By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (Oct 16, 2019) US Soccer Players - It's awards season in Major League Soccer. With the regular season wrapped up and the playoffs looming, the league has begun handing out individual recognition for the best of 2019. First up, the Rookie of the Year Award. Colorado's Andre Shinyashiki took home the trophy for the best first-year professional player in the league . . .
MLS teams in need of a Cup run
By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (Oct 11, 2019) US Soccer Players - The MLS Cup playoffs are mostly about crowning a league champion. Fourteen teams, eleven games, one group of players showering in confetti with Queen blasting from the speakers. The culmination of a long campaign decided by a knockout tournament played over barely three weeks. If only one team can win the title, that means 13 . . .
Chicago’s forward progress
By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (Oct 9, 2019) US Soccer Players - The Chicago Fire is making moves. The club is leaving a perfectly good soccer-specific stadium for an oversized American football venue that is, for lack of a better way of saying it, in a better part of town. Which is to say that they're returning to Chicago proper from the village of Bridgeview. Though the Fire isn't an original . . .
Gregg Berhalter’s balance
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The Rapids’ turnaround
By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (Oct 2, 2019) US Soccer Players - Sometimes the metaphors are too easy. Too obvious, even. It doesn't seem right when there's no so little effort required. The most obvious metaphor for the Colorado Rapids 2019 season is right there in their name. "Rapids". As in the rushing water of a stream or river, the kind that brave or foolhardy hobbyists sometimes like to . . .
The Western Conference playoff bubble
By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (Sep 27, 2019) US Soccer Players - The thing about bubbles is that they aren't particularly stable. Every bubble rides the edge between existence and the decided lack of existing at all. One moment it's there, the next, it's gone. Sitting on the bubble, in the common parlance of sports, is never a good thing. It means that your chances to qualify for the . . .
The render version of MLS
By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (Sep 25, 2019) US Soccer Players - If you subscribe to the right news feeds, you're probably aware of the plans to build a new stadium for the Columbus Crew in the Arena District of Ohio's capital city. New renderings of the building hit the internet on Tuesday to coincide with the team taking season-ticket deposits for the stadium's planned 2021 opening. The . . .
The future of the Leagues Cup
By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (Sep 20, 2019) US Soccer Players - The first-ever edition of the Leagues Cup, a competition designed to pit Major League Soccer clubs against clubs from Liga MX of Mexico, came to a rousing if somewhat confounding, conclusion on Wednesday. First, a hearty congratulations to Cruz Azul, the tournament's inaugural winner. The 2-1 victory for La Maquina over Tigres . . .
Jesse Marsch’s win
By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (Sep 18, 2019) US Soccer Players - Jesse Marsch is an American soccer coach. He grew up in Wisconsin, played college soccer at Princeton, and contributed to three different teams over his 14-year Major League Soccer career. Before getting his first head coaching position with the Montreal Impact in 2012, Marsch's entire soccer experience happened in the United . . .
The magic of playoff implications
By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (Sep 13, 2019) US Soccer Players - "Playoff implications" is like magic. The phrase immediately increases the intensity of regular-season games that would otherwise lack for intrigue. It's fair to say that it takes too long for Major League Soccer's regular season to get to the point where the "playoff implications" magic cascades down over proceedings. When it . . .
