MLS

On Wednesday, July 31, the only friendly worth watching takes place at Orlando City Stadium in Florida — it’s the 2019 MLS All-Star Game, pitting the best of MLS against Spanish giant Atlético Madrid. What’s flying under the radar is that one day before the big game, there’s going to be an All-Star Skills Challenge. 

This used to be a regular feature of MLS All-Star weekend, but for some reason I’ll never understand, they put an end to it. Here’s a brief recap.

Let’s face it, women have faced inequality for as long as we have written history. Women’s soccer players are no exception. 

Today, the U.S. women’s soccer team — the No. 1 women’s soccer team in the world — has to deal with the reality that if both the men and women’s teams played 20 friendlies a year, the women would earn, at most, $99,000 while the men would earn an average of $263,320. That’s just ridiculous. It seems like some kind of sick joke, but I can assure you, it’s not. 

On Tuesday, the suburb of Bridgeview and the Chicago Fire announced that the terms of their lease had been amended, meaning that the club will no longer play its matches in the village — more specifically, at SeatGeek Stadium — through the 2036 season, as the original lease dictated. 

The Fourth of July is a time for unnecessary parades, celebrating overzealous patriotism with the sounds of war and relaxing with a cold beer in the hot sun followed by binge-watching Season 3 of Stranger Things.

It is not, apparently, a time for spelling names correctly.

The LA Galaxy defeated Toronto FC 2-0 on Thursday night, an appropriate celebration of the United States’ Independence Day as one of the league’s standard bearers defeated the best Canadian club. But the two goals were scored by a Swede whose name was remarkably misspelled on his own jersey.

ROOOOONEY. The 33-year-old has done it again. The last time he scored from his own half was for Everton against West Ham back in 2017, but the D.C. United attacker has now accomplished the feat stateside. And from much, much deeper.  

Someone more finely attuned with the dimensions of Audi Field probably has the answer, but I think this one arrived from the White House. 

Fresh off helping Mexico to the CONCACAF U-17 Championship title last month, 16-year-old Californian Efraín Álvarez has registered his first goals for the LA Galaxy, notching a brace in the club’s 3-0 U.S. Open Cup victory over Orange County FC on Wednesday night. 

Grant Wahl’s annual MLS Ambition Rankings have been revealed on SI.com, and there really aren’t any surprises at the top (Atlanta United and LAFC) or the bottom (Colorado Rapids and New England Revolution). And while there have been some feel-good moves (the Columbus Crew greatly rise thanks to new ownership), the list also captures some worrying trends around the league, most notably the malaise surrounding the Montreal Impact.