Your Defending Champs:

Canada - MONTRÉAL
MLS Cup - Seattle
US Open Cup - Atlanta
Liga MX - Los Rayados de Monterrey
CONCACAF Champions League - Los Rayados de Monterrey

2020 MLS Cup Odds:



CONCACAF Champions League Bracket:



Biggest Departues:

Nacho Piatti from Impact to San Lorenzo
ZLATAN from LA Galaxy to AC Milan
Wayne Rooney from DC to Derby County
Brian Fernández from Portland to jail (I think)
Nico Gaitán from Chicago to Ligue 1 side Lille

NEW Players (w/summaries just for 72o):

Chicharito to LA Galaxy (age: 31) - needs no introduction. All time leader for El Tri (México) w/51 goals. Broke in w/Man Utd, notching 3 straight 10+ goal seasons, more recently bagged 16 goals in 55 matches for Westham, and comes to LAG from Sevilla.

Claudio Pizarro to Inter Miami (age: 25) - another fairly important piece for El Tri where he has 23 caps. Comes from los Rayados where he's already won a few titles in only a couple seasons. Although probably not a top 3 player for Monterrey, they'll be glad to part with him for the 20 million price tag Inter Miami agreed to pay. When he's on he's very good, but he's also very inconsistent. Should dominate in MLS though imo.

Jürgen Locadia to Cincinnati (age: 26) - IMO, the most interesting signing. Notable in that he's the only player in the top 8 most valuable MLS players who doesn't play in LA or ATL. I'm still not sure how Cincy pulled this off. Big time goalscorer w/45 in 127 matches for PSV Eindhoven. He's be a golden boot frontrunner if he played for a better team.

Mauricio Pereyra to Orlando (age: 29) - Uruguayan attacking mid comes from Russian side Krasnodar w/23 goals in 154 appearances. Caps w/Uruguay's U20s but never made an appearance for the nat'l team.

Alan Pulido to Sporting KC (age: 28) - The Mexican isn't really in the nat'l team picture anymore, but is coming off a great season for Mexican giants Chivas where he finished as joint golden boot winner.

Robert Beric to Chicago (age: 28) - 25 caps with Slovenia and comes from Ligue 1 side Sainte-Étienne w/a pretty solid goal scoring record, 26 goals in 81 matches over 5 seasons.

Lucas Zelarayán to Columbus Crew (age: 27) - The Argentine attacking midfielder has been a key player for Liga MX's best side in recent years, Tigres, with 113 appearances and 21 goals over 5 seasons.

Edison Flores to DC United (age: 25) - Yet another player from Liga MX. The Peruvian winger has been a stalwart for their national team with 13 goals in 47 appearances and was a regular for Morelia over the past 2 seasons.

Felipe Mora to Portland (age: 26) - Wildly inconsistent, but can bang in goals when he's on. Comes from Liga MX's Pumas.

Lucas Cavallini to Puebla (age: 27) - Has been great for Canada w/11 goals in only 17 apps. Another player from Liga MX (Puebla) w/ a very respectable 29 goals in 75 matches for a Liga MX bottom feeder side that doesn't score often.

Luis Binks to MONTRÉAL (age: 19) - Comes from Tottenham's academy thanks to Thierry Henry's connections. Supposedly Tottenham's 2nd best young CB.

Intra-league Moves:

DARWIN from Minnesota to Houston
Walker Zimmerman from LAFC to Nashville
Wil Trapp from Columbus to Inter Miami
Katai from Chicago to LAG
Nagbe from ATL to Columbus
Gressel from ATL to DCU
Romell Quioto from Houston to IMFC

ty for your service


will chicago finally draw ppl at soldier field?


should be more competitive than playing the reserves of [euro club fc]

especially after buying a bunch of their players


thought i saw something about tsn having all the montreal games this year too
guess not
bummer


https://www.mlssoccer.com/schedule/2020/announcement

The rebrand has been a disaster, the new logo sucks, and they failed on a big name signing (they tried for Macias and Pizarro from what I understand).

Hopefully they get it right eventually, but it doesn't seem like people will start showing up in droves simply b/c they are actually in Chicago now.

Current Liga MX standings:



Our friends Rayados are in dead last and being doubled up in points by every team in the league lol.

Only 12 games left until the playoffs (top 8 advance) and I'll bet on them not to make it if LFC or anyone wants the other side. They're in a bigger hole than last tournament and they only made it to the 8th seed last time b/c a few other teams choked.

Their recent signings have been a disaster: 10.5 million for Vincent Janssen, who they still don't trust beyond being a super sub, 8.5 million for Ivorian Aké Loba, who has looked like complete trash in 2 matches, and 7 million for Matiás Kranevitter, who made his first appearance last night and went off injured.

They'll have that cool 20 mill for Pizarro, which I'm sure they'll eventually reinvest, but might be in trouble for now.

nice work guys

apparently the crapids signed some guy from guingamp, so look out mls

Meanwhile in Miami, their fan(s) give Pizarro a rousing welcome.

Impact have landed Steeven Saba, aka Haitian Carlos Vela.

Damn, Fossil didn't even include that new made up USA-Mexico Cup in the defending champs section? Sad stuff

RAYADOS all in on CCL obv. LOL regular seasons

LEAGUES CUP is back and better than ever this season. The inaugural Cup in 2019 featured 4 Liga MX and 4 MLS teams seemingly randomly selected and resulted in Cruz Azul being crowned champions.

The fans demanded an expanded tournament and that's what they'll get. The tournament has doubled in size and will feature 8 teams from each league. MLS has decided to choose the best teams not in CCL, so teams ranked 3rd thru 6th in each conference from last year's season. Liga MX is choosing their 2 title winners, Copa MX winner, and next 5 best teams in the agg. table. Monterrey is the only Liga MX team officially in so far, and coupled with their CCL appearance and still being alive in Copa MX, looks like they'll have another packed calendar.

el munir stinks

also their had to be some liga mx riggage that cruz azul match...they score at 90+5 and 90+9?

meanwhile leon guys were laying on the field for like 10 minutes in the 2nd half and only 3 minutes of stoppage time.

I don’t really feel there was much time wasting, I think León were playing for that 2nd goal rather than trying to ride out the 1-0. Maybe a case could be made for 4 minutes stoppage.

the impact look awesome

biggest issue for them now is getting out of the stadium alive

Don’t worry MLS, the league’s best international team the Impact have got you. Already up 2-0 at Saprissa (last year’s runners up Tigres lost 1-0 at Saprissa).

lol imfc

new year same impact

saprissa looked offside on that 2nd goal, oh well

Everything going according to plan, IMFC wrote the CCL script:

1. Get 2 early away goals
2. Hang on for dear life
3. Advance on away goals.

Put all the money on 1-1 in Montreal.

Even IMFC’s own forum had 0 people predict win, 3 tie, and 30 for Saprissa. Disappointing after being up 2, but still an incredible result.

Didn’t watch but NYCFC match must have been crazy. 5-3 win on the road, so barring complete disaster MLS has 1 team through.

Nicely worked 1-2 by Josef and Pity and Pity w/the nice finish. ATL look in control, but Motagua are 1 goal from forcing penalties.

yawn fest 2nite with the favs rolling. At least MLS avoided the LOLs, for now.

I could be wrong b/c I just glanced quickly, but I don't think Liga MX has ever lost a tie against anyone but MLS since switching to the current CCL format in 2008-2009, and they got a pretty good draw in the R16 avoiding all the teams from Costa Rica and Panama, who tend to be the toughest in Central America.

Pretty clinical performance by ATL and they're waiting on visas for a couple players (thanks Trump) so should only improve. I'm looking forward to the ATL/América series. I think the 2nd leg is at Azteca and hopefully they'll still have something to play for.

IMFC/Saprissa is the main series that's up for grabs. From what I've read, Saprissa will only have 1 day to train on the goofy turf in Stade Olympique and the Winter weather has to be a big shock for them. So hopefully IMFC can take care of business.

León/LAFC could be interesting if LAFC can get an early goal, but it seems like a tall task asking for them to score 2+ without conceding against a León team that looked super deadly on the counter any time LAFC pressed forward in the 1st match.

well hopefully LAFC has put in some practice time since last week. they looked every bit of being in pre-season form that I saw (2nd half only). not sure even one service connected with vela, every one was 20' over his head out of bounds.

Altitude in León is a bit higher than even Denver so it's a pretty tough ask going to León while still in preseason form. I think the main problem for them is that B-Rod, Vela, and Rossi don't function well together against teams with an actual defense. They had space out wide a couple times, but those 3 just kinda float around the 18 and they desperately need a target man who can receive crosses, but I don't think they have anyone healthy.