By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (Feb 28, 2020) US Soccer Players - There was a theme to the proceedings at New York City's Mandarin Oriental Hotel earlier this week. Major League Soccer celebrated the impending start of the league's 25th season with unabashed optimism. It makes sense. MLS beat the odds just to make it to this point. The league's future was in question before it even launched back . . .
The Chicago Fire’s reformat
By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (Feb 26, 2020) US Soccer Players - The Chicago Fire made a change to its team just a few days ahead of the launch of the 2020 Major League Soccer season on Monday. The club signed 28-year-old Argentinian midfielder Gaston Gimenez from Velez Sarsfield in his native country. Gimenez is a clever, savvy player tested by the intense soccer environments of South America . . .
LAFC’s interesting Champions League debut
By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (Feb 21, 2020) US Soccer Players - The best thing to come of out LAFC's trip to Mexico on Tuesday night may have been the traveling support. Roughly 800 LAFC fans made the trip to Leon to see their club's debut in the Concacaf Champions League. The Black & Gold faithful partied it up in Guanajuato and made their presence felt across the 90 minutes of LAFC's 2-0 . . .
De Boer’s situation in Atlanta
By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (Feb 19, 2020) US Soccer Players - Pressure is a function of the schedule, except when it isn't. For coaches headed into the 2020 season with expectations already in place, it's possible to be under the gun even before the games begin. The real heat will come with the matches that count, but not every job is created equal. History is a burden and a blessing. That's . . .
MLS embraces the transfer saga
By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (Feb 14, 2020) US Soccer Players - Major League Soccer is a young league with younger ambition. While the rest of the world spent the last three decades engaged in the wild, sometimes sordid, and often thrilling business of high profile player transfers, MLS focused on simply making itself viable. You'd be fine with one hand to count the number of noteworthy MLS . . .
With the Champions league on the schedule, LAFC and Montreal make changes
By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (Feb 12, 2020) US Soccer Players - The MLS season is mere weeks away, and the teams participating in the Concacaf Champions League are gearing up for games that come earlier than that. In a perfect world, coaches would have set rosters and know what they're working with for games that count. Then again, this is MLS. The primary in-season transfer window doesn't . . .
It doesn’t look easy for MLS in Nashville
By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (Feb 7, 2020) US Soccer Players - Nothing about Nashville's entry into Major League Soccer has been straightforward. Though MLS earned the benefit of the doubt with its expansion choices after a string of wildly successful new clubs, the choice of the Tennessee capital for the league's 26th team always seemed oddly taken. The city didn't have a massively popular . . .
The FC Dallas Olympic movement
By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (Feb 5, 2020) US Soccer Players - No team had more players in the USMNT January camp than FC Dallas. Head coach Gregg Berhalter brought in a group of young players for two reasons. First was the standard audition for new talent. Second, to better prepare a group of U-23 players for the Concacaf Olympic qualifying tournament in March. Berhalter made a point of . . .
Once more, Columbus soccer fans save the Crew
By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (Jan 31, 2020) US Soccer Players - If traumatic experiences bring people closer together, there might not be a more united fan base in Major League Soccer than that of the Columbus Crew. Crew fans, to put it kindly, have been on a ride over the last two years. Watching and enjoying their team was secondary to merely holding onto it. In 2018, then-owner Anthony . . .
Gridiron lines in MLS stadiums
By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (Jan 29, 2020) US Soccer Players - The deals professional sports franchise owners and government leaders make to build stadiums vary from the egregious to the nearly passable. Rare is the stadium built only with private funds. Even in those cases where an owner foots the bill, there's bound to be some public element to the deal. Stadiums require infrastructure and . . .
