Sporting KC's belief pays off, Houston Dynamo bring the heat & more from Matchday 18

We’ll start with an obvious but important statement: MLS seasons are long.

Really long.

Yes, it’s true that by conventional metrics they’re not quite as lengthy as the calendars of most top European leagues. But when you factor in the seasonal changes of a marathon that runs from late-winter chill through unpredictable spring to summer heat to brisk autumn and back around to winter again, then consider the intense travel demands of a league that stretches to the four corners of a massive, diverse continent, then account for the multitude of conditions, styles and playing surfaces on offer…

Point is, there are inevitably ups and downs to a given campaign, even for the most talented and well-led teams. You’re going to have to weather the down times, and keep them from becoming the default, and that process encompasses leadership, psychology, group dynamics and any number of other matters that influence collective and individual mentality.

You can probably figure out why we’re starting in Kansas City this week.

It took SKC 11 matchdays to find their first win, a 2-1 victory at Seattle on May 7. The once-ironclad job security of the league’s longest-serving head coach, Peter Vermes, became a topic of some debate in the Midwest.

“The organization’s performance on and off the pitch has not been acceptable,” declared The Cauldron supporters group in an open letter to the club in early May. “Your performance over the last few years has raised numerous questions and concerns ranging from the club’s direction, engagement, matchday experience, and so many more.”

Safe to say that things are looking up. Austin got fed into a woodchipper at Children’s Mercy Park – and they weren’t even that bad, per se. Robert Castellanos was dominant in the back and Alan Pulido bagged two goals and an assist – after his long, painstaking climb back to fitness and form following more than a year on the sidelines, the Mexican international is finally the spearhead Sporting envisioned when they broke their club transfer record to sign him in 2019.

Suddenly looking a lot more like their relentlessly aggressive old selves, Kansas City are 5W-2L-2D across all competitions since the start of last month and now sit above the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs line in the Western Conference. Postgame, Vermes channeled KC native Ted Lasso.

“The word is 'believe.' I’ve said that from the beginning,” he said. “I believe in the group. I said that I was probably going to have to be the most patient person within the organization, just waiting for guys to get back and not putting them in harm’s way. So I think it all comes down to the fact that there is a belief in the group. Everybody believes and everybody believes in what we’re doing and working towards the right goals.”

Like we said, it’s a long season.

The mercury hit 95 degrees F in the Bayou City on Saturday, the hottest day of their year so far and the signal that H-Town’s cruel summer has begun in earnest. The temps will hit triple digits more often than not over the next three months, making Shell Energy Stadium one of MLS’s most dreaded road destinations.

This is not LAFC’s cup of tea, even on the best of days. The Black & Gold have been woeful in the Lone Star State, as Giorgio Chiellini acknowledged after the Dynamo feasted merrily on his team’s errors and lack of sharpness.

“For sure Texas doesn't keep lucky to me. I don't know what is the real explanation in English, sorry, but because I came here four times, I lose four games, every time,” said the Italian legend, whose team have lost 2-1 at FC Dallas, 2-1 at Houston, 4-1 at Austin and now 4-0 to the Dynamo since he arrived last summer.

Steve Cherundolo had a lot less to say, a total of just 31 words, to be specific:

LAFC are pretty clearly nursing a stiff Concacaf Champions League hangover in the wake of last Sunday’s crushing CCL final loss to Club León, and in that regard they’re continuing a long tradition among MLS sides who make deep runs in the tournament. As painful as that disappointment was, history says they’re in real danger of letting it push their entire season into a tailspin, because plenty of other teams will be eager to ambush them like Houston did.

“We knew they were tired. They played Sunday and Wednesday, we played Saturday and Tuesday. It’s a very slight advantage but the weather here is something that we have to lean into,” said Dynamo assistant Brendan Burke, deputizing for Ben Olsen. “Tonight was the first time that it felt like a furnace just standing out on the sideline.”

A few years ago Adrian Heath earned the tag of “Striker Whisperer.” His nurturing of Cyle Larin, who scored 43g/6a for Orlando City before reaping a multi-million-dollar transfer fee on his move to Besiktas, was a key there, and other forwards who worked with the Englishman generally had high praise for his influence.

Heath’s Loons are presently hard up for a striker, alas, even as ex-MNUFC frontrunners thrive elsewhere across the league. Christian Ramírez has 5g/1a in 717 minutes with Columbus after returning from Scotland over the winter. Kei Kamara (4g/1a for Chicago) is still banging them in even at age 38. And here’s Mason Toye slicing up his former team with two of Montréal’s four goals as the Quebecois baptized their new blue-and-black kits in style:

Toye didn’t celebrate, afterwards affirming his respect for Heath and the others who helped him along the way in Minnesota. But uncomfortable questions lingered nonetheless, especially with MNUFC having just sold Luis Amarilla to Liga MX side Mazatlan after the Paraguayan tabbed as many yellow cards as goals (two) this season.

“I didn’t think we were going to play him enough to help him develop,” Heath, whose side are now winless in four, said of Toye postgame. “It was good money at the time. People will talk about it because he got a couple of goals, but it’s like the Christian Ramírez trade [to LAFC in 2018]. I didn’t want to lose Christian Ramírez, but he was the only one anybody wanted.

“Sometimes you make decisions.”

Perhaps Teemu Pukki, the 33-year-old Finn reportedly close to a move from Norwich City to Minnesota, will be the striker Heath can count on. To be fair, the Loons’ MLS-worst -14.39 GD-xGD, or goal differential minus expected goal differential, suggests they’ve been unlucky and/or un-clinical in front of goal. But with playmaker Emanuel Reynoso still said to be several weeks away from starting, they need someone, anyone to find the net ASAP.

ATLUTD certainly don’t have any doubts about their No. 9 role.

The hole left by the emotional winter departure of club icon Josef Martínez has been filled with breathtaking speed by Giorgos Giakoumakis, who set the Five Stripes on the path to victory over D.C. with his 10th goal of the season, drawing him level with three others atop the MLS Golden Boot presented by Audi race. He’s the fastest player in Atlanta history to reach double digits, and the second-fastest in league history behind Mamadou “Big Mama” Diallo, a shoot-on-sight star of the league’s early years.

That’s Tyler Miller going on a walkabout for D.C., and before you dunk on him, be aware that he’s been roaming like that all season at Wayne Rooney’s urging, in order to better control the space behind their back line and increase the supply lines to targetman Christian Benteke. It was only a matter of time before Miller got one of his adventures wrong, though, and Atlanta had planned on exactly that.

“The manager explained everything about the goalkeeper and how he would come out. Eventually, that worked. We scored because he tried to go out and he missed the ball,” Giakoumakis said postgame. “It wasn’t luck; we were prepared.”

This was a game that illustrated the popularity of the phrase ‘difference-makers.’ Because D.C., despite a nightmarish history of struggle in Georgia, responded well to conceding early and were unlucky that Miller had an off night. But Giakoumakis is the league’s hottest finisher right now, and that made the difference.

Lorenzo Insigne is the definition of a difference-maker, or at least that’s what TFC are paying him one of the highest salaries in the league to be. There’s been all too little of that since his arrival last summer, even when accounting for his injury struggles, but on Saturday he gave us all a thrilling glimpse of his capabilities:

That defender, Shaq Moore, is a US international and World Cup veteran! Everyone in the stadium knows that Insigne wants nothing more than to cut in from the left flank onto that gifted right peg of his! And yet he still does the damn thing.

Alas for his Reds, an uncharacteristic howler from Sean Johnson gifted Nashville a road point they didn’t really deserve and, in doing so, showcased just what tight margins Toronto have to ride under their current incarnation. They got a moment of magic from one of their pricey Italians. They limited Hany Mukhtar and his in-form teammates to just 0.4 expected goals. And they still didn’t get the W.

That doesn’t bode well.

I’m on record as a Wilfried Nancy appreciator, and I’m still buying Crew stock despite some recent stumbles. While this game – and it was a fun one – wasn’t an ideal case study for all that, I think it gives us a few good data points as to why they could be right in the title reckoning at the business end of the season.

Successful MLS teams tend to have sturdy, thoughtfully-constructed tactical foundations that limit randomness and clarify players’ roles, garnished by individual talents capable of game-breaking brilliance, usually in the final third.

With Nancy’s meticulous positional-play system, Columbus have the former; their superiority in nearly every statistical category at Soldier Field points to that. And in Cucho Hernández and Lucas Zelarayán, they also undoubtedly have the latter:

Frank Klopas and his men had some coulda-woulda-shouldas, like the second yellow card for Malte Amundsen waved off by Video Review in the first half, the deflection on Cucho's goal and some ‘how did they not score there?’ moments, and they hung in there gamely throughout. But that thing Zelarayán did? It’s not your night; pack it up, go home and try again next time.

This was Saturday’s most fun match, with a pulsating vibe fueled by that party atmosphere they’ve gotten so good at in North Carolina. While both sides have reasons to be frustrated with the outcome, the rest of us can just be thankful for the entertainment, and the sheer joy of CLTFC rookie Patrick Agyemang flicking home the last-gasp equalizer.

Conversely, it’s the kind of game both coaching staffs can dissect in depth, because it revealed so many troubling soft spots. Why did the Sounders, particularly João Paulo, keep bombing crosses into Charlotte’s box in the leadup to Raúl Ruidíaz’s second strike, which felt like and probably should have been the winner? And how did the visitors so easily surrender control of the match’s tempo after working so hard to wrestle their way into the ascendancy?

Hopefully there are good snacks lined up for the film sessions ahead.

We can talk all about Leo Messi until we’re Revs blue, or Herons pink, in the face. Any team that defends like Miami did at Gillette Stadium will more than likely struggle for success. The Revs were up 3-0 before an hour had passed, and now IMCF’s league losing streak has run to six straight.

Miami’s chief soccer officer Chris Henderson already knows that the path to MLS competitiveness, GOAT or not, involves digging up value acquisitions like Bobby Wood, whose arrival in New England didn’t turn all that many heads but is one of several smart pickups by Bruce Arena & Co. Keep that in mind as the transfer gossip links Miami to Sergio Busquets, Luis Suarez and a dozen other big names with little or no experience of this weird, wonderful league.

It’s not all bad for the Herons, though! They edged USL Championship side Birmingham Legion at midweek to advance to the US Open Cup semifinals, so Messi might just get a chance to win a trophy if he turns up in South Florida. We’ll leave you with some wisdom from Arena, the veteran boss who turned the David Beckham-era LA Galaxy from dysfunctional to dynasty a few years back:

On the one hand, STL should be kicking themselves for not cruising to victory at their CITYPARK fortress on Sunday afternoon.

They’re leading the West and LA are second from bottom, still reeling from the brutal gut punch of losing Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez for the season to a torn ACL suffered in Wednesday’s Open Cup loss to Real Salt Lake. And had Indiana Vassilev squared to Niko Gioacchini on their breakaway just minutes after Gioacchini’s opener, the expansionists might just have banked another three points.

They let the Galaxy hang around, however, and the Gs showed a level of resilience that has been lacking up to this point in 2023, snatching a road point via Daniel Aguirre, whose late leveler came from just the kind of turnover-and-transition sequence that’s been St. Louis’ bread and butter. Yes, your eyes do not deceive you: That’s heretofore brutally disappointing DP Douglas Costa getting it started:

“The group is, in a way, just rolling up our sleeves, and we have to deal with whatever we have to deal with now,” said LA coach Greg Vanney postgame. “The games are coming and they’re going, and we’ve got to take points, and we don’t have time to get too caught up in things that are happening. We processed the Javier situation the last few days, obviously, when we got the final news. … Once we got here, we just really had to focus on what we needed to do today. I was proud of the guys.”

Philly’s four-game winning streak shuddered to a halt out in northern California thanks to two sublime finishes from Jeremy Ebobisse and Miguel Trauco. I’m categorizing this result as more a feather in the cap for Luchi Gonzalez’s Quakes project, running their home record to 6W-0L-2D, than a red flag for the Union.

You can do a lot of things right in a match, but if the other guys pull out a banger like this one, it’s going to be a tough day at the office. Philly doubled San Jose’s xG and were let down by a jaw-dropping miss or two from MLS Golden Boot contender Julián Carranza, so the L doesn’t necessarily change the upward trajectory they’ve been on lately.

Maybe the less said about this one, the better. RSL have won more games on the road (three) than at home (two), and only three teams have scored fewer goals in their own stadium than their nine:

Being tough to beat is good, but more is required to be great. Pablo Mastroeni would probably respond that this is exactly why Salt Lake just splashed out a club-record fee to bring Chicho Arango back to MLS after his brief stint at Pachuca. Meanwhile, NYCFC have similar issues but no big-ticket transfer, not yet. The Pigeons’ overall status is grim enough to make a road point less satisfying than usual.

Nick Cushing will be fervently hoping for good news about Parks.

The Rapids are tied with Houston for most red cards in the league with four, a stat Braian Galván and Lalas Abubakar padded by getting ejected in this one, which sinks the Mile High Club to the foot of the overall league table.

Galván got his walking orders for a nasty-looking high boot into Wilder Cartagena's rib cage several minutes before halftime, putting Colorado behind the 8-ball on a stormy, muggy central Florida night. Abubakar’s late ejection ended any flickering hopes of stealing a point. That indiscipline made it all too easy for Orlando to get their attack motoring, opening up spaces for Facu Torres (1g/1a) and Mauricio Pereyra to build rhythm and sniff out space between the lines.

Still, Torres’ winner needed a heavy deflection to beat goalkeeper Marko Ilic, and while the Lions haven’t lost a league match in over a month, there’s a distinct sense they’re still falling short of their full potential.

A point gained for both sides, even if it brings Cincy’s six-game winning streak to a halt. Pat Noonan gave Lucho Acosta a bit of rest by leaving him out of the XI, and still got a game-changing contribution from the diminutive Argentine, bringing him off the bench to score a stunner of a goal, his eighth of the season:

The Knifey Lions may feel frustrated to have let the 'Caps off the hook via a late, late penalty expertly dispatched by Ryan Gauld. But they’ve still lost just once all season and Tuesday’s Open Cup win over the Pittsburgh Riverhounds keeps a domestic treble within reach. Vancouver, meanwhile, claimed their second consecutive Canadian Championship trophy at midweek and should feel good about holding the league leaders with those festivities still ringing in their years.

The Timbers’ four-game winless slide was brought to a close by just their fifth clean sheet of the campaign for Portland, who in Gio Savarese are led by a coach who’d generally prefer to stack up 1-0s like this one in abundance.

Franck Boli’s fourth goal of the year provided the margin of victory, though it was equally important for PTFC that Evander made it easy for the Ivorian with a delicious delivery, his third assist of the season, and one of his three key passes on the night (he's now up to 29 KPs on the year):

FCD were well off the pace in this one and could not take advantage of the let-off provided when Geovane Jesus’ 67th-minute red card was rescinded by Video Review. Young DP Alan Velasco has made just one goal contribution since March and looks out of sorts at present; that’s one of several tactical and personnel issues facing Nico Estevez, whose side have grown a bit too reliant on Maarten Paes making multiple huge saves every week.