San Diego are for real, Zack Steffen is back: 5 MLS takeaways

In partnership with

Major League Soccer

·02 de abril de 2025

San Diego are for real, Zack Steffen is back: 5 MLS takeaways

By Matthew Doyle

We’ve all watched a lot of soccer over the past six weeks. We’ve all seen some stuff – back-passes in Matchday 1, counterattacks on Matchday 2, some outrageous performances in goal on Matchday 6, etc.

Vídeos OneFootball

Let’s drop a few markers and try to make sense of it here.

In we go:

1. Yes, possession still matters (just not in February & March)

I was on the Nos Audietis podcast with Jeremiah Oshan on Monday evening, discussing the state of the Western Conference. He made the point that if you look at the current league possession rankings, you don’t find a critical mass of teams in Audi MLS Cup Playoffs spots until you get towards the bottom. The bottom eight teams are actually all above the red line through six matchdays.

It feels shocking, given that three of the four teams that won major titles last year (LA Galaxy - MLS Cup; Inter Miami - Supporters’ Shield; Columbus Crew - Leagues Cup) were possession-heavy sides, and three of the four sides that won titles in 2023 (Crew - MLS Cup; Miami - Leagues Cup; Houston Dynamo - US Open Cup) were ball-dominant.

In fact, last year saw a strong correlation between possession and points per game after that relationship had been totally decoupled in the first part of this decade.

2022 season: Possession vs. PPG

Here’s the full-season scatter chart from 2022 (all data via FBRef):

Literally zero correlation.

2024 season: Possession vs. PPG

Here’s what 2024 looked like:

An rSp of .286 is the same level of correlation we saw at the end of last decade, and in line with what we tend to see in top European leagues.

2025 (so far): Possession vs. PPG

Now here’s the first six weeks of the 2025 season:

Literally a negative correlation! The Galaxy and Dynamo falling off a cliff hasn’t helped, while Minnesota and Austin have been happily giving up the ball and crushing teams on the break and set pieces.

Did the MLS meta change over the course of one winter? Is this now a pure counterattacking league where you’d be a fool to want the ball?

Nah. Here’s what the chart looked like on April 1 of last year:

You recognize that inverse correlation, right?

What I’m saying is this happens every single season. It’s just really, really hard to have a lot of the ball and create with it – and to not screw up and gift chances to your opponent – while you’re knocking the rust off and building chemistry over the first two months of the season. Teams tend to start humming by mid-April or so, and I’d expect the possession/ppg correlation to return to something close to what it was last year.

2. Vancouver are the biggest surprise…

I actually picked the Whitecaps to narrowly miss the playoffs this year, expecting them to take a step backwards after losing a DP and replacing their coach. Their big signings were two guys (Jayden Nelson and Emmanuel Sabbi) who hadn’t done much in their previous MLS minutes, and while I liked their core, they just seemed too thin. One injury and it all comes crashing down, right?

Well, Nelson’s been awesome. That core has grown to include not just him, but Sebastian Berhalter (who’s among the league leaders in expected assists and sends in one of the best corner kicks in the league), Pedro Vite (really superb progressive passing numbers this year), Mathías Laborda and – I think – J.C. Ngando.

Meanwhile, Ali Ahmed seems to be taking the step forward in 2025 that we were all hoping for from him in 2024, while kids like Tate Johnson, Liam MacKenzie and Jeevan Badwal are getting looks.

They’ve also endured the one injury they most feared, as their No. 10, Ryan Gauld, has missed the past few weeks. They haven’t been as good without him – you wouldn’t expect them to be – but they haven’t cratered, either.

All of this has happened within the context of new head coach Jesper Sørensen completely overhauling the game model. They play more like Wilfried Nancy’s Crew, or the 2023 & 2024 Dynamo, than they do like the previous iteration of Vanni Sartini's Whitecaps. They’re using the ball relentlessly through central midfield in order to open up chances in the final third, and it just… keeps… working.

I love it. They’re one of my favorite teams to watch.

Vancouver Whitecaps: What's key to their early success?

3. … except for San Diego

When I was down in San Diego back in December for the Expansion Draft, I chatted with sporting director Tyler Heaps and head coach Mikey Varas. And both guys swore up and down that they’d be a ball-dominant team, that possession – not just for the sake of possession, but to control games, constrict the opponents and create chances – was in their DNA.

I smiled and nodded, but internally rolled my eyes a bit. Virtually every expansion side says something to that effect, but most get pragmatic (i.e., dropping numbers behind the ball and defending space in banks of four) REAL QUICK when the results don’t come.

The results have come. And not just the results, but the process has been really effective. They’ve gotten on the ball, constricted opponents and created chances just as Heaps and Varas said they would four months ago. And while they’re not bullet-proof (if you can play through their compactness and quickly switch the field of play, you’re on), they’re just really, really good.

There are no bright, red flags saying this is unsustainable, a la St. Louis CITY two years ago. The Chrome and Azul – I’m trying to make los Niños happen, please help me – are for real.

San Diego FC: A serious contender in the West?

4. Zack Steffen has been immense

I handed in my vote for Player of the Month earlier this week, and had Zack Steffen first on my ballot. Every time he’s been in the lineup, Colorado have gotten a result. The one time he wasn’t in the lineup, they didn’t.

And mostly – until this past weekend, anyway – when they’ve gotten results, it’s been because of him.

Every piece of advanced data available this year rates him as the best goalkeeper in the league.
Every piece of advanced data available last year rated him as one of the two worst goalkeepers in the league.

So what’s changed? He’s just being a goalkeeper again. Colorado (with an assist from Mauricio Pochettino’s USMNT staff) have simplified the game for Steffen, and he’s thriving.

He’s launching nearly 56% of his passes long, after being down around 33% last year, when the Rapids asked him to take a more significant role in build-outs. Safety first!
He’s making exactly one defensive action outside his penalty area per game, which is less than half (2.27) of what he did last year.
As such, the average distance of his defensive actions has dropped from 18.7 yards to 13.9. So there’s much less roaming and scrambling.
Subsequently, he’s been more commanding in his box, claiming twice as many crosses per 90.

He looks certain of himself for the first time, honestly, since last decade when he was with the Columbus Crew.

There are other things to unpack here – his shot prep seems much better to me (I’m not seeing the happy feet that often led to poor push-offs and limited his effective shot-stopping range), and his angles seem better. It’s like, because he has less of the field to really think about, he’s able to focus and elevate his game where it really matters.

He has been the best goalkeeper in the league by a mile.

WATCH: Best of Zack Steffen's heroic 12-save performance

5. Big-money No. 9s are delivering

Second on my Player of the Month ballot was Chicago's Hugo Cuypers, who is tied for second in the Golden Boot presented by Audi race on five goals with Atlanta's Emmanuel Latte Lath. A couple of goals behind them is Kévin Denkey (he’s played about 100 fewer minutes as well), who’s been both an excellent goalscorer and an excellent all-around presence in the attacking third for a Cincy team still trying to find their feet.

I will always be skeptical of spending big – and these guys were all eight-figure buys; Denkey was the league-record signing for a couple of months this winter until Atlanta bought Latte Lath, who’s now the new record-holder – on a center forward. Cuypers’ struggles last year showed that it’s the context of the midfield and attack around them that really matters, and in my mind, if you’ve got that context right you should be able to find a guy for relatively cheap like Philadelphia's Tai Baribo (the current Golden Boot leader) or Minnesota's Kelvin Yeboah. Or, if you’re really lucky, you strike gold via your academy with a Jordan Morris-type, or via the SuperDraft a la Brian White, Tani Oluwaseyi, Pat Agyemang or Duncan McGuire (who’s just getting healthy now).

The early successes of Cuypers, Denkey and Latte Lath aren’t going to change my mind on that. But it’s nice to see they’re not heading towards bust territory, either. It really felt like Cuypers was in danger of crossing that threshold with a slow start.

Instead, he’s making good on Chicago’s investment, and has A-Tier synergy with new wingers Jonathan Bamba and Philip Zinckernagel. Denkey and Latte Lath, meanwhile, look like two of the most exciting players in the league. The spending, so far, has been justified.