Another MLS season has arrived and as usual, it is accompanied by changes. St. Louis City SC will make its debut. Players and managers made some off-season moves too. And a new campaign will not be complete if the league does not make any head-scratching moves for MLS 2023.
These are the new developments as the MLS’ 28th season begins.
St. Louis
MLS has not put forward the wrong foot in picking expansion markets. Each team has been met with considerable excitement and the national footprint looks robust now that 29 teams have accepted St. Louis City, the newest addition.
When it comes to St. Louis, a bit of “What took you so long?” enters the discussion. The City’s passion for soccer runs deep, with a booming grassroots soccer scene that has led many players to U.S. national teams dating back to the mid-20th century, with Becky Sauerbrunn and Tim Ream being two of the most recent.
Guaranteed, it takes more than a passion for soccer to build an MLS team. Wealthy investors including a stadium are often needed to build up and run a team, and St. Louis had some near misses in terms of finding owners that will get it an MLS team.
However, with an investor group headed by Carolyn Kindle, that has now been accomplished. And Citypark’s team’s 22,000-seater stadium is up and running from the get-go should help the organization start functioning.
The inaugural season always comes with hiccups. Lutz Pfannenstiel the sporting director after featuring over 20 clubs in his playing career, put together a side void of big names, leaving that task to Bradley Carnell New York Red Bulls assistant (an former interim manager) to turn SLC into a cohesive unit.
On that note, it feels right to have a top-flight team in the cradle of American soccer.
View the official MLS 2023 Season Schedule.
Old names, new places
The MLS off-season is when change-of-address forms are in demand, and so are moving companies, particularly with the League’s limited free agency form as part of the landscape.
There are some players who wore different jerseys that will require some double-takes. Witnessing 2018 MLS MVP Josef Martinez in the Inter Miami CF colours will be hard to digest especially since he had a good spell at Atlanta United.
The same sentiments will follow Aaron Long, who transferred from New York Red Bulls to LAFC.
Sean Johnson on his own part will try to change the fate of Toronto FC after leading New York City FC to an MLS Cup in 2021.
However, what could be described as the most surprising moves happened within the managerial ranks. Wilfred Nancy turned an impressive campaign with CF Montréal into a move to the Columbus Crew, breaking free from Joey Saputo’s overbearing ownership. Nancy was replaced with Hernan Losada, who was fired by D.C. Losada last season due to his obsessive methods regarding weight, amongst other things, he imposed on players.
Losada will have to make the best out of a bad situation for the MLS 2023 with CFM after its roster was basically stripped.
On D.C. United, Ben Olsen had moved to Houston Dynamo as a way to bring back the team’s glory days of the mid-2000s, when they won consecutive MLS Cups in 2006 and 2007. Former FC Dallas manager Luchi Gonzalez joined the San Jose Earthquakes after spending the last few years in the U.S. men’s national team setup.
And some brand new faces, too
MLS mines the international transfer market for reinforcements, and with one or two exceptions, they did not keep too much in their pockets. However this could change if Lionel Messi goes ahead to sign with Inter Miami, but other than this, most of the newcomers are of a strategic variety.
One team that did not make too many financial moves was the Portland Timbers, who spent a $10 million transfer fee on FC Midtjylland midfielder Evander. The Brazilian has been compared to MVP Hany Mukhtar of the Nashville SC. If he can live up to Mukhtar’s influence, it could boost the Timbers’ chances of getting back into the postseason.
Other notable additions for the MLS 2023 season are D.C. United’s Mateusz Klich a former player for Leeds United, including ex-Racing Club midfielder Enzo Copetti, who will join Charlotte FC. Copetti will be assisted by Ashley Westwood former Aston Villa and Burnley midfielder. Belgian striker Dante Vanzeir will try to score goals for the New York Red Bulls, netting 29 times in 67 senior appearances in a bit more than two seasons for Union Saint-Gilloise.
For the defensive side, Inter Miami brought former Shakhtar Donetsk centre-back Serhiy Kryvtsov to man that part of the field for the Herons. Finland international Leo Vaisanen will do the same for Austin FC, after Ruben Gabrielsen’s departure.
Postseason format debacle
18 teams will now qualify for the revamped postseason which is an increase from last year’s 14 – and the rounds will be mainly single-elimination.
The first set of games will be play-in games where the No. 8 and No.9 seeds square off. The next round will witness the other teams join in for a best-of-three series. Every game will have a winner. The format will go back to single elimination for the conference semifinals, conference final and MLS Cup.
Although the league contends that this change has been talked about since 2021 and is not being influenced by its new broadcast rights deal with Apple, according to the Athletic’s report last fall that the decision was fuelled a part passion to have more postseason games available on Apple TV than last year’s 13.
There will now be as low as 25 games and many as 33. There is also the desire on the part of MLS owners to host at least one playoff game, to gather more revenue for the League.
The solution provided by the MLS lacks consistency in terms of format from round to round, and with 18 teams qualifying for the playoffs, will devaluate the regular season more. And does the league want a situation where a team advanced because it “won” two games through penalties and lost a game in regulation?
They practically borrowed some concepts from Liga MX to find a format that would work. Wanting more teams is fine but not ideal.
Having eight teams from every conference qualify and turn each round into a simple home-and-away affair, and if a match ends in a draw after 180 minutes, the higher seed advances. This method will create 29 games. Everybody wins. The MLS 2023 regular season has some sense, Apple TV gets more games to broadcast, the owners get their extra income and the system stays consistent and easy to understand. Fans also get a healthy dose of drama without a penalty shootout.
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