Week 1 Recap

 MLS Week 1 has come to a close with exactly ZERO ties. I don't even know how that's possible. Ties or no ties it was a great slate of week one games so let's dive in:

Nashville opened up the season just how they wanted to against NYCFC getting an early goal and then being able to sit back and do what they do best, play defense. If you had Walker Zimmerman to score the first goal of the year, you'd probably be sitting pretty off of those winnings right now. Hany Mukhtar came off the bench and had an assist late. It was the perfect Nashville game and I think they will continue to be among the league leaders in 2023. I may have been right to question NYC this year after losing Sean Johnson and Tati Castellanos over the last 8 months. They still have some good pieces but they didn't look like a team that is going to sit at or near the top of the table this season. 

DC United and Toronto FC played a wild battle that was one of the bigger upsets of the week. DC led for a good part of the game until Toronto leveled it in the 65th minute and then took the lead in the 83rd, and I give all the credit in the world to DC United and Wayne Rooney. They were leading against a better team, lost the lead then went down but then in the 90th minute they tie it. Normally you would think 'Good for DC getting a point back' but NO. They score a goal in the 93rd minute to win it and take all three points at home against Toronto. If you're a DC supporter you can't be happier than to see the fight in your team for this season. However if you're a TFC supporter you may need to be a little worried. Toronto has too much quality to drop points against a team that everyone predicted would be near the bottom of the Eastern Conference. 

American Jeremy Ebobisse scored early to give San Jose the early lead over Atlanta United and San Jose dug in looking to steal points all the way across the country in Atlanta. San Jose held on to the lead until stoppage time, and I'm going to be honest with all of the readers I forgot how good Thiago Almada was during previews. Well he reminded us all by scoring two goals in stoppage time to get the full three points for Atlanta at home. This is my first kit review of the recap but those Atlanta home kits are SHARP! I think Atlanta, Houston, Kansas City, Portland and Seattle all have their permanent home jerseys now. The Atlanta kits popped on TV when a lot of other newer ones did not. 

Speaking of kits, those FC Cincinnati kits were pretty great themselves, and the team looked pretty good as well taking three points against Houston this weekend. Houston showed signs of life but FCC looked like they are going to contend for trophies this season.

Charlotte was one of two games this weekend with almost 70,000 in attendance. Which is absolutely incredible and makes you appreciate how far this league has come in under 30 years of existence. On the field Petrovic looked like the goalkeeper of the year for the New England Revs who snagged three points on the road in Charlotte.

Inter Miami almost got featured on when playing out of the back goes wrong, a hilarious twitter account by the way. However they looked sharp and had a lot of chances against CF Montreal. I think Montreal may be in for a long season with all of those roster changes this season. 

The Philadelphia Union picked up right where they left off last season against Columbus. The old NFL Coach Dennis Green quote applies when talking about the Union, "They are who we thought they were" and what we thought the Union were is a really good soccer team. They are deep, they have one of the top goalkeepers in MLS. and they have one of the top coaches in MLS in Jim Curtin. 

I ran a twitter poll that got a lot of votes and you the readers said the most impressive week one win belonged to St. Louis City SC who pulled off the unlikely win in their first ever game in Major League Soccer on the road against a really good Austin FC side. Tim Parker got things going for City SC scoring his first goal in almost five years off a set piece. I thought momentum had really swung when right before half time Sebastian Driussi chipped in what may have been the goal of the week over Roman Burki. The one sub that changed the game was St. Louis native Kip Keller coming in for an injured Julio Cascante in the 11th minute. After Austin scored the go ahead goal in the 72nd minute Keller made a poor pass back to his own keeper that was stolen by Jared Stroud who leveled things. Then in the 86th minute City SC DP Joao Klauss got out on the run and scored a great goal in transition to seal the game for MLS's newest club. I want to remind any readers, Kip Keller is a human that made a mistake. The internet and people in general were terrible to Keller after the game. This is your friendly reminder these guys are harder on themselves than you will ever be. Have a little grace and support your club. Keller is a good young prospect who made a bad play, move on!

Minnesota went to FC Dallas without their all everything Emanuel Reynoso. However they hunkered down, St. Clair played great in goal and Mender Garcia got an early second half goal to steal three points on the road for Minnesota United. 

The late Sunday game featured Real Salt Lake and the Vancouver Whitecaps. Javian Brown put the Whitecaps up in the 24th minute but two second half goals only three minutes apart lifted RSL to a road win. 

The Sunday night matchup was a fun one, Seattle looked like they have everything to prove after missing out on the playoffs for the first time in franchise history last season. Colorado has a lot of new pieces and I think they can challenge for the playoffs, but Sunday night was all Seattle. The Sounders were on the front foot all night and the USMNT duo of Jordan Morris and Christian Roldon were just cooking. Morris hit Roldan who got a shot then scored on the rebound early. Then Morris scored a crazy bouncing header to make it 2-0 right before the half. In the second half Seattle stayed on the front foot getting bounces to go there way getting goals from newly acquired Heber and then Jordan Morris finishing with the brace. Joao Paulo is back and looks healthy and the Sounders look deep and ready to take on the world. After watching the full 90 I do not regret predicting them to finish first in the Western Conference this season. 

Our final game of the week, one of two that got rescheduled was Sporting KC at Portland. Sporting KC were down several key pieces in week one. No Johnny Russell, Alan Pulido, Ghadi Kinda Radoja, or newly acquired Columbian center back Dany Rosero. I don't think we expected to see Pulido or Kinda and we really don't know what to expect yet from Rosero or Radoja. However missing Johnny Russell is tough. Other than the poor keep in by Sweat that led to the Timbers goal early, SKC played really well. Thommy had a couple of great chances in the first half, Remy Walter was all over the place, Voloder recovered from a couple of poor touches early on, and Fontas ran the game out of the back for SKC. Father Time let us barrow a lot of quality from Graham Zusi and Roger Espinosa. Two guys I was super critical of most of last season played really well on Monday night: Ben Sweat and Khiry Shelton. Outside of the previously mentioned poor early touch Ben Sweat played great. He was good in recovery and made several quality crosses that lead to chances. Khiry Shelton had SKC's best shot of the night and his speed and physical play helped on both ends of the pitch in the second half. You have to give props to Portland and Zac McGraw for game planning how to limit the effect Willy Agada had on the game. They kept Agada mostly in check and I'll be curious if more teams have the game plan and the quality at Center Back to hold Agada in check. Eryk Williamson played great in the midfield for Portland and I think you'll see him in the Stars and Stripes at some point this summer. With two major tournaments for the red, white, and blue I'd really like to see former United States Military Academy West Point player Zac McGraw get a cap for the national team. What a story that would be and I'm here for it!

Lets see how I fared in my week 1 picks:

Nashville over NYCFC ✅

Austin over St. Louis ❌

FCC over Houston ✅

Miami over Montreal ✅

Portland-SKC draw ❌

Philly over Columbus ✅

Orlando City over NYRB ✅

Seattle over Colorado ✅

TFC over DC and Dallas over Minnesota ❌❌

Week 1 and Season Total 6-4

Well I got more picks correct than wrong in week 1 so let's keep it going! El Trafico at the Rose Bowl got moved to the 4th of July and I'm pretty excited for it. Chicago Fire kicks off their season this Saturday and my apologies to all of the Fire fans who responded to the poll. I'm just hash tagging every team in every post to try and