is the one driving the knife home most often. But just as important is how Sørensen's system – and, I think, the confidence he’s instilled in his guys because of it – has unleashed younger players like Sebastian Berhalter, Pedro Vite, Jayden Nelson, Édier Ocampo… it’s a lot. Long list.

Point is everyone wants to play this brand of soccer and that buy-in is very easy to see every time this team takes the field.

It is beautiful. It is precise. It is relentless.

What’s gone wrong

It was none of those things Sunday night in Mexico City during the Concacaf Champions Cup final! No sugarcoating that disaster, which was of a magnitude and scale that could maybe destroy all the confidence the team’s built to this point? You get whupped that bad and you start to question the existence of God.

The wear-and-tear seemed to have caught up with them in league play even before Cruz Azul took ‘em to the woodshed, however, as they’d won just once in their last four. I thought Ryan Gauld’s knee injury two months ago was going to mark the end of the line for the early-season success story the ‘Caps were penning, but they kept it going even without him... right up until they didn't.

They’ve got a week to regroup and put their heads back together. They're still in the driver's seat.

What they need to win the Shield

Because Sørensen's great at developing players and fearless about throwing them into the deep end, Vancouver have already proved they have depth. Because of what White and Vite have become, they’ve proved they have very good match-winners. Because of Berhalter, Andrés Cubas and the center backs, they’ve rarely given games away (please don’t rewatch the CCC final highlights).

So it’s about 1) getting Gauld back – a third match-winner – and 2) surviving the Concacaf Champions Cup hangover (only a handful of teams have ever managed to avoid it).

If they do both those things, they win the Shield.

For the sake of 'Caps fans, let's hope that 5-0 defeat acts as fuel.

Philadelphia Union

What’s gone right

Look, I never would have parted ways with Jim Curtin. But the players have pretty clearly responded to having a new voice in the locker room, and the reversion to pure Energy Drink Soccer has agreed with this group.

Like the team they’re chasing, it’s a veteran center forward who’s made an MVP-caliber leap, as Tai Baribo leads the Golden Boot presented by Audi race and has been awesome in a Wondo 2012 kind of way.

But as with the ‘Caps, it’s an “everybody eats” situation. Quinn Sullivan has played his way into the US men's national team, Danley Jean Jacques is maybe the most exciting d-mid in the league, Frankie Westfield has been a delight at right back, Kai Wagner is still the best left back in the league, and… look, I’m going to be stupid and write a thing here that’s going to get taken out of context, but there’s something Carles Puyol-esque about how Nathan Harriel carries himself as an undersized center back, and in how he very clearly bleeds for his club. Now he's played his way into the USMNT, too.

Excellent job of developing talent. Excellent vibes.

What’s gone wrong

They’ve survived injuries to legendary goalkeeper Andre Blake and underperformance from new center forward Bruno Damiani.

And that’s why they’ve mostly come up short against the best teams since opening the season with back-to-back wins over Orlando and Cincy. They’ve beaten the teams they should beat since then, but it’s been losses and draws when they’ve run up against the Nashvilles, Columbuses and Miamis of the world.

What they need to win the Shield

If Damiani starts finishing his chances – he’s got two goals on six xG, as per FBRef – this team will get their signature wins and be in the Shield race to the very end.

Could adding another DP help? Yes, of course. But we know that’s not what Philly’s going to do, so it’s not really worth mentioning.

FC Cincinnati

What’s gone right

Evander, Kévin Denkey and Roman Celentano. Cincy are winning games because they have match-winners in both boxes.

When you’ve got guys who can do that – and do it consistently, which all three of the above have managed this year – you can paper over a lot of cracks and look past a lot of flaws. It becomes possible to win games, week after week after week, based on raw talent. Peace through superior firepower.

What’s gone wrong

Luca Orellano still hasn’t settled in, though it’s pretty clear now he’s just going to be a wingback rather than any kind of playmaker or second forward.

Matt Miazga is back, but he’s not BACK back. Other injuries have forced a constant rotation along the backline and at d-mid. They can be stagnant when Pavel Bucha sits, or when he's blanketed (as D.C. United did so effectively this past weekend). That means they can't work the ball into the half-spaces, and that means Evander drifts deeper looking for touches, and that means there's a disconnect between the midfield and attack, which is bad for the attack, but is also bad for the defense because the rest defense is all misshapen, which means they're weirdly vulnerable to counterattacks for a team that's spent a lot of money on defenders and d-mids. In gaming, we call that a failure cascade.

It’s still not clear who the best partner for Denkey is. They're also weirdly soft at defending set pieces.

The underlying metrics have them way, way underwater, literally the second-worst team in the Eastern Conference. We’re at the point where there’s enough of a sample size to take those numbers seriously, especially after the bad week Cincy just had.

What they need to win the Shield

On a personnel level, Miazga and Orellano need to become the best versions of themselves (or at least 85% of that version).

Downstream of that – or maybe upstream; I could have three beers and argue it either way – they need to sort themselves out tactically. While this has revealed itself as a heavy dependency on Evander and Denkey in attack, when they’re playing against the ball it’s revealed itself as a worrying dependency on emergency defense.

If you’re scrambling, you’re not controlling the game. They need to exert control somehow. They didn't against Dallas midweek and blew a late lead. They didn't against D.C. on the weekend and lost. Guess who'd be atop the Shield standings if they'd taken those five points?

One other note: they’ve got two buyouts and two U22 Initiative slots available. So there’s a way for them to get a new partner for Denkey if that’s what they decide they need.

Columbus Crew

What’s gone right

Diego Rossi has been playing the best ball of his life and Sean Zawadzki has become one of the best utility men in the league currently (and, in all honesty, is on his way to becoming one of the best in league history). That, in turn, has allowed Dylan Chambost to take on a bigger role in central midfield, and the Frenchman is really fun.

So are Max Arfsten and Mohamed Farsi. Jacen Russell-Rowe can be. Ibrahim Aliyu has shown flashes. Darlington Nagbe is still unpressable.

Mostly, though, it’s gratifying to see the Crew coming out there every week and playing that glorious brand of soccer Wilfried Nancy preaches, even in the face of selling two of their best attackers (Cucho Hernández for a club-record fee to Real Betis and Christian Ramirez within the league), and even in the face of constant injuries to major contributors (now including Zawadzki, who’s out for a while).

The culture and philosophy have proven resilient. It’s not usually like that for possession-heavy teams.

What’s gone wrong

Injuries to Farsi, Zawadzki, Steven Moreira, Rudy Camacho and Patrick Schulte. It’s been a lot and the Crew’s depth has been stress-tested in a way that most teams don’t survive (though it’s worth pointing out how both Vancouver and Cincy have managed the same). Truth is, they're not really surviving it now themselves, as a thorough 5-1 beating at Miami on Saturday was the latest in what's become a six-game winless streak.

Despite that, they might be atop the Shield race anyway if Dániel Gazdag, who they bought with a chunk of their Cucho winnings, didn’t have the yips in front of goal. I still think Gazdag is made for this system – he’s really smart about the spaces he finds and is better in combo play than as a true playmaker, which is what the system demands. He's finding chances.

He just hasn’t been able to finish a damn thing. Add in their struggles at defending restarts and you’ve got the recipe for a team playing good soccer, but not quite making it count in the way they should.

What they need to win the Shield

They get healthy and Gazdag gets hot, then they’ve got a chance.

They get healthy and Gazdag gets hot AND they open up another DP slot to bring in another match-winner? Now we’re talking about a team that could win 10 straight to end the season.

Nashville SC

What’s gone right

B.J. Callaghan’s gone right. During his first full year in charge, Callaghan’s had a similar galvanizing effect on his team as what we’ve seen from Carnell in Philly and Jørgensen in Vancouver.

The shocking thing is, stylistically, Nashville have been much, much closer to Vancouver’s game model. The thought was, given Callaghan’s Philly background and the overall state of the ‘Yotes roster, they’d take what I'd call an attritional approach, treating every 30/70 like it’s a 50/50 and turning every game into a rock fight.

Nope. Nashville are one of the four most attractive teams in the league to watch (Vancouver, Columbus and San Diego being the other three), and it seems to suit literally everyone – but most especially DPs Hany Mukhtar and Sam Surridge.

What’s gone wrong

The game model has really suited those guys, as they’re putting up good boxscore numbers. But both are actually underperforming their xG by a decent clip, and they've left points on the table because of that.

Some of this is due to missed PKs, as there’s been a few. But some of this is due to them missing run-of-play chippies you’d expect (heh) them to finish.

A scary concussion suffered by the third DP, center back Walker Zimmerman, was the other big thing that’s gone wrong. The silver lining that came out of it (note I’m not trying to be insensitive here; I, and I’m sure everyone, wishes Zimmerman never took that boot to the head) is that, for the first time in their history, Nashville have developed some center-back depth and the ability to stay afloat without Zimmerman anchoring the back line.

What they need to win the Shield

They don’t have the depth of the teams I’ve already mentioned (even with Matthew Corcoran balling out this weekend), so they really can’t afford any sort of injury crisis for one.

For two, Hany and Surridge need to start more consistently finishing their chances.

And for three, someone else on the roster needs to join them. It can’t just be a two-man show in front of goal.

San Diego FC

What’s gone right

The roster build, DP signings, coaching hire, overall philosophy and culture… basically all of it has been great. San Diego nailed all of the above.

Force me to pinpoint one and I’ll always point to the tactical identity of a team. San Diego are cut from roughly the same cloth as the likes of Vancouver and Columbus in they absolutely want to get on the ball, keep it and make you react to what they’re doing. If they can do that, then they will win much more often than not. They’ve already shown as much.

But it would be just as fair to start the discussion with their wonderful DP signings, Anders Dreyer and Chucky Lozano. Both guys have Best XI cases halfway through their inaugural season, and both guys set the tone for the rest of the roster by playing as hard against the ball as they do with it.

What’s gone wrong

Just about the only issue is center forward Marcus Ingvartsen wasn’t productive to start the year, and then he got hurt. I also think it’s fair to worry a little bit about center-back depth since Andres Reyes has played all of 44 minutes this year before getting red-carded, and hasn't been heard from since.

What they need to win the Shield

It’ll be tough to make any kind of run without a goal-scoring No. 9.

I am usually against spending all that much on that spot if you’ve got DP wingers, since you can usually find 9s on the cheap (Milan Iloski's three goals in 158 minutes suggest San Diego might have already done that). But with the way this team’s first half-season has gone, and with the shape the rest of the roster’s in (i.e., not many spots in need of a DP-caliber upgrade), it’s kind of an obvious place to do some shopping.

They should also get themselves another reliable center back.

Orlando City

What’s gone right

They had a rough first six games of the season, a period in which they were hemorrhaging chances and goals in a very un-Oscar Pareja-like fashion. Sure, the results were good, or good-adjacent. But the process was worrying.

So Pareja, who’s always used a system in which either fullback had the license to push forward, made a big switch: He put a center back at left back and unleashed right back Alex Freeman. You know, the stuff the Houston Dynamo have been doing for a couple of years with Griffin Dorsey? That’s now Orlando’s game model as well.

And it’s worked. Their 12-game unbeaten streak ended two weeks ago, and they're now on a little streak where they've lost three of four across all competitions. But they've really found themselves defensively and have gotten some new attacking answers without compromising their shape, which I think puts them in position to make a real run over the next 17 games.

What’s gone wrong

Eduard Atuesta has been excellent when available, but he’s missed about half the season so far via injury. When he’s not out there, Orlando are much less dynamic in transitioning from possession into pure attack.

Other than that, the biggest frustration has been inconsistency in front of goal from key attackers Martín Ojeda, Luis Muriel, Ramiro Enrique and Duncan McGuire (those last two especially). Ojeda’s numbers are great, but they’ve come in bunches. Muriel’s been mostly really good, but has spent his entire life being a streaky finisher. Enrique and McGuire have barely registered thus far.

What they need to win the Shield

They need one of those guys to be like White, Baribo or Denkey, just out there finding high-quality scoring chances every single game, and getting two goals every three outings or so.

If they get that and 1,300-ish more minutes of Atuesta, another dozen-game unbeaten run is not unlikely. And this one would have a lot more wins than draws.

And in the end, none of that might matter if they don't go out and add another high-level center back. I really thought they should've done it in the spring.

Inter Miami CF

What’s gone right

The Herons came into this season intending to win everything they competed for, but mostly wanted to win the CCC. Instead, they got whomped by Vancouver over two legs.

So then they turned to the Shield race and immediately slid down the table (that CCC hangover is real, win or lose!). You’d think they were completely cooked given how badly they’ve played over the past four weeks.

But the one thing that went right is they picked up a ton of points out of the gates, going 6W-1L-3D over the first 10 games of the season. So while things were mostly BAD bad in May, what they did in February, March and April gave them some cushion. And then, almost out of nowhere, they cooked up a seven-point week to end the month, and they're right back in it.

If they win their game in hand, they're just two points behind Philly for first in the East.

What’s gone wrong

This team would be 50% better if they stopped trying to pass to Lionel Messi so often. It’s maddening – there is no reason for it to be so one-note. Messi’s gravity opens space for everyone else and should make everyone else better because of it. But they’re so intimidated by him (I guess, anyway; I don't know what else could explain this) that they basically forget to play soccer and instead completely break their shape trying to force Messi the ball.

Thus they don’t have rhythm in possession, their rest defense is a mess and they’re actually substantially less than the sum of their parts.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter because Messi is still so great at creating match-winning moments out of nothing. But more and more often, it has mattered, and good opponents have been able to punish them.

Maybe last weekend's 5-1 win over the Crew was a turning point. I don't know.

What they need to win the Shield

Fix the stuff I wrote above. They absolutely can do it; we saw it at the start of the year, and we still see it now when games hit desperation time (look at how they battered Philly in the closing stages two weekends ago).

But they need to get to a place where Messi’s almost incalculable greatness becomes a force magnifier instead of a crutch.

Do that and this team’s still got a chance to repeat.