2020 Season Preview: Minnesota United

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2020 Season Preview: Minnesota United

After two poor seasons in 2017 and 2018, led by a historically dreadful defense, Minnesota United saw a dramatic turnaround in 2019. The Loons improved from -23 GD and -26.4xGD in 2017 and -22 GD and -12.4 xGD in 2018 to +9 GD and +4.2 xGD in 2019. The dramatic difference in GD was largely driven by the defense, which gave up almost an entire goal per game fewer. This resulted in a 4th place finish in the West (7th place overall) and 8th in xGD/g.

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2020 Season Preview: Philadelphia Union

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2020 Season Preview: Philadelphia Union

Fans who like their soccer with a dash of philosophy will want to follow the Philadelphia Union this season. It was Aristotle who said, “the whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts,” and it will be the Union that put that wisdom to the test. The Union are coming off their best season by all measures including goal difference, expected goal difference, points and recording their first playoff win. Sporting Director Ernst Tanner responded by letting three productive players go because they didn’t fit the style of play. His replacements have less compelling CVs but arguably fit better into the target shape. If the Union are going to take another step forward it will be because Tanner has channeled his inner Aristotle. Otherwise, the Union might slide back into the decade long mediocrity they suffered previously.

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2020 Season Preview: Houston Dynamo

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2020 Season Preview: Houston Dynamo

Mauro Manotas and Alberth Elis are still in Houston.

Despite numerous rumors extending back multiple years, neither of the Dynamo’s attacking duo was sold this offseason. The Dynamo, then, will mostly run it back this season, this being perhaps their last shot to maximize the value of their attacking stars. Outside of a handful of acquisitions, this will mostly be the same team that has missed the playoffs the last two years.

One key difference: Tab Ramos, not Wilmer Cabrera, is the coach. Ramos is more likely to incorporate young players and is expected to play a more cohesive, front-foot style. Cabrera spent the first year of his tenure playing a counter-attacking 4-3-3, then switched to a more possession-based style in 2018 and 2019, with unfavorable results.

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2020 Season Preview: San Jose Earthquakes

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It was never going to be a worst-to-first story thanks to Los Angeles FC, but it had a shot at a worst-to-second story midway through the 2019 MLS season. Despite losing their first four games of the season (three of them at home) the San Jose Earthquakes found themselves in second place in the Western Conference by early August after a 1-1 home draw against the Columbus Crew. They were on a largely-dominant 10-game unbeaten streak. But something happened in that Crew game which would lead to the Quakes’ undoing the rest of the season – 2018 CONCACAF Coach of the Year Matias Almeyda was outcoached by the Crew’s Caleb Porter. Porter found the chink in the San Jose armor, and laid out a game plan in the second half of how to beat the Quakes for all the league to see. Columbus was able to hold possession through the first 20 minutes of the second half and exhaust San Jose defensively, leaving them out of gas. Only one of the Quakes’ final six shots were on target.

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2020 Season Preview: Colorado Rapids

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2020 Season Preview: Colorado Rapids

Early Spring on the Colorado Front Range can deliver very nearly anything. On Tuesday you can suffer through a punishing snowstorm accompanied by sub-zero polar vortex cold. By Thursday, modest temperatures, blue skies, and a blistering wind will range the open grasslands that abut Commerce City, the home of the Colorado Rapids. And by Saturday, it can be shorts-and-tshirt weather. The weirdness and unpredictability makes living in Denver perpetually entertaining, at least if you have the wardrobe to endure it. I can’t say I recommend becoming a gardener here, though.

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2020 Season Preview: Seattle Sounders FC

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2020 Season Preview: Seattle Sounders FC

Sitting down to write one of these things about a team that succeeded in the previous campaign, and then did what at least SEEMS to be a very good job of addressing their areas of need, is a difficult proposition. It’s much easier to scorch the earth than it is to just speak in an entertaining way about how generally good things are going. All of that being said, the weather sure is nice in Seattle during most of the Major League Soccer campaign and last year’s champions are, well, looking every bit like the defending champions they are.

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2020 Season Preview: Montreal Impact

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2020 Season Preview: Montreal Impact

The Montreal Impact go into 2020 with some excitement - Thierry Henry is the manager! Tempered by a lot of question marks - How does Henry want to play? Who scores the goals? Can the defense hold up? In light of those questions, 2020 will probably be a rebuilding year. Montreal return about 65% of their minutes from 2019, the 8th fewest in the league, but have so far brought in only one or maybe two actual starters. They clearly need a few more pieces to get them close to playoff contention. It’s not a terrible strategy to let Henry work with what he has, and then figure out in the summer and next winter what’s missing. But it could make for a long 2020.

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2020 Season Preview: Columbus Crew SC

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2020 Season Preview: Columbus Crew SC

Unlike last season where Columbus returned 96% of team minutes played, this offseason has seen more turnover for the Crew than has been seen in years but has also resulted in impressive depth throughout the squad. After a disappointing and injury-filled 2019 season, Caleb Porter will be looking to bring his team to the playoffs for the first time under his watch.

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2020 Season Preview: FC Cincinnati

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2020 Season Preview: FC Cincinnati

“Dumpster fire” has several meanings, most of them fairly parallel, but it’s rarely used to describe something dull enough to feel like it’s taking weeks, maybe even months off your life. “Life-sucking” sums up FC Cincinnati’s 2019 season tidily as anything. You never knew quite what would happen when the whistle blew, but you understood it would hurt and that you wouldn’t enjoy it. Even down the stretch when they dialed back the defensive incompetence, they rarely won. All in all, it was…unpleasant.

2020 can’t be that bad, surely. I don’t know that, obviously, but I literally cannot think of a way that Cincinnati could be worse on all sides of the ball than in 2019. But let’s see if we can’t find some ways.

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2020 Season Preview: Atlanta United FC

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2020 Season Preview: Atlanta United FC

In 2019, de Boer came in claiming he’d “fix the defense” of the MLS Cup winners and leave the attack the same. They started in a 3-4-3, which after some early failings, morphed almost immediately in the opening weeks to a 4-3-3 which after an extended ramp kept Atlanta United towards the top half of the east but angered basically everyone involved. What de Boer brought to the club was a more conservative approach to defense and a more possession-oriented approach to attack, which looked pretty boring until the ball made its way into the final third at which point you’d see some creative interchange and risk-taking by the front 3/4, with the idea that you just had to accept that turnovers would happen and the team would need to “lock on” in those transition moments to win the ball back high or force a clearance and then go again. And there would be turnovers. Or this was the concept at least. Change is hard. Hold that thought.

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