A few surprises to open the 2025 MLS season…
It’s three games into the season and here are the big surprises of early 2025.
You never saw it coming. It’s very hard to believe. What if…
MLS in early 2025 continues to be a league that delivers the unexpected, time and time again.
Here are our staff picks for the biggest surprises in MLS just three weeks into the 2025 season.
Forrest:
The good: It has been an incredible start for a team out west and a goal scorer in the east.
The Vancouver Whitecaps are a perfect 3-0 to begin the MLS season and have outscored their opponents 8-2 over these first 270 minutes of the season. Throw in a 3-2 aggregate win over Saprissa in the Concacaf Champions Cup First Round and then a 1-1 draw versus Monterrey in the first leg of their Round of 16 matchup, and this team is defying the typical early-season, Concacaf conflicts to show great results.
Tai Baribo has scored six goals in the first three matches of 2025 to fire the Philadelphia Union to the top of the Eastern Conference. A hat trick versus Cincinnati accounts for half the total as teams around MLS better take notice of this in-form striker. Baribo netted 9 goals in 21 games in 2024 and is well on his way to a historic goal total in 2025.
The not-so-good: Championship hangover and it’s a deep freeze north of the border.
The LA Galaxy slip to 0-3 in MLS after they drop another match to St Louis this past Sunday. The team is a shadow of their 2024 MLS Cup winning side due to injury and transfers as they struggle to open the 2025 season. One goal scored and seven allowed in the first three matches tells the story of a team looking for an identity. Concacaf Champions Cup is both a burden and possible lifeline as the Galaxy trail 0-1 to Herediano after the first leg of their Round of 16 series. It’s too early in the season to call the Concacaf 2nd leg match and the next MLS match at Portland make-or-break moments…but they are.
The two Canadian teams in the East have earned a combined one point over their first six matches in a soccer deep freeze in Toronto and Montreal. The two clubs have only added up six total goals and that should be enough to get some results, but allowing a combined 14 goals has just crushed any hopes of results early in the season. The MLS Eastern Conference is crowded with strong teams in 2025 and if these two teams don’t turn things around very soon the season and the hopes of the playoffs will be lost before the summertime.
Surprise MLS expansion franchise: How the Menace became MLS franchise 30.5
No, the Des Moines Menace is not joining MLS but they are making a huge splash with their 2025 Lamar Hunt US Open Cup roster signings. While most USL League Two teams are handicapped in roster selections for the USOC due to relying heavily on college players, the Menace are networking and giving several retired MLS players another run. Sacha Kljestan and AJ DeLaGarza played for the Menace in the 2024 USOC and this season they have invited their friends over for a kickaround including Bradley Wright-Phillips, Ozzie Alonso, Benny Feilhaber, Justin Meram, Dax McCarty, Victor Ulloa, and Matt Hedges providing the first wave of 2025 USOC signings.
The Menace play away at Sporting KC II on Wednesday, March 19 in a must-see USL2 matchup.
Ken:
The good: Club de Futbol Internacional Miami and its progress toward realizing its dream. Co-owner David Beckham has said for years that his ambition is to develop Inter Miami into a perennial winner recognized globally as one of the world’s most important clubs. The world footballing press smirked, U.S. soccer fans shrugged and turned back to an English Premier League (or Liga MX) match, and Major League Soccer’s masters rolled their eyes.
Beckham’s vision felt like a marketing gimmick complementing the Herons’ motto: “Freedom to Dream.”
Sign Lionel Messi? Phffft.
Build a billion-dollar multi-use development around a 25,000-seat soccer stadium IN Miami? Sure, David.
Former Barcelona teammates, from left, Jordi Alba, Luis Suarez, Lionel Messi are helping build a world-class culture at Inter Miami. Photo: Fred Lee/Getty Images
But, with help from billionaire co-owners Jorge and Jose Mas — as well as MLS, Adidas, Apple+ and Audi — the Herons have signed not only the greatest player of all-time, but also several of his friends and former teammates from Barcelona. Jordi Alba, Sergio Busquets and Luis Suarez are among the best players of their generation at their positions; although near the end of their careers, technical skill, soccer intelligence and experience make up for any loss of physical strength, speed and stamina. First-year coach Javier Mascherano, a standout center back on those Blaugrana teams with Messi and Co., has guided Miami through five preseason friendlies, three Concacaf Champions Cup ties and three MLS regular season matches without a loss. (Oh, and Miami Freedom Park is under construction and expected to open next year.)
So Beckham and the Mas brothers are buying Inter Miami’s access to the international limelight; so what? Sure, it’s impossible to overestimate the value names like Messi, Alba, Busquets and Suarez bring to the club, but how about Noah Allen, Tadeo Allende, Yannick Bright, Benjamin Cremaschi, David Ruiz and Telasco Segovia? Or Diego Gomez, who left for Brighton & Hove Albion of the EPL at the end of last season on a transfer fee reportedly around $15 million.
The Herons are showing the ability to identify, acquire and develop talent; they’re building a culture based on their stars’ professionalism and work ethic and commitment to making each other better.
So, yeah, I was one of those guys that said Messi would never play in MLS, that fans outside the States would never take MLS seriously, and Beckham’s vision a marketing ploy or the naïveté of an athlete expecting to conquer the boardroom as easily as he had the pitch.
I’m so glad to have been wrong. Freedom to dream, indeed.
The not-so-good: Why is Sporting Kansas City struggling under Peter Vermes? The franchise, which began life as the Wiz in 1996, became the Wizards the following year became a model franchise in the 2010s after moving into a soccer-specific stadium and rebranding as Sporting KC.
Those heady days are long gone, though, as the game and business seems to have left Vermes behind.
Nobody expected greatness, but I don’t think anybody expected them to be pointless after three matches, either. The Boys in Blue haven’t won since Sept. 18; that’s 10 straight competitive matches and 16 overall, including preseason friendlies, in which Sporting has failed to outscore their opponent.
Most coaches would be in the proverbial hot seat, but Vermes’ contract runs through 2028 and he is a Kansas City soccer icon. He played for Kansas City when they won the Supporters Shield and MLS Cup in 2000. He was hired as the club’s technical director in 2006 and took over as manager in August 2009; he’s coached more than 600 matches for the organization (251 wins, 139 draws, 215 losses) and led them to an MLS Cup title (2013) and three U.S. Open Cup championships (2012, 2015 and 2017) in the last decade.
But, the trophy cabinet has been gathering dust for seven seasons. Vermes is just 58 and, with most of four seasons left on his contract, has plenty of time to come good. But maybe — just maybe — Sporting would be better served by bringing in a manager with a different perspective, a fresh outlook on how to navigate the club’s future.
Ronan:
The good: Instant impacts across the league
This winter was the most expensive transfer window league wide in MLS history. Though it feels like we say that every successive offseason as team revenues and willingness to spend increases, it’s never been more true than in 2024-25.
Emmanuel Latte Lath and Miguel Almiron joined Atlanta for a combined $32 million, not counting add-ons. Telasco Segovia joined Miami for about $2.5 million. Charlotte signed Wilfried Zaha for a little more, but as a loan fee. Nashville signed Ahmed Qasem for around $4.5 million. Portland bought David Da Costa for $6.5 million.
That’s not even counting intra-league transfers after the introduction of cash trades, such as Evander moving from Portland to Cincinnati for $10 million, or the connected move of Lucho Acosta to FC Dallas for $5 million. Dejan Joveljic was sent from Los Angeles to Kansas City for another $5 million or so. Jesus Ferreira and Paul Arriola left Dallas for Seattle for a little over $2 million in GAM.
Needless to say, it was a wild offseason. With all these big money moves comes big expectations for the respective players. Of everyone I just named, only Arriola has not contributed to a goal thus far through three games.
That’s pretty good! There’s still a whooooole lot of soccer to be played, but so far, the various scouting departments across the league are currently patting themselves on the back.
The bad: All of our preseason predictions
Forrest touched on the Galaxy a bit earlier, and I want to talk a bit more about them first. After losing players like Joveljic and Gastón Brugman among others, and with the injuries to Joseph Paintsil and Riqui Puig requiring the reigning champs play without two of their stars for an extended period to start the year, we all kinda knew the Galaxy would regress a bit to the mean.
None of us thought their first three games would be this catastrophic. A minus six goal difference in the league, with just one goal scored yourselves is bad enough. Pile that on top of a loss on the road to Herediano in CONCACAF Champions Cup? Things could not be looking much worse in Carson, California right now. Not to say that Herediano is a slouch, they did already eliminate Real Salt Lake from Champions Cup competition, but the Galaxy have looked awful to start the year.
Marco Reus still has plenty of time to come good, but after starting his tenure in Los Angeles with one goal and two assists in his first three appearances, he’s managed just one assist in 12 appearances in all competitions. With a roster that had all of the depth sucked out of it during the offseason, you can’t afford to have a player on Reus’ salary performing like that.
The other team we all seemingly got wrong was the Philadelphia Union. I guess we kinda just all collectively forgot they still have players like Daniel Gazdag, Tai Baribo, Quinn Sullivan, Jakob Glesnes and Kai Wagner on the roster.
Union head coach Bradley Carnell worked wonders his first season in St. Louis before the wheels fell off in years two and three, so there’s still question marks about the Union in the super long term, but right now they could not be flying higher. Ten goals scored in three games, with six of them coming from Tai Baribo, which ties an MLS record for the most goals in the first three games of a season. Not only this, but they’ve only conceded three as well, giving them the joint third best defense in the Eastern Conference thus far.
Both of these teams still have 31 games to play of course, for all we know the Union could totally implode in the middle of the year, or the Galaxy could get Paintsil and Puig and pick up where they left off in 2024, but so far, both of these clubs are making us all look stupid for completely inverted reasons.
Alex:
The Good: Inter Miami and Christian Benteke
To almost no one's surprise Inter Miami sits near the top of the east after week three. Coming off a season where they broke the single-season points record, a plus four goal difference has led the team to grab seven points and a second place spot in the east. A strong favorite to win the east, Miami appears to be in good shape early in the season to make that prediction a reality.
Christian Benteke is 34 years old. This is his 4th season in the nation's capital and he finds himself tied for second in the league with three goals, trailing only Phillidelphia’s Tai Baribo who put six in the net through the first three games. An impressive start for sure, I'm looking forward to see how many goals Benteke ends up with at the end of the season.
The not-so-good: New England’s attack and the Portland Timbers
It’s early in the season but it seems to be a slow start up in Foxborough. New England is currently in 13th place, two spots from bottom in the east. Their single point is equal to 14th place Toronto however, New England has not found the back of the net yet this season while Toronto has scored four times this year. The Revs defense is slightly better than Torontos so far with New England allowing three for a negative three goal difference while Toronto has allowed eight for a negative four goal difference. If New England can’t find the back of the net soon, I could see them bottom of the east when the regular season wraps up.
The Portland Timbers finished 9th in the west last season and made the playoffs. So far this season, the Timbers are currently in 12th place with three points. Through three games, Portland is 1-2 with a negative for goal difference, scoring twice while allowing six. I picked them to finish 6th in the west during the Southeast Soccer Reports MLS Staff Predictions. Portland has a long way to go to finish sixth this season but luckily for them, the season is still young.
The Biggest Surprise: Chicago Fire
Chicago finished the 2024 season 15th in the east with 30 points and a 7-18-9 record and a negative twenty two goal difference. Early on this season, Chicago finds themselves in eight place with four points. That puts them level on points with sixth place Charlotte and 11th place Atlanta. The Fire have a goal difference of zero, the same as ninth place New York and tenth place Nashville. While the goal difference is the same, Chicago has scored seven, three more than New York and five more than Nashville. If Chicago can keep steady this season, it will be quite the turnaround in the Windy City.
Calum:
The good: San Diego FC are the real deal, and so are… Colorado (kinda)?
About the only thing that looks right from my preseason predictions currently was the positive stance on San Diego FC. They have been a very entertaining team to watch, keeping possession yet moving the ball around really well on the counter-attack. When they score, it looks good. DP signing Anders Dreyer has 3 goals to his tally already, and the defense led by Paddy McNair has allowed only 1 goal against quality opposition like the Galaxy or Real Salt Lake.
The Rapids under Chris Armas have also proven themselves early on this season. While a fall-off was predicted due to the growing quality of Western Conference teams, the club is surprisingly unbeaten with a 1-2-0 record through three matches. They’ve played bores of matches (0-0 vs. St. Louis) and exciting matches (3-3 vs. Dallas) and matches they should have lost (1-0 win vs. Austin FC), but they stick to their style of play and find results. This is also due to DP Rafael Navarro, who already has 3 goals leading the frontline.
They also put up a really strong fight in the Concacaf Champions Cup vs. LAFC, who won 2-2 on aggregate via away goals. The effort is admirable, but for how long can the team keep this run of form?
The not-so-good: Clubs in Texas…
Hector Herrera is missed in Houston. The Dynamo seem overall hapless, losing 2-1 and 4-1 in their first two home matches to Dallas and Miami. And, while they managed to get a result in Columbus, they were bullied the whole match. Hopefully, the new signing of Duane Holmes can give a boost to a midfield with Jack McGlynn and Nicolas Lodeiro, but is a 35-year old Lodeiro really enough to create chances for the club to convert? All results currently point to no.
FC Dallas may have won their first match against Houston, and the Acosta-Musa connection has a lot of promise, but the defense has been poor. They’ve allowed 7 goals in the last 3 games, including 3 to Colorado and 3 goals all after the 80th minute to Chicago at home.
Austin have been a weird team. Big signing Brandon Vasquez is yet to get on the scoresheet. All matches have been 1-0 in their favor or against. Like Colorado, the team has played poorly at times and played well at times, but unlike Colorado they aren’t getting the results, sitting at 0-1-2.
I believe that will change soon. The team had been playing Owen Wolff (a reminder of the previous turbulent era for the club) up top until Myrto Uzuni made his first start for the green and black last week against Colorado, where he hit the post and crossbar. I have high hopes for Uzuni, my Newcomer of the Year pick previously from Granada CF in Spain, as do I Vasquez to regain his form from his time in Cincinnati. The question is, can Nico Estevez get the best out of this team, and can they put in consistent winning performances?