MLS Takeaways: Vancouver Whitecaps early dominance; Inter Miami's squad depth support (2024)

Two weeks ago, Vancouver Whitecaps head coach Vanni Sartini entered his post-match press conference with a point to emphasize. His team had played Toronto FC off the pitch at BC Place, a 4-0 humbling for former Canada coach John Herdman and his side.

“We showed we are the best Canadian team and we have been for the past two to three years,” Sartini said after the match. “I don’t know why we have to remind everyone.”

On Saturday, Vancouver shifted focus to its other hotly contested triumvirate, the Cascadia Cup, with a 2-0 win over the Seattle Sounders.

The Whitecaps and Portland Timbers joined the Seattle Sounders in MLS in 2011, making way for a regional rivalry between the trio of teams. The Whitecaps, however, have largely been spoken about as the “third” team in the Pacific Northwest — until now.

Great teams tend to have an established core of players, often in key roles across the pitch. For Seattle, the Obafemi Martins-Clint Dempsey partnership and the defensive work led by Chad Marshall and Osvaldo Alonso dovetailed into the team’s dynastic late 2010s with Nicolas Lodeiro, Raul Ruidiaz, Stefan Frei and Jordan Morris at its heart. For Portland, stories of their successes are impossible to tell without mentioning Diego Valeri, Diego Chara and Sebastian Blanco.

Vancouver has had great players, but they’ve lacked longevity. Pedro Morales only stuck around for three seasons. Camilo Sanvezzo did everything he could to force a move away after winning an MLS Golden Boot with the club. Alphonso Davies was never going to be a mainstay once his play reached a global audience.

In Seattle this weekend, however, the Whitecaps’ leading men made their presence known. Ryan Gauld and Brian White arrived in 2021, during the tail end of head coach Marc Dos Santos’ time in charge. They have since partnered to great effect, with each scoring a goal in Saturday’s 2-0 win. They’ve also been among MLS’s best attacking partnerships in their fourth year together. No Western Conference tandem has had more success around goal since Sartini took over late in the 2021 season.

Saturday’s win over the Sounders wasn’t without controversy. Seattle defender Jackson Ragen was sent off for what had initially been ruled a yellow card for a clumsy stomp of White’s calf. Referee Ramy Touchan spent two minutes deliberating with the video assistant referee before heading to the monitor for another 109 seconds. Touchan eventually switched yellow for red, ending Ragen’s night. It seemed to be a case of contact looking worse in freeze-frame.

Beyond the controversy, it was another performance in line with what we have seen since Sartini took over: a narrow 3-4-2-1 shape that operates as a machine that generates plenty of chances. Vancouver’s average expected goals (xG) per shot is 0.151, suggesting their typical goalscoring opportunity has a 15 percent chance of being converted. That is far ahead of the recent high for any team in any season — the 2022 CF Montréal team is closest with a 0.133 rate in former head coach Wilfried Nancy’s final year at the club.

Unlike the mesmeric nature of ‘Nancyball’, Sartini is happy to let his opponent own the possession battle, hoping to bait them into mistakes that can be punished with ruthless precision. Sounders defender Xavier Arreaga learned that the hard way this weekend.

The result was Vancouver’s first win at Lumen Field in all competitions since March 19, 2016, ending an 11-match run that saw the Whitecaps net two points. Sartini’s side also finished the weekend just behind the LA Galaxy in the conference table. It’s a deserved position for a fine start to the season and a signal of intention for the rest of the West.

— Jeff Rueter

Miami’s squad strength underpins season start

Inter Miami has maneuvered through early-season fixture congestion including a run to the CONCACAF Champions Cup quarterfinals, an extra league game and untimely injuries to key players — none more important than the month Lionel Messi missed.

And after 10 league games played, Miami still sits atop the Supporters’ Shield race with 18 points (tied with LA Galaxy but with a superior goal difference). Their resilience in the face of injury and balance of squad depth will define their season. Yes, Messi’s stellar performances will get the headlines, but significantly increasing the strength and depth of the squad from the end of last season will sustain them through the long year.

So far, so good, but that hasn’t stopped head coach Tata Martino from publicly asking MLS to relax roster rules — again.

“There are a lot of things we need to correct, but I’d like to do it with the full squad,” Martino said after a 3-1 victory over Nashville SC on Saturday. “We have seven or eight players out which is a lot in a league as strict as MLS with the roster and budget issues.”

Martino made a similar plea after Miami was eliminated from the Champions Cup quarterfinal by CF Monterrey. Roster rule changes are coming this summer, outlined by The Athletic’s Paul Tenorio, but Miami will have to continue to lean on its improved squad depth to stay in the Shield race.

Though Benja Cremaschi has returned from his early-season injury, things aren’t getting better for Martino’s squad. Jordi Alba is out for at least another game with a knock, Leonardo Campana remains sidelined, Facundo Farias is out for the season, Federico Redondo (who replaced Farias) still has about another month of recovery and Saturday night breakout midfielder Diego Gomez left the match on a stretcher.

“What we saw was clearly an ankle sprain,” Martino said of Gomez. “We need to find out whether it was a regular sprain or whether there’s anything serious with the bone. He was in a lot of pain, the ankle was swollen.”

Last year, Miami’s magical Leagues Cup run didn’t translate to the final stretch of the regular season as Messi was injured and the team ran out of gas. This season, Messi has missed four of the club’s 10 MLS matches and they still sit top of the league.

Julian Gressel, Tomas Aviles and Sergio Busquets are the only three Miami players to appear in all 10 league games. When factoring in the four CONCACAF Champions Cup games that Miami played in, Martino has had to liberally rotate his side.

The second-place New York Red Bulls have 15 squad players who miss two or fewer matches. The Whitecaps have had 14 players miss two games or fewer. For Miami, that number is eight.

Injuries aren’t the only absences Martino has to consider either.

Messi will be with Argentina this summer at the Copa America. Even if Miami gets positive injury news on Gomez, he’ll be gone at some point this summer at Copa or the Olympics with Paraguay.

The story of the end of Miami’s season will be the availability of its best players by the time the playoffs arrive in October. To have a trophy by the time they get there, and advantageous seeding, their improved squad depth will be at the heart of that.

— Tom Bogert

Hard times for the Chicago Fire

Unfortunately for the Chicago Fire, 2024 is more of the same.

The Fire’s season hit a new low this weekend with a 4-0 thrashing at home to Real Salt Lake, who kept a clean sheet despite suffering a rash of injuries that saw two fullbacks play at center back in front of an 18-year-old goalkeeper.

This offseason, Chicago named Frank Klopas as its new head coach, spent a club-record $12million transfer fee to sign forward Hugo Cuypers and won the race to sign marquee free agent Kellyn Acosta amid wholesale changes in and out of the squad. Within two months of the season, whatever optimism that came from a busy offseason has drained.

The Fire has nine points after nine matches and sits 13th in the Eastern Conference.

Chicago has missed the playoffs in 10 of its last 11 seasons. It’s a run of consistent underperformance in a league known for parity with an entirely too forgiving playoff structure. Chicago hasn’t advanced in the playoffs since 2009. The iPhone 3GS had just hit shelves that year and the Sounders were in their first season. Seattle has missed the playoffs just one time in its existence. Since the Fire last advanced in the playoffs, MLS has added 15 clubs.

Up next, the Fire has two crucial home games, first against Atlanta United and then last-place New England Revolution. If things don’t get better quickly, Chicago risks missing another playoff as a 16th club, San Diego, debuts in MLS next season.

— Tom Bogert

Minnesota crumbles Charlotte FC’s home fortress

For all of the reasons that Charlotte decided to move on from Christian Lattanzio after the 2023 season, its home form was low among them. Charlotte did well to continue racking up results at Bank of America Stadium, last suffering defeat on May 20, 2023, before embarking on a 14-game unbeaten stretch. That included three wins and a draw in Dean Smith’s first four hosting opportunities as an MLS manager.

On Sunday, Charlotte saw that streak snap when it welcomed Minnesota United for its fifth game under its own new English coach, Eric Ramsay. Charlotte managed a couple of promising chances — a fourth-minute close-range shot from Kerwin Vargas that forced Dayne St. Clair into a diving save and a 12th minute Vargas cross to Liel Abada on which the Israel international failed to connect.

From that point on, however, it was all Loons. Ramsay entrusted Tani Oluwaseyi to start up front, marking the first time Teemu Pukki began a game on the bench this season. The move was rewarded in the 31st minute, when the Nigerian got on the end of a ball from Robin Lod and hit a first-time finish off the far post to open the scoring.

From there, the Loons were comfortable sitting in a low block and enjoying opportunities to again break on the counter. Lod and Hassani Dotson ensured Minnesota a 3-0 road win — its third win in four games away from Saint Paul.

Charlotte failed to make up ground in the East, falling to 10th in the conference’s points-per-game standings. Meanwhile, Minnesota now sits third in the West with 1.75 points per game, well above expectations. Their approach to cede possession and counter is a tried and tested method to get results on the road in MLS, but the Loons have yet to consistently carry it over when playing at home. Still, the direct approach has been a sight for sore eyes among the team’s fans.

“I’d much rather be a team that is proactive, dynamic, forward-looking, as opposed to a team that can lull itself into boredom through possession,” Ramsay said after the win. “We’re toward the end of the spectrum that I’d like to be at, but it will be an ongoing conversation the whole season on how we can find that nice balance between making sure we’ve got rhythm, but we’re doing so in a controlled way that seems always connected.”

If they can make the necessary adjustments to restore Allianz Field to its previous status as a fortress built with perfect acoustics for a Wonderwall celebration, Ramsay could have Minnesota back in contention after a couple of relatively lean years.

— Jeff Rueter

FC Dallas scores three times in loss to Colorado

Apparently, FC Dallas needs a little more clarification on how it can improve.

On Friday, The Athletic ran an extensive look at how every MLS team has trended in the season’s first quarter compared to 2023. Among the many findings was that Dallas had been in the lead for just one percent of its first seven games. Naturally, the salve would be to put the ball in the net more often.

The good news is that, on Saturday, they did so three teams while keeping their opponent from doing so themselves. The bad news? Two of those strikes were own goals, handing the hosting Colorado Rapids a 2-1 win after a pair of unlucky bounces off of Sebastien Ibeagha and Sam Junqua. Petar Musa provided a consolation strike in the 87th minute for his first goal since March 2, but it wasn’t enough to spare their blushes.

This still isn’t the most heartbreaking example of Dallas losing to Colorado due to an own goal. MLS Cup 2010 will own that category for the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, it was another tough result for a side that entered the year with high expectations.

— Jeff Rueter

(Top photos: Joe Nicholson and Sam Navarro/USA TODAY Sports; Graphics by Jeff Rueter)