Atlanta start clicking, Colorado's proof of concept & more from Matchday 6 | OneFootball

By Matthew Doyle

Spring has sprung. We’ll dig in on Atlanta’s personnel conundrum, what a bad night in Chicago looks like, a false 9 for a very impressive San Diego side, and more.

But we’ll start with a good use of home-field advantage in Colorado. Let’s dive in:

Extraordinary Wings

Let me preface this by saying, through the grace of God-tier shot-stopping by Zack Steffen, the Rapids have been just fine in the standings all year. They opened the season with two draws; they followed that up with two road wins. That’s a good start, so even if they’d lost on Saturday afternoon – which would’ve been their second on the trot – the bottom wasn’t dropping out or anything.

But even as the results rolled in, the collective performances have not been good, and we saw what the lack of Steffen meant in last weekend’s 3-0 beating by the Timbers. They needed not just a bounce-back, but some kind of proof-of-concept about the whole enterprise. Proof that they could tighten their lines through central midfield; proof that they could dominate the game with the ball; proof that they weren’t fatally compromised against transition-heavy teams.

So I’ve been waiting for a show like Saturday’s, which eventually became a ho-hum 2-0 win over visiting Charlotte (in which Steffen did not have to play the hero), for what feels like a while. This version of the Rapids is who they were in their home-and-home against LAFC in Concacaf Champions Cup play (just over a month ago, but it feels like half a year), and it’s the team they’re designed to be over the rest of the season.

It is, in short, at least a little bit of proof.

Bear in mind they’d been dealing with injuries, and still are. They’d been dealing with fixture congestion, and (to a degree) still are. But really, the issue was they’d let their energy drop and their discipline slip since playing very well but nonetheless getting eliminated by the Black & Gold. It’s the ConcaChampions toll, and teams pay it every single year.

“Today was a really good reaction from our team, after the last game,” head coach Chris Armas said afterward. “You know, we’re usually really good at home. It was mature, it was complete, and we’ve been looking for that performance.”

The mature part wasn’t just that the Rapids 1) rebounded emotionally from that whipping they took in front of the home crowd last week, and 2) stayed tactically sound, which denied the Crown both space to combine and the time to pick out balls over the top. It was that they accomplished the above while also using the built-in advantage of their altitude.

Volume up:

That was the first of Djordje Mihailovic’s two goals on the day. As Colorado’s subs tilted the field and Charlotte’s energy flagged, Mihailovic – who moved back to the No. 10 role for the final half-hour after starting the game as a playmaking left winger – found more space, and used it.

“The most important thing in this game is you could see what we were trying to do,” he said after the whistle. “Especially at the start of the second half was great, 20 minutes we were all around their goal, and [when the goal didn’t come] we didn’t get frustrated. We just put the work in.”

That work paid off in goals, and you could feel them coming. Through the first 70 minutes, Colorado took 15 shots and Charlotte defenders blocked nine of them. Colorado took six more shots over the final 20 minutes, and Charlotte’s defense blocked none. They just couldn’t get close.

I’m bullish on the Rapids because of the way the pieces they have fit together. It hasn’t started humming just yet, but Chidozie Awaziem and Andreas Maxsø together in central defense gives this team the ability to control games from the back, while Josh Atencio at d-mid should do a ton to put out fires before they begin (Saturday’s performance was by far his best in Burgundy). The rest of it just sort of snugs in around that group, with Mihailovic keying the attack.

I’ll be surprised if there aren’t more performances like this in store.

As for the Crown, they’ve been pretty poor and defended extraordinarily deep in all three of their away dates thus far, and have now taken one point from the nine on offer in those matches.

Three of their next four are at home, so they have time to get into a rhythm before they head out on a late-spring Odyssey (eight of 10 on the road in May and June). It all bears watching.

Glutton for Punishment

I really thought our Face of the Week was going to go to Brooks Lennon, who absolutely trucked Hannes Wolf in conceding a penalty that made it 2-1 New York City FC. I even tweeted about it!

But Pigeons center back Thiago Martins had different ideas, and candidly expressed them moments after playing his part in conceding the winner to Emmanuel Latte Lath in Atlanta’s come-from-behind 4-3 win.

Here, folks, is our Face of the Week!

My gut reaction was this was much more on Martins than goalkeeper Matt Freese, but I wanted to be sure, so I talked to a bunch of ex-pros and folks around the league.

One said: “Both at fault, but at different times. GK should have read the play and come early, but when he didn’t, the CB should have easily dealt with it.”

Another’s take: “If you’re a CB urging your 'keeper out and they aren’t coming, you have to [expletive] kick the ball.”

A third’s take – and this is a former goalkeeper, so grain of salt and all that: “I would literally fight him in the locker room for making a show of that like he did. [Expletive] enrages me.”

The most balanced take was from Armchair Analyst special correspondent Calen Carr, who is always a diplomat: “Freese is way too deep for some unknown reason, but Martins has time to hold his arms out (might as well just tell Latte Lath you’re a dead man) and still tries to chest trap the ball.”

For what it’s worth, Freese has made just two interventions outside the area all year, which is dead last among starting ‘keepers in MLS. He’s got to be at least a little bit more aggressive coming off his line.

But Martins has to handle that situation, which is one we see, what, two or three times a game, every game? And he should definitely not be showing up the guy who almost single-handedly saved the team a point last week.

Anyway, in a lot of ways, this game was a battle of mistakes:

The other two Atlanta goals were the more interesting ones. First was Alexey Miranchuk getting forward to finish off a semi-transition opportunity in the first half. The other, though, might be telling us something longer term:

Ajani Fortune has simply been better than either Bartosz Slisz or Mateusz Klich this year. At this point, I think he’s the starter.

Miranchuk, meanwhile, has not been great. I think there are a few reasons for that, but one of the big ones is he’s struggled to get on the ball as a pure attacking midfielder. So maybe moving him back a line (which we also saw last week) is a solution for that, and also limits the amount of build-out Atlanta are compelled to do through Lennon (who is good at getting forward, but less good at conducting the game from the backline).

The Five Stripes really were dominant in that last half-hour – it was probably the best half-hour of soccer they’ve played all year.

"We know we're going to score goals. I'm not worried about that,” head coach Ronny Deila said in the postgame. “We scored four now.

“But we need to defend as a team and we need to attack as a team. When that clicks, then we will be very, very, very good. But today, we're not attacking or defending in the first half. In the second half, we did much better. In the end, we deserved to win."

A few more things to ponder…

13. D.C. United put in what I thought was their best performance of the season against what is clearly still a very good Columbus Crew side. But the Crew are still, yeah, very good, and D.C. still have issues in goal, and that together was good enough for them to come out of Audi Field with a 2-1 win thanks to a Diego Rossi brace.

One personnel note: Max Arfsten started at attacking midfield next to Rossi, his second straight start at that spot after spending virtually all of his Crew career at wingback.

Not the solution I expected to the “how do we replace Cucho and Christian?” issue, but with the Primary Transfer Window closing soon, it looks like it’ll be the solution we get.

12. I was really frustrated by this moment from Toronto’s scoreless home draw with the Whitecaps:

This isn’t entirely egregious from Federico Bernardeschi because this isn't really a rehearsed pattern of play. But as a winger in a 4-2-3-1, you're supposed to be a goalscorer. And to be a goalscorer in this situation, you've got to take risks off the ball to get on the end of service.

Four times out of five, that ball gets cut out or the defense deals with Deandre Kerr’s turn before he can even hit that cross. The fifth time, though, it gets through. And if you’ve made the run, you get the goal.

You’d expect a veteran to read the play.

Anyway, Kerr’s injury took away the one fractional silver lining 2025 has given the Reds so far. They are struggling heading into next week's Sunday Night Soccer presented by Continental Tire date with Miami. And for the ‘Caps, this was a real “man, they miss Ryan Gauld” result. Felt like they could’ve found one if he’d been out there.

11. The Revs are on the board! Carles Gil bent home a free kick in the first half and banged home a penalty at the death for the grit ‘n grind 2-1 home win over the Red Bulls.

It wasn’t precisely a Gil masterpiece – like all 10s, he’s at his best when the attackers around him are buzzing and giving him options, and New England don’t do much of that – but it was a true carry job by the captain. He had two chances to win the game, and he took both. Sometimes your No. 10 can go out there and just collect three points for you.

“That’s what you need from your top player,” said head coach Caleb Porter. “That first goal was a thing of beauty. He deserved the second goal as well with how well he played. He got in great spots today. He was goal dangerous, that’s the key.”

The key for the rest of the season will be for Porter to figure out how to get the rest of his attack to be goal-dangerous. Still not much of that happening in New England.

Sandro Schwarz has to figure out how to inject the turgid RBNY attack with some pace. I understand (and applaud) the decision to become more of a ball-playing side, but both their on- and off-ball work right now is sloooooow. And in this one, the one time it wasn’t they got themselves a goal out of it.

They need to figure out how to get someone threatening and occasionally attacking in behind. Right now it’s just not part of how they play.

10. So yeah, Leo Messi didn’t look entirely comfortable trying to kick the ball with his left foot – got to assume that groin issue is still lingering – so he just got out onto the field and scored with his right instead. No problem.

To the Union’s credit, they didn’t let the game die even when they were down 2-0, and if anything the 2-1 final flattered Miami. Philly were relentless in the game’s last half-hour:

I don’t think there’s any chance they'll move away from this formula. Nor should they, even after two losses in three.

As for the Herons, I maintain my stance that they’re a better team than last year, and Javier Mascherano’s done a great job of 1) keeping things straightforward, and 2) rotating the squad.

Which is my way of saying that I hope Toto Avilés’ start on Saturday means he’ll be on the bench for Wednesday’s CCC first leg at LAFC, while his presence in the XI next Sunday vs. a limping Toronto side should be TBD.

9. Speaking of LAFC, they spent the first 40 minutes of Saturday’s 3-2 loss at San Diego getting battered, then dominated the five minutes heading into halftime, and then saw a 53rd-minute red card to Igor Jesus effectively end the competitive portion of the game.

Olivier Giroud and Jeremy Ebobisse both missed this one, and it’s not clear if either will be available on Wednesday. Denis Bouanga started up top as the No. 9 in the 4-3-3, and I suspect that’s what we’ll see midweek.

The Niños (or the Chrome and Azul, as I guess they’re trying to be called) were once again very, very good, and much less vulnerable in transition than they’d been last week. Anyone who’s read this column knows I’m not a big False 9 guy, but Onni Valakari’s movement in that spot gave LAFC’s backline a ton of trouble, and he ended up with a goal and assist for his effort.

You can get a sense from the network passing graph that Valakari (he’s No. 8) is perfectly situated to either drop in and create a numerical advantage in central midfield, or push up and become the focal point of the attack:

Anyway, first home win for SDFC. And a return to the field for Chucky Lozano, who got on for the final 20 minutes.

This team’s real good.

8. FC Dallas are not real good – at least not at this point – but they took care of business in their 2-1 home win over Sporting KC, capitalizing on a pair of massive individual errors (again; nobody’s gotten more gifts this year) to overturn an early(ish) 1-0 deficit.

I don’t know what else to say about this game. Both teams are finding themselves right now (or trying to, anyway), and Dallas have a little more cohesion and talent, and are better at brute forcing results because of it.

Sporting’s winless skid across all competitions, going back to last year, is now 13. They’re dead last with one point from six games. The fans, as is their right, are fed up and are calling for manager Peter Vermes to resign.

7. No longer dead last are CF Montréal, who got the new-coach bounce after dismissing Laurent Courtois. They went to Soldier Field and fought off both the Fire and the rain to come away with a largely deserved point thanks to a 1-1 draw in their first outing under Marco Donadel.

Two big changes to note under Donadel:

You can see from this graphic, courtesy of MLSstat on BlueSky, that they tilted the field in a meaningful way, which allowed them to attack somewhat effectively via the central channel:

I don’t know if this is real or not, and I have my doubts about the overall talent level even if it is. But I do know this looked more like what we thought Courtois was going to try to craft this team into.

As for Chicago, this is officially what a bad night looks like for them in 2025. Which, when you consider where they’ve been for the past 15 years, kind of makes it a good night?

6. And it was finally a good night for FC Cincinnati, who went to Nashville and came away with all three points thanks to an Evander golazo and a late Kévin Denkey penalty for the come-from-behind 2-1 final.

The real star, though, was Roman Celentano, who did this just after saving a Hany Mukhtar penalty:

Outrageous. Though this really does put an exclamation point on Cincy’s need to figure out their defensive issues, doesn’t it?

Nashville have figured out most everything – result notwithstanding they’re playing really excellent soccer, and B.J. Callaghan’s got Josh freaking Bauer underlapping like Steven Moreira – except how to take a PK. Hany’s now missed four of his past seven and Sam Surridge is English, so there are no obvious options.

5. Daniel was arguably just as good as Celentano in preserving a home point via the 1-1 final for San Jose against the Sounders. The Quakes got themselves a 1-0 lead through Beau Leroux a half-hour in after some clever pressing from Ian Harkes, and then Seattle put them in hell for the next hour until Albert Rusnák finally found an equalizer. Bruce Arena’s still trying to figure out the right balance and personnel for his team, and said as much in the postgame presser.

Same with Brian Schmetzer. A big thing he hasn’t managed to solve for is Jesús Ferreira, false 9. The big difference between the first half and second half was getting a true No. 9, Danny Musovski, onto the field and getting Ferreira into a sort of half-a-winger/half-a-second-striker role.

“I made the decision to start Jesús at the No. 9, but we can all see he likes to play in pockets,” is how Schmetzer put it afterward. “We wanted Paul [Rothrock] and Cristian [Roldan, playing as a winger] to stretch the field.

“But Musovski was effective. It was a total tactical sub. [João Paulo] wasn’t playing poorly. They didn’t have much. We just felt we needed to make that change rather than wait. Musovski did a good job and Jesús was real effective where he was playing.”

Schmetzer went on to say that Musovski, with Jordan Morris still out, is a good bet to start next week against San Diego. Given what we’ve seen so far – the Sounders need a real 9 out there, basically – that makes a lot of sense to me.

4. Pass of the Week goes to everyone involved in this masterpiece during Minnesota’s 2-0 win over RSL in a monsoon:

Of note: this game was the first time I thought Joaquín Pereyra, who assisted on Tani Oluwaseyi’s second goal, looked DP-caliber.

RSL… oof. They’re now 22nd in the standings and 28th in xG differential. It’s still too early to read too much into xG stuff, but the season-long numbers are bad, and they’ve lost the xG battle in five of their six games, and my goodness does all of that match the eye test.

3. The Galaxy blew their own foot off late Saturday night. No other way to put it.

They were cruising along with a 1-0 lead, courtesy of a true No. 9’s goal from Christian Ramírez, 75 minutes in. They’d limited Orlando City to few shots, all of them of low quality. And they weren’t conceding much danger to speak of.

Then Miki Yamane needlessly dove in on Eduard Atuesta at the corner of the box. Penalty to make it 1-1. Fifteen minutes later, John McCarthy fumbled Luis Muriel’s speculative 35-yard free kick into the net. And that’s how you craft a rip-your-own-heart-out-of-your-chest 2-1 home loss.

“What are you going to say about the second goal? Honestly, there's nothing to say about it,” head coach Greg Vanney said. “At the end of the day, it should have ended 1-1 on what I think is a soft penalty call. But we allowed another goal. That just can't happen.”

It’s the worst start ever for a defending MLS Cup champion. MLS is forgiving – nine of 15 teams in each conference make the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs, remember – but this has been brutal.

“I can go through, I don't know how many goals we've given up over the course of the season, I'd have to add them up, but at least half of them have been somewhat ridiculous for us," Vanney said. "There's points inside of those goals that we've lost because of it; and that, to me, is unacceptable for where we are at this point, and coming back as champions to be giving up these types of soft goals in ways that, you know, again, I mean, you're losing points."

Orlando are up to 10 points, which puts them seventh in the East. I don’t think Oscar Pareja loves the way they’re defending, but they have been wildly entertaining to start the year, and that’s a very nice foundation to build from.

2. The Dynamo, every single week, dare teams to turn them over and beat them in transition. The Timbers, on Sunday night, took that bet. They went end-to-end on their first two goals, getting into the channels at a dead sprint after Houston had lost possession 80 yards upfield. They pounced on a mutinous Jack McGlynn back-pass for the third.

It finished 3-1. In between the Portland goals the Dynamo scored a set piece and played a lot of good ball through midfield. Plus Femi Awodesu’s rise continues to be one of my favorite stories in the league this year.

But they are a team short of both difference-makers and speed, and they look it. Portland lack neither, and they showed it.

That was the whole story of the game.

1. And finally, last week I said that Osman Bukari was in danger of entering the RigoniZone. For one glorious moment on Sunday afternoon, he definitely came out of it:

That was the only goal in Austin’s 1-0 win at St. Louis. The Verde & Black got that lead and predictably battened down the hatches – they took only two more shots the rest of the way.

Can’t blame them for doing that against a St. Louis side that’s shown very little going forward most of the season, and were hamstrung (in some cases literally) with injuries. Head coach Olof Mellberg started five (or four-and-a-half, depending on your Jannes Horn take) center backs across the backline, with two d-mids and a wingback in central midfield.

And so they really had nothing until the game entered the Tactics Free Zone with about 25 minutes left.

I will say injuries have been a confounding factor and I understand Mellberg’s fixation on improving the defense, which is much better than the past two seasons.

But, man. This team was really fun to watch the second half of last year, and the vast majority of that joy has been sucked away. The biggest part of that is tactics, but a significant part is Mellberg's approach. Where were Caden Glover or Mykhi Joyner in a game like this? Why finish with Timo Baumgartl up top when you could've brought in one of the high-upside kids coming through the academy? How come exactly one player under the age of 25 even got on the field?

It's too risk-averse, and for a team in one of the great talent hotbeds in North America, way too slanted away from local talent.