MLS Analysis
Parting 2024 MLS thoughts: Galaxy deserved it, youth minutes, Inter Miami questions, and much more
December 11, 2024
9:10 AM
THE 2024 MLS SEASON is in the books and a very short offseason has begun as preseason will begin in early January. The LA Galaxy are the deserved champions and they just simply overwhelmed teams with scoring options.
But after a few days to digest the last kick of the ball in Southern California, here are thoughts on the past year.
Galaxy was supreme
Breaking down why the Galaxy won MLS Cup is not hard. In 2024, the bought Gabriel Pec and Joseph Paintsil. In MLS (including playoffs), Paintsil had 14 goals, 8 assists, in 34 games. In just the playoffs, he had 4 goals, 1 assist, in 5 games.
The biggest problem for the Galaxy after 2023 was that Riqui Puig didn’t have enough outlets to create opportunities. The Galaxy then went out and hit home runs on two DP imports. On top of that, they also had Dejan Joveljic who added 21 goals and 7 assists in 33 games (6 goals and 2 assists in the playoffs).
Joseph Paintsil had the whole country of Ghana behind him. ????????????@LAGalaxy // #MLSCup pres. by Audi pic.twitter.com/cG9qX5rfMP
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) December 8, 2024
Even without Puig for the final, the club just had too much. Seattle made the Galaxy seem vulnerable in the Western Final, but that was due to a tactically strong defensive approach. It was anyone’s game until late. The New York Red Bulls played an aggressive and frantic defensive and that was never going to work with the Galaxy in great form. That allowed the Galaxy to sit in too many 1v1 situations, and they have too much talent – even with Puig injured.
For head coach Greg Vanney, it was about creating a system to let superior individual talent to win. They didn’t have the best defense, but they were able to overwhelm opponents.
But this title was won by general manager Will Kuntz who just made all the right moves. The incoming DP’s were perfect. Marco Reus accepting a supporting role worked. Everything worked as draw.
Red Bulls had a great run
Love a playoff format, or hate a playoff format, the New York Red Bulls clearly benefitted from the league’s postseason format. The team was flat out ordinary heading into the playoffs, but had a remarkable reversal of fortune to eliminate the Columbus Crew, NYCFC, and Orlando to make the final.
They got there with the team’s designated players getting hot while also benefiting from goalkeeping, and big efforts from lesser-known players. But in the end, they were always vulnerable if everything didn’t exceed expectations. The Galaxy didn’t need everything to go their way (such as the Puig injury). With the Red Bulls, Felipe Carballo getting injured, Andres Reyes getting sick just before the MLS Cup kickoff, and a surprisingly cold playoffs from Lewis Morgan was just too much.
Never gave up belief. #RedRunsDeep always ?? pic.twitter.com/QP8L8juqQW
— New York Red Bulls (@NewYorkRedBulls) December 9, 2024
Heading into 2025, the Red Bulls should like where they stand with head coach Sandro Schwarz. He’s been a very positive influence on the team. But the team needs a lot of work to build off this postseason run. Has Dante Vanzier really become the player the club hoped? He was almost a bust before getting hot in the playoffs. The same is true with Carballo. Will John Tolkin return? Can Emil Forsberg stay healthy? Will Lewis Morgan return to being a consistent force in this league?
That’s a lot of questions.
Inter Miami
The rise and fall of Inter Miami was the league’s biggest story among foreign media given the team’s star power.
The team fell victim of playoff soccer where a great season can be suddenly wiped away. But the team had all the ability to beat Atlanta in the final two games of their series and couldn’t do so – even at home. There were a lot of factors at play but the team’s age after a long season cannot be ignored. Youth is at an advantage after nearly 40 games.
But that wasn’t the only factor. Inter Miami was always prone to let downs – with and without Messi. They were poor in their preseason tour. They were easily dispatched in the CONCACAF Champions Cup by Monterrey (who were they convincingly defeated in Mexico by Columbus). Without Messi, they only advanced to the Round of 16 in Leagues Cup before losing to Columbus. They also had a few lopsided defeats.
See you in 2??0??2??5?? ? pic.twitter.com/Um89rcEpFk
— Inter Miami CF (@InterMiamiCF) December 9, 2024
There were warning signs all throughout 2024 that Inter Miami was vulnerable, and it was Atlanta that delivered the knockout blow.
Heading into 2025, it will only be harder for Inter Miami. Messi, Suarez, Busquets, and Alba are now only older. Diego Gomez is gone. Tata Martino left the club and now Javier Mascherano takes the head coaching job – largely because of his friendship with Messi. Is that a good thing? How does he deal with situations that aren’t easy? Mascherano has never been the head coach of adults, and he didn’t do well with Argentina’s youth teams.
There should be a legitimate fear for Miami fans that it starts to become a circus.
Struggles of top Regular season teams
One of the biggest stories of the 2024 season will be the playoff struggles of the teams that dominated the regular season. LAFC left in the second round. Inter Miami was out in the second round. FC Cincinnati was out in the first round. Columbus was out in the first round. Salt Lake was out in the first round.
There have always been upsets, but this year became defined by playoff upsets. While the American public likes March Madness in college basketball, it is more controversial in soccer to see dominant regular season teams not have an advantage in the playoffs.
Optically, it came under more scrutiny when Jordi Alba went public after Inter Miami’s loss and called the playoff format unfair. While Americans are used to playoff sports, Alba’s statement is reflective of the global opinion of playoff formats – even if playoffs are not unique to MLS and can be found in Mexico as well.
As MLS tries to become more globally visible, scrutiny of the playoffs is going to naturally follow.
The playoffs are unlikely to go anywhere, but are the top teams given enough advantage in the postseason?
Young Americans playing time
I asked United States U-20 head coach Marko Mitrovic about whether he was concerned about the lack of first team minutes players in his U-20 pool are getting right now. In speaking about players based in MLS and abroad, he wasn’t happy.
“I would say I'm not pleased, but it's not something against the clubs - don't take me wrong,” Mitrovic said. “It's not easy to break in. Because if you see the rosters, if we speak about senior level, very few guys are getting regular minutes there. If it's 2005-born guys, you're talking about 19-year-olds. They're still young, but I would love to see them playing more.”
When compared with previous U-20 pools, first team minutes in MLS has decreased and most of this is due to the fact teams are spending more money and it is harder to break in now.
Right now, the U-20 team is a good snapshot of this. Luke Brennan, Matai Akinmboni (who is soon to be sold to Bournemouth), Brooklyn Raines, and Nolan Norris are examples of players who probably would be playing a lot more in previous cycles but are finding it more difficult these days due to competition from foreign import.
Some believe this level of competition will make them better but others believe they need to be playing to get better. I am more of the latter. This current situation isn’t great for youth development and hopefully young Americans and Canadians can raised their games in 2025.
New York City groundbreaking
It seemed like year after year, Don Garber was asked about when New York City FC would get out of its miserable stadium situation (where it called Yankee Stadium home, but would also play games in Citi Field, Harford, and other places near and far).
In fact, it seemed as if Garber would dread these questions as to why a team with such a poorly planned stadium plan would get admitted into the league and he would not want to answer because of the wealthy and powerful ownership group. Yes, he said that a stadium deal was close when they joined a decade ago only for it to fall through. But building something like this inside of the five boroughs is never a done deal until it’s done.
Well, now Garber doesn’t have to dread this question anymore.
One week ago, we began a special journey in Queens ?????
— New York City FC (@newyorkcityfc) December 11, 2024
Relive the historic day we broke ground on Etihad Park. pic.twitter.com/WojEAh5pxT
Building a stadium in New York is a significant win for NYCFC, CFG, and MLS. It’s an enormous physical asset for one of the league’s teams and it now makes games inside the city to be more marketable and enjoyable.
Champions League, Cups, and the Calendar
The CONCACAF Champions League is about two months away. In total, 10 MLS teams will take part in the 2025 edition.
- LA Galaxy (bye into Round of 16)
- Columbus Crew (bye into Round of 16)
- LAFC
- Colorado Rapids
- Inter Miami
- Vancouver Whitecaps
- Seattle Sounders
- Sporting Kansas City
- FC Cincinnati
- Real Salt Lake
A lot can happen in the offseason, but there are a lot of question marks with this class. The Galaxy will not have Puig, Inter Miami has a questionable new coach, Sporting KC was poor last year and Colorado ended the year not playing well.
The 2024 tournament wasn’t great for MLS until the Columbus Crew emerged and played fantastically until the final (when there was no leg in the United States).
Next year is going to be really important for MLS in terms of tournaments. The FIFA Club World Cup will see Inter Miami and the Seattle Sounders take part. Then there is the Leagues Cup, and then the CONCACAF Champions Cup, and there will be more MLS teams in the Open Cup – which is great news.
One note that came up during the State of the League address is the possibility of going to a Fall-Sping schedule. It doesn’t sound imminent, but it sounds like a possibility to have MLS align with European leagues.
“I do think that we are considering more than ever before this opportunity to change,” Garber said, “but it’s not something that we’re ready to talk about right now.”
MLS teams have a much shorter offseason than ever before as teams now report for preseason in January, and MLS Cup is December. But even with a winter break, there will be a far bigger bulk of cold weather games. Skewing the schedule so cold-weather teams have fewer home games in the winter creates a different set of problems. One off playoff games are one thing, but regular games in November, December, January, February, in March in places like Montreal, Toronto, Chicago, Columbus, Minnesota, Cincinnati, and New York can make for unpleasant games where the quality can potentially suffer. Many of these cities have significantly colder temperatures than most Europe that play during this time of year.
In the end, I am not sure if having such a disruption of a winter break combined with either skewing the schedule for cold-weather teams or just powering through the winter months as usual is worth it.