Los Angeles FC v Seattle Sounders

The opening match of another important weekend in the MLS comes from the Banc of California Stadium, where Los Angeles FC look to open up a seven-point lead at the top of the Western Conference when they host the Champions League winners Seattle Sounders in the standout fixture of the round.

LAFC have been flying and look well on course to win the Supporters’ Shield this term. They have kicked on in recent times with the buzz created by the arrival of Gareth Bale, who opened his account for his new club last week, boosting them massively.

Seattle have been frustratingly inconsistent this season. I, like most judges, expected them to really kick on after their Champions League win but that hasn’t really happened, although anyone who watches MLS regularly will know that they generally come alive in the second half of the season.

They will certainly need to be alive to get anything from this match because LAFC are riding the crest of a wave right now. The additions of Bale and Giorgio Chiellini have just given what was a good squad before even more options and they are thriving on that.

In contrast, Seattle are really missing Raul Ruidiaz and although Will Bruin is an able stop gap against the lesser sides, his strengths are likely to be snuffed out by the Italian veteran Chiellini.

Seattle have lost their last two away without scoring, creating xG totals of 0.74 and 0.79 and they’ve picked the wrong time to be goal-shy heading to free-scoring LAFC. I expect the leaders of the West to open up the weekend with a win.

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Minnesota United v Portland Timbers 

Minnesota United have won five and drawn one in their last six to make a major move up to third in the Western Conference table. And yet the Loons have only one really impressive performance from that string of matches, a 3-2 home win over Real Salt Lake where they surged to an early 3-0 lead, then held on.

The injuries are also starting to mount, with playmaker Emanuel Reynoso and defensive midfielder Kervin Arriaga both questionable for the weekend tilt. And this recent run of good form just happens to coincide with the softest spot in the schedule. The last four teams MNUFC have played enter the weekend earning just 1.02 points per match.

By their record, Portland are only incrementally better than those other opponents. But they’re also a veteran team that has been getting healthier and fitter as the season has progressed, and are now on a seven-match unbeaten run of their own.

You could make the same argument about the Timbers’ recent good form — that it’s as much about lesser recent opposition. But Portland don’t have Minnesota’s other problems of injury woes and an obvious flaw at striker.

In fact, the Timbers have two quality options with Jaroslaw Niezgoda in good form and Felipe Mora easing back into action after a long-term injury layoff. Last weekend’s 2-1 win from behind against San Jose was also impressive given it came without playmaker Sebastian Blanco, serving a one-match card accumulation suspension.

Even lumping in their recent form Minnesota have dropped at least two points at home more often than not. Portland have earned at least one in seven out of 11 fixtures away. And if you’re asking the question: which squad do I trust more, it’s clearly Portland. They’re a solid play to pick up a point at even money in a league where the average away team takes a point just over half the time.

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Philadelphia Union v Houston Dynamo

Moving into the early hours of Sunday morning and Subaru Park will play host to the Philadelphia Union and the Houston Dynamo in a match that threatens to be a little cagey but one I expect the home side to come out on top in.

To give Dynamo credit, despite their poor form on the road they went and won in San Jose last time out, but there was a little fortune to that win as they lost the xG battle and subsequently followed that up with a home loss against Minnesota United.

Philadelphia went on a run in the middle of the season where they couldn’t get away from drawing matches. Jim Curtin at the time recognised that his side needed a potent threat through the middle of the park and went and made Julian Carranza a bigger presence in that position. He has rewarded his boss with seven goals on the season.

Goals are a problem for Houston. They have only scored nine of them in 10 away games this season and every time they produce a result that makes you think they are ready to launch a burst of form they trip over themselves again.

Philadelphia have sorted their inconsistency out. They go into this one having won their last four and their last three on home soil. As well as Carranza, Union have Daniel Gazdag in fine form with him finding the net in the last three matches and with goals from more players, often teed up by Kai Wagner who is second in MLS assists this season even from wing-back, I expect Philadelphia to extend their winning run.

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Nashville SC v Vancouver Whitecaps

Two Western Conference sides who will be looking for more consistency between now and the end of the season meet when Nashville SC host Vancouver Whitecaps in the early hours of Sunday morning.

In many ways, the pressure is now off of the Whitecaps for the remainder of the season after they lifted the Canadian Championship in midweek when they saw off rivals Toronto FC on penalties.

It should be said that the Whitecaps were outclassed for much of that match but they weren’t put away and were able to celebrate the win. That was on Tuesday night and after a barren couple of seasons it would be only right for the Vancouver players to have celebrated their success.

That might come to the detriment of their chances in this match, although to be fair a game away to Nashville SC isn’t easy at the best of times anyway. The home side have lacked consistency but their two defeats in their last six were away to Charlotte and home to LAFC so they were tough fixtures.

Vancouver head to Tennessee without a win in four in MLS. Whether some of that was making sure they were fresh for the final on Tuesday night only they will know, but this is a team who over the last few seasons have struggled to get out of a rough trot in form.

Nashville are undoubtedly the better side of the two here, as reflected in the league table, but when you consider Vancouver played in midweek and had the emotional highs of the celebrations, I think this is a good chance for the home side to get their campaign back on track with a win.

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New England Revolution v Toronto FC

The odds have been moving in Toronto FC’s direction since wagering opened, yet even now they are a pretty good value. To know that, you have to have been tracking both teams’ squad list and summer transfer business. Toronto have welcomed the Italian trio of Lorenzo Insigne, Federico Bernardeschi and Domenico Criscito into the fold to give a much-needed boost to a struggling side.

Insigne had signed a pre-contract well before the summer window started, and his compatriots also had advanced knowledge. So although they didn’t debut right when the summer window opened in early July, they were fit enough to go the opening 45 minutes in Saturday’s 4-0 home win against Charlotte FC, then play most or all of the 90 in Tuesday night’s Canada Championship final. (Toronto lost on penalties to Vancouver after a 1-1 draw.)

The cross-continental travel and quick turnaround could result in some squad rotation, but you have to figure the trio each have at least a half in them in New England.

Meanwhile, the Revolution are still easing new striker Giacomo Vrioni into action. Fellow attackers Gustavo Bou and Dylan Borrero both missed a 0-0 draw at Columbus with injuries, and Bou — who is the team’s active scoring leader — is listed as questionable on the team’s injury report. Reigning MLS MVP and playmaker Carles Gil is healthy, but if Bou can’t go, he’s starting the match without two players who combined for 31 goals in 2021. (Adam Buksa departed earlier this summer for RC Lens in Ligue 1).

Forget the records to this point. Toronto is stronger than they’ve been all season, and New England is in transition. While the Revolution are higher in the standings, these sides are at worst at even strength, and the visitors may be a shade better. In a league where the average home team wins about 48% of the time, backing the away side to get at least a point at even money or better is sound.

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Sporting Kansas City v Austin FC 

Austin FC finally ran into a deficit they couldn’t overcome in their last match, a 4-3 home league defeat to the New York Red Bulls in which they struggled to deal with RBNY’s high press. Los Verdes’ veteran group will probably take out their anger on a Sporting Kansas City side that could be limping across the line.

Sporting are favored here most likely based on the idea Austin have ridden their luck to get to their current second-place perch in the Western Conference. Expected goals sort of suggest that’s the case, particularly in Austin’s travels, where they have an MLS best-tying 23 points despite very average expected goals data for an away side. But that only tells part of the story. As discussed here previously, Austin are second in the league in big chances created, according to the data site FotMob.

Without a serviceable center forward all season, Kansas City are last in the same category. They barely have better home xG numbers than Austin’s the road. They’ve also earned far fewer points at home — a league worst-tying 11 from 10 games. And they’ll be less than 72 hours removed from putting in 120 minutes into a U.S. Open Cup semifinal, where they were stunned on penalties against second-tier Sacramento Republic.

With no threat of relegation in MLS, SKC manager Peter Vermes played most of his top players — including leading scorers Johnny Russell and Daniel Salloi — from the outset in California. There will very likely be squad rotation on Saturday, and SKC is just not a very deep side with all the injuries they’ve absorbed.
There might be reason to worry about a trap game for Austin if they had just won. But off a home defeat, SKC should have their full attention. If they do, Los Verdes are the side that should be favored.

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San Jose Earthquakes v Real Salt Lake

Real Salt Lake have won only once in their last six, and while they’re still in fourth in a crowded Western Conference table, they’re only three points clear of the playoff line. Manager Pablo Mastroeni is also likely to view a trip to the San Francisco Bay area as one of their most winnable away fixtures left on the calendar.

Despite upgrades to the squad like the introduction of Sergio Cordova and the return of Jefferson Savarino, RSL have found those away wins rare. They’ve built their place in the standings largely on home form, though that took a hit last weekend in a 1-0 loss to Dallas.

San Jose enter the weekend off their first consecutive defeats since interim manager Alex Covelo took over. Even so the performances continue to be encouraging compared to the shambolic encounters early in the season. A 2-1 loss to Houston two weekends ago owed to two bad individual errors. Last weekend’s defeat by the same score at Portland owed to a fortunate deflection for the host side.

And with only eight points to make up between themselves and the playoff places, they should also see this match as a final chance to launch a late-season run. That scenario sets up the possibility of an encounter with plenty of goals, in a situation where the trends already support betting a higher total.

There have been three or more goals scored in all but two of the Quakes’ 10 home matches to date. The same is true in six of RSL’s 11 away fixtures, a trend that is more pronounced recently as the Claret and Cobalt have added attacking pieces to their ranks. Even at a relatively high price, backing a high total is a sound move here.

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DC United vs Orlando City

The final match of the weekend in MLS comes from Audi Field where the eyes of many will be on the home side DC United to see how they have adjusted to life under new coach Wayne Rooney. They host a buoyant Orlando City side.

The Floridians head to the capital on a high after securing their place in the US Open Cup final in midweek. They will host second tier opposition for a shot at silverware and a place in the Champions League next term, but first there could be revenge on their minds.

These two met in Orlando at the beginning of the month and DC picked up their only win in their last 11 games with a hugely unexpected 5-3 victory in one of the craziest games of the season.

Since then, Orlando have stumbled a little with just one win in four but two of those games were away where they got creditable draws in Colorado and Atlanta and another was against the leaders Philadelphia.

The schedule looks kinder for Orlando here both in terms of level of opposition but particularly the defensive inability of DC United, who still can’t seem to stop shipping goals. They have leaked 19 goals in their last six matches so given that Orlando powered five past New York Red Bulls in midweek I’m expecting plenty more goals here.

When these two met in Orlando at the beginning of the month there were chances galore and with DC desperate to get back to winning ways and Orlando needing a win to consolidate their top seven hopes, I expect both teams to go for this which should lead to plenty more goals.

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