San Jose Earthquakes respond, New York City FC's new threat & more from Matchday 30 | OneFootball

By Matthew Doyle

Some stumbles at the top of the Supporters’ Shield race, Charlotte FC stay red-hot, Minnesota United’s coach makes his point and several Leagues Cup semifinalists gain steam.

Lots to talk about from Matchday 30, but we’ll start with the San Jose Earthquakes after a new signing made a big impression:

Take It There

Last week, the Quakes were in hell. They’d spent 80 minutes playing near-perfect soccer at home against San Diego, having smothered one of the league’s very best attacks while generating a bunch of good looks and, eventually, a goal.

Up 1-0 at home? Ten minutes left in the game and three points closer to a spot in the Audi 2025 MLS Cup Playoffs? They could taste it.

And then they couldn’t. San Jose collapsed, remember – they lost their minds, to be clear – en route to a 2-1 loss that left head coach Bruce Arena livid.

That set up a true six-pointer in Houston (a place they hadn’t won in a decade) this weekend. A point and the Quakes would be in ok shape. A loss, though? They’d be tied with the Dynamo on 32 points, and the Dynamo would have a game in hand.

The Quakes won 2-1. They finished the weekend eighth in the Western Conference, four points clear of the playoff line. Chicho Arango got just his second league goal since June to open the scoring, and Preston Judd redeflected an Ian Harkes blast midway through the second half for the game-winner.

“An important win for us tonight,” Arena said in the postgame presser. “You know, last week we really blew a game, and we’ve done that on at least half a dozen occasions this year. So tonight, if anything, we learned to win ugly.

“That was important to walk off the field with three points.”

They walked off the field with those three points because they consistently won the game’s chaotic moments – San Jose have been a pressing team this year, but also a counterattacking team, and practitioners of chaosball throughout – and occasionally imposed some order. Even when the Dynamo were throwing numbers forward, San Jose showed a composure that’s often been beyond them in crucial moments.

Rookie left center back Reid Roberts was a big part of that, as was summer signing Ronaldo Vieira. The d-mid came on at the half to make his MLS debut, and instantly helped tilt the field:

“He’s been great for us in training. As you saw in the game today, he just came in and had an immediate presence. I love what I’m seeing from him, and I think it’s something we can just keep building from. I’m happy to have him with his playoff run,” said center back Daniel Munie, who had a hand in both goals.

“You saw tonight what he’s able to provide for us. He's a ball-winner. He's going to be able to break lines, and he’s able to beat guys off the dribble, so I think he’s going to be really huge for us going forward.”

San Jose are in complete control of their playoff destiny now, though their remaining schedule is tough. Houston’s is easier, but they're now six points back and on a six-game winless skid… there’s not much of a path.

Better Things

New York City FC didn’t make much noise this summer, at least not the kind that gets you headlines. No big-name European import – that hasn’t been their approach for a while now – and no blockbuster outgoing deal. Just a club that finally seemed to know where it needed a lift and quietly went out and got it.

That lift has come in the form of Nicolás Fernández Mercau, and it’s showing up in ways the table is starting to reflect. The DP winger (he will eventually be a No. 10, I think, but Maxi Moralez is refusing to age, so… not this year) didn’t factor into the boxscore this weekend, but his insertion into the XI has unlocked something for the Pigeons.

That something is “verticality.” Before Fernández arrived, NYCFC were hitting 1.8 through-balls per game; since he’s been on the field, that number has jumped to 2.2.

That’s significant. More significantly, they averaged just 0.95 completed through-balls per game before his arrival, and it’s now 1.8.

Completing 80% of your attempted through-balls is insane and unsustainable. But it’s who the Pigeons have become over the past month: the ball is zipping, the attack has teeth, and the group that looked a little bit adrift back in the spring is moving off the ball with a real purpose. As FC Cincinnati found out for themselves in a 1-0 home loss on Saturday night:

This is absolutely brilliant from Aiden O'Neill (secondary assist) and Maxi (who got the primary assist), and obviously that acceleration and control at pace is game-breaking from Alonso Martínez (eight goals in his past eight games across all competitions).

Again: Fernández is not really involved here. But his presence in the lineup has catalyzed the team’s overall attack, and his skillset has amplified not just the attackers who want to run in behind (Martínez, Hannes Wolf, even Agustín Ojeda’s showing some signs of life), but also Maxi’s constant positioning and re-positioning in search of space.

“You could see that we were controlling like we wanted to control every game and get those moments like we did today,” head coach Pascal Jansen said afterward. “Alonso got one in, so you win this very important game away against Cincy.”

NYCFC are now 4W-0L-1D in their past five, with wins at Orlando, at home vs. Nashville and now at Cincy.

Are they among the favorites? Probably not – too much ground to cover, too many questions about whether the defense can really hold up in knockout play. But darkhorse? Absolutely. This is the kind of late-summer turn that MLS Cup runs have been built upon in years past – including last year, when their next-door neighbors did it.

After a very good start to the summer, the Garys have won just once in their past four. They host the Union next week in a game that will go a long way towards determining who hoists the Supporters’ Shield on Decision Day.

A few more things to ponder...

13. Make it four unbeaten for CF Montréal! And while the last two were sort of hold-on-for-dear-life home draws, this one was a fully deserved 3-2 win over visiting Austin FC.

Visiting and slumping. Austin have taken just two points from their past three games, a soft stretch of schedule during which they were supposed to lock down their first postseason berth since 2022. They’ve instead gone in the other direction, and are now down to ninth in the West (though, like San Jose, they’ve got a four-point cushion. Plus, they’ve got a game in hand over the chasing pack).

"Sometimes you need to lose a game in order to take a step back to realize that if you don't do well, you can get punished," head coach Nico Estévez said afterward, trying to find a silver lining. "And then everything that you work for and you gain during this time, you can lose it. And then now we're in that situation, we have to step up."

Austin host the Quakes next week for a true six-pointer. That would, indeed, be the perfect time to step up.

12. Jackson Hopkins scored a banger to give D.C. United an early 1-0 lead over a heavily rotated Inter Miami side. Midway through the second half, Baltasar Rodríguez one-upped him:

Good lord. It finished 1-1.

Miami, of course, host Orlando midweek – Wednesday at 8:30 pm ET, to be precise – in the Leagues Cup semifinals. The Herons’ key players should be well-rested for that one, though it's now an open question if Lionel Messi (who has missed the past two games due to injury) will be available.

11. Speaking of Orlando, they caught a beating with their heavily rotated squad at Nashville as the ‘Yotes snapped out of what had become a prolonged slump with an emphatic 5-1 win. Hany Mukhtar had 2g/2a, and Sam Surridge reclaimed his spot atop the Golden Boot presented by Audi race with a brace, giving him 20 goals on the season.

Surridge started it after three minutes when he ran onto a Hany through-ball:

That gap between the Orlando lines is huge, and gives you an idea of why they were chasing (but not catching) the game all night. And obviously, letting Hany have that much space on the run has been a recipe for failure all decade against Nashville.

B.J. Callaghan’s side still has some hope in the Supporters’ Shield race, as they’re just four points back of the Union.

Oscar Pareja’s side no longer does, in my opinion. But they’re very clearly focused on winning Wednesday's Leagues Cup semifinal.

10. Speaking of the Union, they throttled Chicago 4-0 in Chester, and young Frankie Westfield gave us our Face of the Week:

Almost everything about this game played out as you’d expect:

9. The bad news for Columbus: They were mostly pretty listless in a 2-1 home loss to the Revs, one that more or less closes the books on their Shield hopes for the year.

The good news: new DP Wessam Abou Ali made his debut (he was active, but rusty) and their other DP acquisition this year, Dániel Gazdag, finally got his first open-play goal.

Still, this looks like a team that’s lost its way over the past month. Part of that is missing Darlington Nagbe on the ball, but just as big is they’ve been slow to pressure opposing attackers, which has left them exposed repeatedly (especially whenever anybody smacks a long ball in transition).

8. Son Heung-Min got his first MLS goal, and it was a banger:

LAFC ended up dropping points, though, with a 1-1 draw at FC Dallas after Logan Farrington’s deflected shot wrong-footed Hugo Lloris in the 13th minute. The Black & Gold then spent the subsequent 75 minutes just peppering Michael Collodi’s net to no avail.

They now have just one win in five, which is obviously not great. But it looks to me more like finishing variance than something structural, and I’m actually bullish on what I’ve seen from this attack in terms of chemistry since Leagues Cup.

Phrased another way: they missed out on all three points in this one by the width of a crossbar. It happens. If they play as well again next week against San Diego, they’ll be in fine shape.

7. That same San Diego side dropped home points – becoming a habit of theirs – in a scoreless draw vs. Portland, one in which they were a little bit unfortunate (two goals were correctly whistled offside, as Anders Dreyer was uncharacteristically impatient) and a little bit fortunate (the Timbers certainly had their chances to take all three points).

Portland started all three of their new acquisitions, with Felipe Carballo getting the nod in central midfield, along with Matías Rojas and Kristoffer Velde on the wings. I think Timbers fans should be encouraged by what they saw.

Two notes on San Diego, who clinched a playoff berth despite the result:

And bad news on the replacing Iloski front: Corey Baird, who made his first start, had to be subbed off just before the half with what looked like a pulled groin.

6. Colorado seemed to be playing at half speed in Carson and paid the price as they got smashed 3-0 by the Galaxy’s reserves. Greg Vanney mostly rested his starters ahead of Wednesday’s revenge match vs. the Sounders in the Leagues Cup semifinals.

“We get some guys some rest who have been playing a ton of minutes over the last stretch,” Vanney said. “So that's good for them. The second part is the guys that went out there today were fantastic. Whichever guy I call on to come into the game or help our team on Wednesday… those guys have to be really confident and ready to go and chomping at the bit for another opportunity.”

Paxten Aaronson debuted for the Rapids, but it was not one to remember.

5. Minnesota United got their first goal directly off a set piece, their second goal off a recycled set piece, and their third goal when they forced a high turnover and pounced to make it 3-1, which is how it ended at Real Salt Lake.

It’s their second straight win, and the second straight time they’ve been able to just get numbers behind the ball and see out a result by defending in their own box.

“I've talked a few times about the real desperation to keep the ball out of the net and the real grit and determination that goes with that, and we've seen that in bucket loads over the course of the last two games,” head coach Eric Ramsay said in the postgame. “I never really got too hung up on the narrative about us not being able to close games out in comparison to other teams because I think we're the team that is most often leading across all 30 teams.

“It's natural that we get to the end of games and the opposition are throwing everything at us, and from time to time you are going to concede goals and give leads up.”

I, uh, may know the guy that’s sort of directed towards. Apropos of everything, here’s the correlation between possession percentage when leading and points dropped:

I’m not saying Ramsay should scrap the team’s whole game model. But I don’t think Sporting KC, Colorado (another playoff team, to be fair) and D.C. are the closest company you’d want to be keeping.

Make it three straight losses and four in five for RSL. If they don’t beat Sporting at home next week, I don’t see a path to the playoffs for them.

4. I am once again going to direct you to my colleague Andrew Wiebe and Instant Replay for an assessment of Vancouver’s very, very late 3-2 win over St. Louis CITY, one that was capped off by Thomas Müller’s first MLS goal.

I will say overall, the ‘Caps looked like a team with a lot of attacking talent and a defense that’s trying to figure itself out (which makes sense given the personnel back there is in flux). And that while the mentality was good – they came from behind twice – there was also a weird naivete, maybe brought about by the big crowd and big moment.

“I think in the beginning, maybe we had some situations where we wanted it too much. We played a little bit too emotional sometimes with the early cross, and we had too many ball losses,” Müller said afterward. “But I think we started to play well the last 20 to 25 minutes of the first half. We had more control, we had more corners, we sat them down more and more, and took control of the game.”

3. Atlanta and Toronto played to a scoreless draw on Sunday afternoon, befitting their respective places in the standings.

2. Charlotte pushed their winning streak to seven games with a 1-0 win over the Red Bulls, one that came in pretty hilarious fashion:

“Get the lead and sit on it” is maybe not the most aesthetically pleasing brand of soccer, but at least it’s an ethos!

Anyone who wants to beat The Crown will have to 1) break down that low block, and 2) not give the ball away cheaply in midfield. If you can do those two things, you’ll probably grab a point, or maybe even all three.

But nobody’s pulled it off – not in the league, anyway – in two months. And so after a long and miserable spring, Charlotte are up to fourth in the Eastern Conference and have as good as punched their playoff ticket.

RBNY finished the weekend in ninth, ahead of Chicago on the second tiebreaker (goal differential). But they have a tougher remaining schedule, and the Fire have a game in hand, so that 15-year playoff streak is in real danger.

1. And finally, a Sounders’ squad of mostly reserves pummeled Sporting KC on Sunday night, winning 5-2 at Lumen Field behind a Danny Musovski hat-trick. They scored some very pretty goals along the way, including this team effort finished off by homegrown Snyder Brunell:

Seattle are now 8W-1L-4D with a +19 goal differential since the FIFA Club World Cup, playing basically every four days for the past two months and doing so despite a spate of injuries throughout. I’m not sure they’re outright favorites to win Leagues Cup this week, but I don’t love the idea of picking against them, even if they have to go on the road to beat LA on Wednesday night.