The Western Conference leaders are in action in the early hours of Sunday morning when St Louis City SC put their 100% record on the line when they travel to take on Real Salt Lake in a match where we might find out plenty about the expansion franchise.

Real Salt Lake have had two weeks to put a game plan together for this contest because they were the team with the bye last week. They will know by now that St Louis like to hunt the ball in the attacking third and then do some damage with it when they have hold of it.

They will also know that you can get at this St Louis City side, especially down the flanks. They kept a clean sheet last week which was their first in MLS but San Jose bungled some big chances as highlighted by the fact they finished with an xG total of 1.85.

Real Salt Lake are usually very good at attacking in the wide areas so I expect them to have plenty of joy against St Louis in this match, and with the freshness of a week off they should be full of energy and ready to come out firing after a pair of defeats heading into that bye week.

RSL haven’t kept a clean sheet this season and with the attacking overloads St Louis are prepared to risk I don’t see the home side keeping one here but I do expect Salt Lake to have enough about them to find the net particularly from balls in from the wider areas so both teams to score looks good to me here.

Moving deeper into the early hours of Sunday morning the San Jose Earthquakes look to put their defeat to St Louis last week behind them when they host a Toronto FC side who finally picked up their first win of the season seven days ago.

That sort of form might be a guide in some leagues but this is MLS and it is important to remember the significant disadvantage of eastern sides travelling across the country to the west, which is what Toronto FC are doing here. It is why in the main MLS is a league with a very strong home win percentage.

The Canadians would have been bang up against it with the challenges of travelling to California but the Canada national team have come calling for some big players in Richie Laryea, Mark-Anthony Kaye, Jonathan Osorio and Ayo Akinola while Lorenzo Insigne is still out with injury. Even allowing for Federico Bernardeschi still being available, those absences wipe out a significant portion of the Toronto side.

San Jose have escaped major call ups with Jamiro Monteiro their only absentee at the heart of their midfield but someone like Jackson Yueill can fill in there without being too much of a detriment to the team. Importantly the home side have the impressive Cristian Espinoza and Jeremy Ebobisse to call upon.

While the Earthquakes were beaten last week, they were a little unfortunate with the second and third St Louis goals where ricochets and deflections went against them and probably should have got something from the game with the chances they missed. That was on the road but this is at home and I expect San Jose to take advantage of all the disadvantages Toronto are facing to come away with the win.

The final match of the weekend in MLS comes from the Banc of California Stadium on Sunday morning as the champions Los Angeles FC look to show they can handle their international call ups and come out on top when they host Western Conference rivals FC Dallas.

LAFC have already showcased their qualities this season with a pair of emphatic home wins before a goalless draw in Seattle last week, which is by no means a bad result. Dallas probably haven’t looked as convincing in their last three outings but they have matched the LAFC results with a couple of wins and a draw.

That means we have a couple of confident teams on show in this match. Los Angeles are going to miss Denis Bouanga, Jose Cifuentes and Diego Palacios, who are away representing their country but Cifuentes has had his minutes managed this season so they have shown they can compete and prosper in his absence.

The bigger loss might well be Palacios because left-back backup is short in supply for the champions and that will catch the eye of FC Dallas and Paul Arriola in particular. This FC Dallas front line aren’t short of motivation here. Arriola but especially Jesus Ferreira will be smarting from being left out of the USA squad for the internationals this week and they have the platform to show that was the wrong decision here.

There is no Denis Bouanga for LAFC but Carlos Vela, Kwadwo Opoku and Stipe Biuk, the latter being the replacement for Bouanga, is still a daunting front three and FC Dallas can match them in that department with Arriola, Ferreira and the extremely talented Alan Velasco so we should be in for an entertaining match here.

Dallas are yet to keep a clean sheet this season and I don’t see them changing that here, in fact if LAFC get going early they could pull right away, but I fancy the attacking threat of the Texans will make their own impact on the game so I’ll back the run of consecutive over 2.5 goal matches between these two to extend to four games.

It almost feels strange that Sheffield Wednesday and Forest Green Rovers are playing in the same league at this point.

The Owls saw their 23-game unbeaten run come to an end in the form of a 4-2 defeat at Barnsley on Tuesday evening, and there will be a reaction from Darren Moore’s side.

Wednesday have lost top spot to Plymouth Argyle as a result of the midweek action and could have a fresh impetus ahead of the trip to Gloucestershire.

George Byers, Michael Ihiekwe, Ben Heneghan, Mallik Wilks, Callum Paterson, Reece James and Josh Windass may all miss out, but they still have the depth to cope.

FGR are winless in 16 and aside from Duncan Ferguson’s first game in charge they have not come close to a victory.

Marvin Johnson has returned to improve the left wing back position in the last couple of weeks, and the first three Barnsley goals in midweek were down to individual errors, they will not crop up in that manner again.

FGR are playing for pride at this point, and may set up to keep the scoreline respectable, but anything other than a Wednesday win would be a massive surprise.

There are a couple of matches on Sunday to complete round 30 of the Eerste Divisie. The one that jumps out is the match between Willem II against MVV.

The home side have massively upped their game since sacking the previous manager and are now a team that scores fairly easy, but also concedes quite a bit more than before. In the last five matches, Willem II both scored and conceded at least once. It really marks the difference with the boring football under Kevin Hofland.

They are facing one of the worst second division teams at this moment. MVV was the surprise side of the first half of the season and at some point they were even the main contender for promotion, behind the extremely dominant PEC Zwolle and Heracles Almelo, but they couldn’t maintain that level and have been in free fall this year.

MVV only won three out of 12 matches in 2023 and will struggle to reach the play-offs, although they are still on the right side of the draw. Apart from the two forementioned dominant sides, MVV are the highest scoring team in the league and also one of the highest conceders, so against a renewed Willem II scores and concedes a lot more these days, that should be a recipe for goals.

Telstar against TOP Oss is a match between two teams who spent pretty much their entire existence in the Eerste Divisie and neither really made a claim for promotion in the past decades. This year is hardly different, Telstar may have an unlikely shout at the play-offs, but TOP Oss are sitting close to the bottom of the table.

Nevertheless, TOP Oss are better than their position suggests. Since they sacked their manager at the end of last year, they’ve become much better and especially the attacking signings have improved the side since February. The days that TOP failed to score in five consecutive matches are far behind. In fact, they found the goal in every game in 2023. TOP did lose their last two games, but very few teams stand a chance against Heracles and the defeat against ADO was unlucky, so you can’t read too much into that.

Telstar have been looking decent this season, especially in defence, but going forward it is still a pretty weak team. On top of that, starting striker Christos Giousis won’t be playing this game because of a suspension. As the team doesn’t really attract fans, home advantage is barely a thing for Telstar, and the last three victories all came in away games. Although they have been alright this season, I suspect that TOP are a bit underpriced with their current side and have a good chance at a result here.

Sunday sees the second Caribbean coast clásico of the season so far. Junior of Barranquilla, the much bigger of the two teams, against their little brother Union Magdalena from up the coast in Santa Marta. Normally this fixture is a guaranteed three points for Junior, with a far bigger budget and fanbase than Union.

But this season they’ve been a disaster. As is often the case in election years, the Barranquilla club threw ridiculous money pre-season at one star player, Juan Fernando Quintero. It wasn’t who they needed, but with fans seduced by the draw of seeing a talented Colombia international in the club’s red and white striped jersey, that mattered little. The results have been depressingly predictable.

Quintero’s magic has flickered momentarily but all of Junior’s play is channelled through his left foot. It’s made them far too predictable, especially considering the form of the rest of their team. Former Sevilla striker Carlos Bacca has been so bad this season, it’s led to fans calling for him to retire. The defence is stricken by a lack of confidence as was evident by the 2-0 midweek defeat to América.

Manager Hernan Dario Bolillo, already Junior’s second coach of the campaign, admitted Junior were a disaster in that loss and blamed the team’s poor form on his players being unfit. In short, Junior have built a vanity project not a team and so it’s no wonder that they are joint bottom of the league. Union aren’t faring much better, but they’ve already gone to Junior’s stadium this season and ground out a 0-0 result.

Last week, they showed once again that they are more than capable of digging deep and frustrating opponents when again slogging out a goalless draw after seeing two players sent off early in the second half against Equidad. This is a local derby between two teams who are struggling at the wrong end of the table and, fundamentally, can’t score. Both sides have found the net the least amount of times out of the twenty teams in the division this season with just 5 a-piece in 9 games. So, follow the trend and get on unders.

Both sides meet at the Feliciano Cáceres on the back of a win in their prior game, the first of the season for Tacuary and the second of the year for Luqueño. The visitors are in good shape with seven points from a possible nine in their last three games, and are yet to lose at home.

Gustavo Florentín has unearthed a real gem in Marcelo Pérez, the youngster is the leading scorer in the league with six goals and his long range winner against Nacional was the best of the bunch so far. Veteran defender Pablo Aguilar has grown game by game and is leading Luqueno up the table, they find themselves in eighth.

Carlos Humberto Paredes has managed to get today’s hosts scoring in their ‘home’ games, which are actually played at a neutral venue, but it has been a struggle away. In fact Tacuary have lost all four away games without scoring this season. Óscar Ruiz has been the main attacking threat, the winger has three goals in his last four matches. In defence the partnership of Nery Bareiro and Luis Cabral, when both available, has only seen them concede 1.25 goals per game.

Luqueño’s three home games and three of Tacuary’s four away games have gone Under 2.5 goals as neither side has been expansive going forward. There is little to suggest this will be anything different with so much riding on individual brilliance for both sides.

A club in crisis. Lose three games on the trot and fans will be screaming it from their Twitter accounts. Slump down the table a couple of places and the same word will again be thrown around. Until a few games ago, Chelsea were in crisis and Graham Potter was on the brink. Spurs missing out on the Champions League this season and it will be a similar story. Yet, crisis, what crisis? For a bit of perspective and to reclaim the word defined as “a period of intense difficulty,” step forward Deportivo Cali.

Swamped in $20 million of debt, an astronomical amount for Colombia, and rooted to the bottom of the league, their problems have been building for a couple of years. Salaries are routinely not paid on time, players have been known to go on strike in response and relegation to the second division for the first time in their history is looking increasingly likely.

This week an emergency board meeting was scheduled with the view to putting the club into administration. Just as worrying, police had to be called to the club’s training ground on Thursday after rumours swept social media that barra groups were planning to organise a protest.

Similar rumours swirl about a pitch invasion being staged during this match, the Cali clásico, against bitter rivals América de Cali who also suffered the ignominy of dropping to the second division a decade ago. Now though, these two teams are headed in different directions. Top of the league against bottom, the only logic that can be found for backing Cali here is that they are the home team.

But with captain Germán Mena reportedly in tears at the end of the midweek 3-0 defeat to Santa Fe, manager Jorge Luis Pinto admitting he was left “out of ideas” to fathom what was going wrong, and the Cali team looking as insipid as a bowl of lettuce, favouring América on the handicap looks the obvious call.