Matchups at the top and bottom of the table make for some interesting reading. The two best teams in the East faced off in Foxborough, while Kansas City played host to both the NFL Draft and a struggling Montréal side to varying degrees of success. In the West, dropped points from Seattle, St. Louis, and San Jose only gave more life to LAFC on their week off.
The weather's warming, the flowers are blooming and your local MLS side is calling — it's tailgating season. If you're looking to schedule an outing, here are 10 players who are worth the price of admission.
There's no sound science behind this ranking so warning, some readers might be offended. But I really don't think you'll have a bad time watching any of these guys play live.
#10. Jordan Morris | Seattle Sounders
Position: Left winger
The old LaLiga logo wasn't perfect. It was guilty of what I consider a cardinal sin: containing that damn generic soccer ball that's way too heavy-handed in getting its point across.
But LaLiga had established a powerful brand identity with its iconic color wheel over the past 30 years, and when news broke of an all-new LaLiga logo for the 2023-24 season, the initial thought was concerning how the league would reimagine and update the famous design while retaining some sense of history.
The league table is finally taking shape as the top teams separate themselves from the pack while the league's cellar dwellers cling to every point that will hopefully save their seasons. There were several struggling teams that earned massive wins while some top teams slipped up, making for another thoroughly entertaining matchweek.
El Tráfico was a blessing. Yes, it was thrilling to see Carlos Vela and Tyler Boyd exchange golazos before Raheem Edwards demonstrated why the LA Galaxy are truly "The Meme Team" by launching a throw-in into his own box, but what really highlighted the match was being able to watch it all unfold on a lazy Sunday afternoon — an entirely forgotten timeslot since MLS moved to Apple TV.
Premier League relegation is a simple concept: Your team was not good enough this season so they, and two other teams, have to drop down to the tier below (the Championship) and will play their games there next season. Conversely, the Championship will promote three teams to the Premier League to take their places (let’s not get into the playoffs). This toing and froing happens all the way down the league structure.
(S3E5 spoilers below)
As writers on the series, Jason Sudeikis (Ted), Brett Goldstein (Roy) and Brendan Hunt (Coach Beard) have always stressed that Ted Lasso isn't a show about soccer, it's a show about these characters who just so happen to be involved in the running of a professional soccer club.
Based off what we've seen from the Concacaf W Championship and SheBelieves Cup, a USWNT World Cup roster prediction seems like a pretty straightforward exercise — Vlatko Andonovski hasn't been tinkering away with his squads.
However, the dramatic recall of Julie Ertz showed us that certain veterans can't be ruled out with three months of club ball still to be played. There are proven stars returning from longterm injuries who'll be watched closely by the staff, and let's just hope that Mallory Swanson is the only late addition to the casualty list.
With many experts having predicted that the winner of the 2022-23 UEFA Champions League will emerge from the blockbuster quarterfinal tie between Manchester City and Bayern Munich, City's 3-0 beatdown of Bayern in Tuesday's first leg at the Etihad is quite the statement from the Sky Blues.
There's still a lot of thinking yet to come from Pep Guardiola, but this City team can kill you a myriad of ways (unlike Chelsea and Real Madrid), is UCL battle hardened (unlike Benfica, Inter, Milan and Napoli) and has Erling Haaland (unlike Bayern).
By the time the USWNT and Ireland wrap-up their two-match friendly series next Tuesday at CityPark, there'll be less than 100 days before the start of the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
So although the U.S. holds a 13-0-0 advantage all-time against the Girls in Green (outscoring them 48 to one in the process), there'll be plenty of internal battles to focus on at Q2 Stadium in Austin on Saturday before the second game in St. Louis three days later.