Gooood Morning soccer friends,

Welcome to the 147 people who’ve joined us since last week. It’s Max and Mason reporting for duty as usual. A bunch of stuff to get to. Have at it…

• 🏆️ Round Two Recap

• 🔄 MLS Coaching Carousel

• 🇳🇱 Eredivisie Launch Pad

• 🏆️ Conference Finals Preview

• ⚽️ Goal of the Week

• 😂 Meme of the Week

MLS Playoffs Round Two Recap

Seattle Sounders 2 - 1 LAFC

The Sounders did what they hadn’t done in 10 straight games against LAFC — win. LAFC struck first with a Ryan Hollingshead goal before the Sounders tied it up with an egregious own goal from Maxime Chanot. Then in the second half of overtime, Jordan Morris scored his first goal in 5 games to keep the Sounders MLS Cup hopes alive. LAFC would have won this game without the heroics of 38-year-old Stefan Frei, with his 9 saves tying a career-high. Opta’s post-shot expected goals metric says Frei saved 2.17 potential goals. The Sounders will play in their 7th Conference Championship.

NY Red Bulls 2 - 0 NYCFC

The most anticipated Hudson River Derby in history did not disappoint. Despite being outshot 25-8 and having only .88 xG to NYCFC’s 3.46 xG, the Red Bulls pulled off the upset on the road to advance to their first Conference Championship since 2018.

Felipe Carballo opened the scoring with a banger from outside the box in the 16th minute. Dante Vanzier cleaned up the scraps on a corner minutes later to get the second and Carlos Coronel came up huge with 6 saves.

Orlando City SC 1 - 0 Atlanta United

Orlando City beat Atlanta to advance to their first-ever Conference Final. Ramiro Enrique’s first-half finish off a corner was the lone goal. Orlando were organized defensively throughout the game to get their third clean sheet of the postseason. Over the last three seasons, they have the third most points in the East and the fourth most in MLS. They’ve been the best team not to win Shield or MLS Cup. Maybe the time is now.

Atlanta suffered brutal injury luck during the game that led to no shots on target. Striker Jamal Thaire was injured in the first half and then his replacement Daniel Rios had to get subbed after taking a knock to the head. And with that, the Cinderella run came to an end. It will be an eventful offseason in Atlanta.

LA Galaxy 6 - 2 Minnesota United

The MLS Cup is the LA Galaxy’s to lose. They continued their rampage by thumping Minnesota and have now scored a record 15 goals in 3 playoff games. Joveljic, Paintsil, and Pec each had a brace but it was Gabriel Pec who also won a penalty and drew a red card. He’ll be an MVP frontrunner next season if he’s in MLS.

The Loons were outplayed in every way. But they’ll at least begin the offseason knowing they have a premier striker in Kelvin Yeboah.

MLS Coaching Carousel

11 MLS teams made coaching changes in 2024, beating last year’s record for the most ever. Here are the latest changes over the past week.

The Vancouver Whitecaps parted ways with Vanni Sartini. Sartini was 62W-33D-53L over his three seasons leading the team to three straight Canadien Championships. The club never advanced past the first round of the playoffs and they seemed to hit their ceiling under him.

NYCFC have moved on from Nick Cushing, the longest tenured coach in their history. Cushing managed the Pigeons for two years to a 40W-27D-40L record. Rumors of him taking over the Arsenal Womens job have been swirling for weeks but they didn’t seem to play a role in the firing. With their new stadium opening in 2027 this becomes one of the most attractive openings.

St. Louis City SC have hired Swedish manager Olof Mellberg as their next head coach. He’s currently managing Brommapojkarna who finished 10th place in the Swedish first division. The former Aston Villa defender has a track record of helping smaller market clubs outperform their low spend. Mellberg was actually close to joining Toronto FC as a player in 2013 but the league blocked the deal.

FC Dallas have hired Eric Quill from New Mexico United where he was a USL Coach of the Year Finalist. Quill previously was the head coach of North Texas SC where he helped develop players like Ricardo Pepi and Tanner Tessmann. Quill was also an assistant for the Columbus Crew working under both Caleb Porter and Wilfried Nancy.

Inter Miami have named Javier Mascherano as their next head coach. It will be his first club coaching gig after only managing Argentina’s U-20 World Cup team and Olympic team. He’ll join his former Barca teammates for the massive task of bringing this team an MLS Cup.

Eredivisie Launch Pad

The Dutch league has become one of the best places for young American talent to continue their development. Two more USMNT players are thriving there right now.

Ricardo Pepi scored his 7th, 8th, and 9th goals in only his fourth start of the season including this spectacular solo run. He now leads the Eredivisie golden boot race. He’s the 6th player in Eredivisie history to score more than 8 goals in his first 4 starts to the season. He’s one of the most in-form strikers in Europe right now(see stats/90 below). His 2024 numbers speak for themselves, with 16 goals and 2 assists in 1482 minutes, a goal contribution every 82.3 minutes. Many are floating around potential transfers to some of Europes biggest clubs but I hope he gets more starts under him at PSV beforehand before making a move.

Paxten Aaronson is the second American lighting it up in the Dutch league. In his last 7 games for Utrecht he’s tallied 4 goals, 1 assist, and 2 Man Of The Match awards. Utrecth sits in 2nd place right now with some big games against Pepi’s PSV and Ajax coming up. Aaronson is on loan from German club Eintracht Frankfurt, and is expected to fight for a starting role there next season. With his current form, Poch needs to be looking to him in an international window soon.

Conference Finals Preview

NY Red Bulls (+500) at Orlando City SC (+175) - Saturday at 7:30pm ET

The Red Bulls have lost the xG metric in all three playoff games so far yet have won each matchup. Will it finally catch up to them? I think so. Orlando are the most balanced team left in the dance and are playing at home.

You didn’t think either of these teams would be here but that’s why we play the games.

Seattle Sounders (+450 to win MLS Cup) at LA Galaxy (+135) - Saturday at 10pm PT

The leagues best offense vs the leagues best defense — something has to give. Watch the video below and you’ll see how prepared Seattle was for LAFC’s potent counter attacks. They’ll have to do the same this weekend. The Galaxy have a tendency to give up a random goal or two that they shouldn’t have. Will the Sounders take advantage?

Two storied MLS franchises back to their prominent perch, this one will be good.

Goal of the Week

From 25 yards out 😱 

Meme of the Week

😆 

Quick Hits

• Orlando Pride are 2024 NWSL Champions (Link)

• ForSoccer released their State of Soccer Fandom Report (Link)

• Christian Pulisic is ranked #15 in GOAL’s 2025 Ballon d’Or power rankings (Link)

• The Colorado Switchbacks are 2024 USL Champions (Link)

• 4 Americans make the Concacaf Nations League Quarterfinal best XI (Link)

• Paramount releases trailer for Christian Pulisic documentary (Link)

• Pulisic slots another Champions League Goal (Link)

• LAFC GM John Thorrington named MLS Executive of the Year (Link)

Give us some feedback below and we’ll be back with you next week 🤙 

Max & Mason