LAFC are off to a muddled start, Houston have a creative dynamo and Atlanta United are back in championship contention Prepare your rage. Is it prepared? OK, great. Welcome back to the Guardian’s MLS Power Rankings, where I have a beef with your specific team and your specific team alone. Now, as a reminder, these aren’t your standard, run-of-the-mill power rankings. We’re still ranking teams from worst to first. But along with the rankings, we’re diving deep into a handful of teams from around the league who are doing particularly interesting things ..read more

Fans and players hope for the best at the start of any season. But there are always factors holding back even the best teams A new season brings hope — when the game is played on paper, it always seems easier to win. It also brings doubt. What if we missed on our offseason signings? What if a European suitor snags our best player in the summer window? What if we, uh, forgot to hire a coach ..read more

With the MLS offseason in full swing and the regular season starting up in February, there are plenty of reasons for optimism across the league The offseason is a time of hope. After all, teams almost always look good on paper – and they look even better with the promise of a key transfer deal floating somewhere on the horizon. From superstars ready to shine to savvy transfer moves to front office changes, here’s why your team should be hopeful ahead of the 2024 season ..read more

Once regarded as a retirement league for ageing European stars, evidence of MLS’s rise can be found in the steady stream of talent heading the other way In the last January transfer window, 33 players left Major League Soccer for Europe. Top European clubs are increasingly looking to US soccer in search of stars who, thanks to the American season finishing in December, are primed to hit the ground running upon arrival. And after a season that drew more transatlantic attention than ever before thanks to Lionel Messi’s move to Inter Miami, several MLS stars will have caught the eye of Europe’s e ..read more

The Crew won the third game of the series 4-2 Columbus extend their unbeaten streak at home to 17 Columbus scored three goals in the first 33 minutes to advance to the Eastern Conference semi-finals with a 4-2 victory over Atlanta United on Sunday night. The series was tied 1-1 heading into the rubber match, with the Crew winning games one and three. Columbus extended their unbeaten streak at home in all competitions to 17, but the third-seeded Crew will hit the road for a semi-final matchup with No 2 seed Orlando City on 25 November. Top-seeded FC Cincinnati will host the fourth-seeded Phil ..read more

The road to the MLS Cup kicks off this week. Our writers predict the dark horses, the key players and who will wind up as champions Would a much-loved attacker in his mid-thirties who’s achieved so much in the game still have the hunger to perform and score, or was he joining MLS simply for the money and a beachfront lifestyle? Arriving from Europe during the season, could he adjust quickly? Would his brilliance almost single-handedly haul his struggling club into the playoffs? Yes, the Billy Sharp storylines were compelling all right. Lionel Messi was also fairly interesting. Tom Dart ..read more

The league was once made up of would-bes and has-beens. Now there’s a burgeoning middle class: talented players looking to kickstart stalled careers For most of the league’s existence, high-profile players in MLS have tended to fit into one of two categories: young prospects, from home or abroad, who have been developed in-house, and established stars who have moved Stateside to wind down their careers. In recent seasons, though, a look across MLS’s most consistent high-performing players reveals a third class of imports – a group of mid-prime stars who have moved to North America with the aim ..read more

Messi scores 22-minute brace for Inter Miami in first start Argentinian star has three goals in 63 minutes for US club Inter Miami co-owner Jorge Mas has one lasting memory from Lionel Messi’s debut: the image of Messi running to embrace his family after delivering the game-winning free kick and cementing a new era for the club and Major League Soccer. “That was for the fans. This community is hungry,” Mas said ..read more

The Atlanta United player helped lead Tigres to the Copa Libertadores final but was portrayed as disloyal before moving north to the US In was February 2020, and Jürgen Damm sat behind a microphone twiddling his thumbs and picking at his ear. He looked down, avoiding eye contact with the press and his manager at Tigres UANL, Ricardo “Tuca” Ferretti. There was tension at the press conference. No one was surprised when Damm said he was leaving the club. Still, he sat there, visibly nervous and made his announcement. The winger, who had clocked in as the second-fastest player in the world when he ..read more

Major League Soccer’s ambitious goal of growing into one of the world’s best leagues is ever compromised with so many of its teams still playing on artificial surfaces In every other way, it was a marquee event. The sight of 69,274 fans, a stadium record attendance, packed into CenturyLink Field was enough to illustrate this, although the elaborate pre-game TIFOs, pyrotechnics and ‘March To The Match’ from downtown Seattle out to the venue only added to the spectacle. Indeed, last year’s MLS Cup final had all the components of a Big Match, besides one: the pitch. Like every Seattle Sounders ho ..read more