MLS announced its 2023 schedule today. The season begins February 25 and ends October 20, with a break between July 15 and August 20 for the mid-season Leagues Cup with Liga MX (schedule yet to be announced). Here’s some takeaways, from a Minnesota United perspective:

• The season opener is February 25, at Dallas; the home opener is March 11, against the New York Red Bulls, in a night game (which should be silly and frozen).
• They have three “national TV” games - home against Seattle on FOX (8/27), plus home against Dallas (4/30) and away against LAFC (10/4) on FS1.
• Nashville is back in the Eastern Conference, and Chicago stayed in the East, so at least the map makes sense. With 15 teams in the East and 14 in the West, MLS basically has two leagues with occasional crossover games; the Loons will play seven games against the Eastern Conference this year, but 27 against the Western Conference.
• The Loons’ extra conference game is at Sporting Kansas City, which is horrible for them because they lose 4-0 every time they play in Kansas (playoffs excepted).
• The Loons don’t play March 4, the odd team out in the 29-team league.
• Minnesota will play during the March FIFA international window (home against Vancouver, March 25) and the June window (at Montreal, June 10), but the entire league will break for the windows in September and October. All four of Minnesota’s July games, which take place between July 1 and July 15, will fall into the span of the CONCACAF Gold Cup.
• The crossover games are against NYRB, Orlando City, at Chicago, Toronto, at Montreal, New England, and at New York City FC. Apart from Orlando City, there’s a certain NHL flavor to that crossover schedule.
• The Loons did not win the “home game against Inter Miami after the summer transfer window” lottery, with those spots going to LAFC and St. Louis City.

According to a report from FOX Sports México, CONCACAF - especially the United States, México, and Canada - is headed back to the Copa América. The tournament, which would be hosted in the USA just like 2016, is scheduled just 18 months from now, in the summer of 2024. It’s a great thing for the North American teams in CONCACAF, but it also makes a lot of sense for the South American powers in CONMEBOL - both in two years time, and in the future.

From a United States perspective, obviously this is welcome news. As the USMNT aims to be even more competitive at the 2026 World Cup, it’s very clear that the team needs more high-level, high-pressure games - and that means more than just playing five or six more finals against México or Costa Rica or Canada. With the advent of the Nations League, CONCACAF competitions are starting to feel a bit dime-a-dozen; next summer, just like in 2021, there will be both a Nations League final and a Gold Cup. There’s only so much that can be learned from a few more games against El Salvador and Grenada, just to pick on two.

The USA, Canada, and México don’t even have to go through the crucible of CONCACAF World Cup qualifying next time around. All three have automatic bids since they’re hosting the tournament, and with the expansion of the tournament to 48 teams, it might be a moot point anyway; henceforth the top six squads from CONCACAF will qualify for the tournament. It seems hard to imagine any of the top three or four in CONCACAF ever missing out on one of those slots.

There’s also a certain amount of motivated reasoning, from the perspective of United States-based fan like me; obviously, it’s hugely exciting for the United States to not only host the World Cup in 2026, but also what is likely the third-biggest men’s tournament in international soccer, in 2024.

From the perspective of the South American confederation, though, I’m not sure this is a bad thing either. Certainly, it feels different than 2016, when CONMEBOL took great pains to insist that the “Copa América Centenario” was merely a “commemorative” tournament, and not a real Copa América. That year felt a bit like an exhibition tournament - Argentina and Brazil being trotted across the United States like a traveling vaudeville show.

This would be an actual edition of the Copa América, not a special commemorative version, and it comes as CONMEBOL seems to be realizing that - as is happening to everyone, everywhere in the soccer world - its lunch is being eaten by the rapacious Europeans.

There once was a time when South America could legitimately view itself as the counterweight to Europe, in the soccer world. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the Copa Libertadores winner from South America played the European Cup winner, in a match that often degenerated into an all-out brawl. From the very beginning, the winners could legitimately claim to be the world champions; Real Madrid, which beat Peñarol in 1960, certainly claimed that title, and victories by Pelé’s Santos teams in 1962 and 1963 were seen as confirmation that Santos was the world’s best team.

Though the Intercontinental Cup lived on until 2004 (for the final quarter-century, as a one-off game played in Japan), and is recognized as the predecessor to today’s FIFA-sponsored Club World Cup (itself of questionable validity), it’s pretty hard to argue that South America is still on Europe’s level.

Oh, Brazil and Argentina are still plenty successful at the World Cup, but other than that, the game has gone entirely European. The five biggest leagues in Europe dwarf the rest of the Earth. The Champions League is the de facto world championship of club football. It’s been two decades since a South American team won the World Cup; three of the past four World Cup finals have been all-UEFA affairs. In 2018, all four semi-finalists at the World Cup were from Europe.

22 of the 26 Argentina players at this year’s World Cup play in those Big Five leagues, with two more in Portugal. So do 22 of the 26 players in the Brazil team. The two powerhouses can boast just four players who play their club soccer in South America - a testament to where the money lies in the soccer world. Go down any roster in the tournament, and you’ll find the same thing; the more hugely talented the team, the more of its players will be in England and Spain and Germany and Italy and France.

What’s a continent to do, other than sit back and watch Europe take over ever more of the soccer world?

If I’m CONMEBOL, this is when I notice that the United States and México have more people, put together, than the entirety of South America. That Canada, with a fifth of the population, has an economy larger than Brazil’s.

Perhaps they’re worried about being swamped by their northern neighbors… but they’ve already been capsized by Europe, and nobody’s breaking into that club. North America, meanwhile, is willing to band together with South America. We’re already seeing the USA and Canada and México team up to an unprecedented degree - not only with the joint bid for the World Cup, but with more and more competition at the club level between the three countries. Why not cooperate with South America too? Why not attempt, on whatever level, to serve as that missing counterweight against European soccer hegemony?

It starts with 2024, but CONMEBOL and CONCACAF should make the change to the Copa América format permanent - and then look for other ways to work together for the good of pan-American soccer.

I suppose it’s not surprising, but more and more I realize that my sports memories are old-guy memories.

For example, I always liked how the NHL named its conferences and divisions. It was fun and different, and it made me feel like part of a club to know who was in the Adams and Patrick and Smythe and Norris divisions, and which divisions were Campbell and which were Prince of Wales.

It’s been 29 years since they changed those names.

It’s been 28 years since the Minnesota Twins were in the American League West. It’s been the same amount of time since the Green Bay Packers stopped playing games at Milwaukee County Stadium, where the two sidelines were separated by a piece of tape at the 50-yard line. The Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t played at Maple Leaf Gardens for 22 seasons.

These things have passed on from the way things are, to the way things used to be, to distant memories of the past. They are the sounds of a modem, or dial tones on phones, or the giant book of maps that was your only navigational aid on cross-country road trips.

As the World Cup approaches, it’s become more and more clear to me that my history with the U.S. Men’s National Team is similarly ancient.

My first World Cup was 1990, in the sense that it’s the first one I remember knowing about. About all I knew was the names of a few of the players; I remember assuming that Paul Caligiuri was the team’s star, since he was the one that scored the goal to beat Trinidad and Tobago, sending the USA to the World Cup.

The games were on TNT, but I don’t remember watching any of them. I don’t remember watching any soccer games at all until 1994, when – thanks to the godless communists at Sports Illustrated and SI for Kids, the first news organizations I can remember treating soccer like a real thing – I was heatedly excited for the World Cup.

I remember watching the 1-1 draw with Switzerland in the overheated Silverdome. I remember the 2-1 win against Colombia, watching on the TV in the kitchen at my grandparents’ house, and understanding that the USA had done something impossible, while not really knowing what. I remember watching the knockout-round loss to Brazil at my other grandparents’ house, and being really unhappy, and not understanding even a little bit how little chance the USA was supposed to have against Brazil.

I suspect today’s preteens are more informed about the World Cup than I was, in 1994. They know Neymar and Mbappè but, more than that, they know about PSG; I had absolutely no concept of club soccer. It was not information that was readily available.

Again, this is an old-guy story, but I can’t really describe what little information about soccer I had, in 1994, in western Minnesota. Apart from the World Cup, the one time I can remember soccer being mentioned in SI for Kids was a profile of Tatu, who starred for the Dallas Sidekicks of the Major Indoor Soccer League.

Soccer barely got a mention in Sports Illustrated. On the rare occasion it was mentioned in the newspaper, it was mostly for a columnist to kick sand in its face. It rarely appeared on SportsCenter, and never in the four-minute sports block on CNN Headline News, and never in the sports block on local news. And that was pretty much it for sports news sources.

I think there were about eight soccer balls in the whole town. We owned one, and school owned six, and there must have been one other weirdo in town that owned one.

The soccer revolution hadn’t reached small-town Minnesota in the 1990s, at least not my small town. We didn’t have camps or teams or rec leagues. We hardly ever played it in gym class. I remember when a friend moved from Maine to our small town, he knew how to pass the ball and how to stop it and how to put his foot on the top of the ball and make it dance away from people; we looked at him like he was an alien from another planet.

This is how I experienced soccer before I went to college. The 1998 World Cup was covered more, and yet almost entirely escaped me; I don’t remember watching a single game or reading a single story about it, though to be fair, I was too busy with adolescent drama to notice much that wasn’t actually taking place in my own brain.

So the 1990 World Cup was my first World Cup, and the 1994 World Cup was also my first World Cup, but the 2002 World Cup – now that was really, truly, my World Cup.

I happened to be working nights that summer, so the fact that the games from Korea and Japan were on in the middle of the night didn’t really bother me, certainly not when the USA played Mexico, in a game that – if I recall correctly – started at 1:30 a.m. I watched, in my living room, with the sound off so as not to wake my roommates, on a TV that required us to use a hockey stick to change channels.

All I remember was Brian McBride scoring early, and Landon Donovan doubling the lead in the second half, and each time, finding myself out of my spot on the couch, sprinting around the apartment, screaming silently into the sky, and what I remember from those moments was thinking about how I really could use more of that sort of thing.

It was then, 20 years ago, that my soccer fandom was finally a workable thing. By then I had the internet and the ability to purchase Fox Sports World on cable, and I was off and running.

And so now I have a whole other collection of old-guy sports memories. I realized this week that the absolute youngest people who remember the 1994 World Cup, like me, are about 35 years old now. Anybody who is old enough to remember 2002, and also is old enough to have stayed up for 1a.m. matches, is about the same age.

That next season, 2002-2003, was the first season I watched the Premier League; it was so long ago that it was called the Premiership then. It was just the 11th year of the Premier League. The lower divisions in England were still called the First, Second, and Third Divisions; I remember watching their playoff finals over Memorial Day Weekend.

Want an old-guy memory? I had to tape the FA Cup Final that year. With a VCR.

From there, my memories of the USMNT get less and less ancient. After 2002, we could do things like watch CONCACAF qualifying matches on TV. We could be supremely disappointed when the 2006 team looked completely lost. In 2010, when the U.S. beat Algeria, we could rush to YouTube and watch this video, over and over and over again.

And 2014’s memories seem like yesterday. John Brooks against Ghana. Nearly beating Portugal again, just like 2002. Belgium and Tim Howard and Wondo (oh, Wondo) and, of all people, Julian Green scoring.

Every four years becomes every eight years, sometimes, so I’m not taking this one for granted. I may be an old guy now, but I’m still excited for the next chapter, which begins next week.

MNUFC made its offseason roster decisions on Monday. Here’s a look at the updated roster as the Loons head into the 2023 offseason.

Goalkeeper: Dayne St. Clair, Fred Emmings (Homegrown), Eric Dick* (expected)

Defender: Michael Boxall, Bakaye Dibassy (will begin season on IR), DJ Taylor, Brent Kallman, Kemar Lawrence, Alan Benítez, Devin Padelford (HG)

Defensive Midfield: Hassani Dotson, Kervin Arriaga, Wil Trapp, Joseph Rosales* (expected)

Attacking Midfield: Emanuel Reynoso, Robin Lod

Forward: Franco Fragapane, Luis Amarilla, Bongokuhle Hlongwane, Ménder García, Tani Oluwaseyi, Patrick Weah (HG), Cameron Dunbar (HG)

21 of 30 roster spots currently taken, 2 expected as well.

Free agency begins Wednesday. The re-entry draft is on Thursday, for players who aren’t free-agency eligible; last season, MNUFC selected Eric Dick in that draft.

Midfielder Joseph Rosales’s loan deal has ended, but he’s expected to return. Dick is out of contract as well, but is also expected to return for 2023.

The official story from MNUFC also notes that the club is in negotations with goalkeeper Tyler Miller, whose option they declined, and midfielder Jonathan González, whose loan deal is over.

The most pressing need for the Loons this offseason is center back, where they’ll begin the season without stalwart Bakaye Dibassy. Michael Boxall and Brent Kallman are the only other two recognized center backs on the roster, as the offseason begins.

I keep thinking about Gareth Bale’s match-tying goal in Saturday’s MLS Cup, and how it shows how far MLS has come in just a few years.

Bale scored in the 128th minute – the 128th minute! – to tie the match, after Philadelphia’s Jack Elliott had scored in the 124th minute to take the lead. By the time Bale’s celebration had finished, it was already clear that the match was the best match in MLS history. Given the stage, given the situation, given the wild swings.

To sum up: LAFC took the lead twice, including with ten minutes to go in the second half, but Philadelphia equalized both times. The Union got the upper hand when LAFC goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau was sent off in the second half, on the same play where he also shattered his leg, and took advantage with Elliott’s goal.

Even the penalty shootout was memorable; the Union missed all three of their attempts, including two saves from LAFC’s backup goalkeeper John McCarthy. How is that a thing?

But that Bale goal has to go down as one of the most famous goals in MLS history. It reminded me of one of the previous most famous goals in league history: Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s first goal for the LA Galaxy, in 2018.

I was writing a book about MLS at the time, and Zlatan’s goal immediately became the centerpiece of the first chapter, only because it summed up so much about what MLS was like. Here you had one of the most famous players in all of world soccer, one who by any measure was into the twilight years of his career, coming to MLS with maximum bluster (there’d already been an ad in the Los Angeles Times that simply said, “Dear Los Angeles, you’re welcome. – Zlatan”).

It was a local rivalry that had acquired a great nickname – El Tráfico – despite having absolutely no history (it was only LAFC’s third regular season match, ever). It was in the soccer capital of the United States. It was a match between MLS’s old flagship franchise and a team that, even then, was clearly going to be in the vanguard of the new wave.

Old MLS vs. new MLS, with a famous European star bringing the hype; it was the entire 23-year history of MLS, all in one match.

And here was Zlatan. He hadn’t played since December. He’d arrived in the United States about three days before. He’d been on the field six minutes. But he latched onto a bouncing header in midfield and volleyed it over the keeper, stranded in no man’s land, and then John Strong was yelling. COME ON! COME ONNN!

Saturday, Strong didn’t have time for near as much yelling, so surprising was Bale’s goal. All he got out was a Martin Tyler-esque “BAAAAAAAALE!”

So why, you’re asking, is this an example of how far MLS has come?

Earlier this summer, LAFC made two huge, stunning signings, of utterly famous European players. Bale, the Welshman, was lately of Real Madrid, and – fallings-out with the club aside – had scored in the Champions League final for them. Giorgio Chiellini, the enthusiastic Italian warrior, had won four thousand trophies at Juventus and had, eleven months earlier, just been lifting the European Championship trophy with Italy.

Four years prior, Ibrahimovic had – with barely any training – strolled onto the field and scored the equalizer and the winner, for a team that desperately needed him and the star power that he provided.

In 2022, Bale and Chiellini… didn’t play that much? Chiellini dealt with injuries, making just nine starts. Bale was even less effective, starting only twice, and turning into the biggest-name second-half sub in the league.

He didn’t even see the field until extra time against Philadelphia, entering in the 97th minute for a gassed Carlos Vela.

LAFC didn’t win the Double because of their European imports. They won it because they got a tune out of Ilie, a free agent from Sporting Kansas City, and traded for Crepeau (from Vancouver) to shore up their disastrous goalkeeping, and pried Ryan Hollingshead out of FC Dallas and Kellyn Acosta out of the Colorado Rapids.

On the other side of the ball, Philadelphia had a bunch of guys who they’d developed through their second team, and a guy from Hungary, and another one from Norway. Oh, and one American by way of the German second division.

LAFC has some Colombian guys, and an Ecuadorian guy, and one from the French second division, none of them particularly expensive. They do have Vela, their one big star from Mexico.

Ever since David Beckham first landed in America as the very first Designated Player in MLS history, the die was cast: the biggest name, for the biggest amount of money, that the club could possibly afford. That was what it took to make a splash, to make a difference.

But now, you look around and you don’t see huge names making the same difference. Toronto missed the playoffs despite signing Lorenzo Insigne and Federico Bernardeschi in the middle of the year. Chicago got Xherdan Shaqiri, but still stinks. Inter Miami missed the playoffs even though they signed 167% of their allotted designated players.

Instead, you’ve got LAFC building a solid team from top to bottom. Seattle won the CONCACAF Champions League not by throwing money everywhere, but by building an excellent roster, acquiring talent through all sorts of avenues.

Frankly, Zlatan’s arrival in 2018 was exciting, but at the time things did feel a little bit hopeless for clubs that weren’t getting Ibrahimovices. Atlanta United was spending huge money on coaches and young, exciting players from South America. LAFC had Vela.

Philadelphia and LAFC’s outstanding seasons should give the rest of the league hope. Getting the right players, from inside the league and out, and developing young players through reserve teams – these are things that any team can do. It’s not about big names; it’s about the right players.

I had an enjoyable time writing about Minnesota United in 2022. I started the year writing overly-detailed posts about the Minnesota United preseason, but before the season began, I was invited to write for Sota Soccer, which was just then launching. I did some game coverage and a lot of match previews, but mostly I just wrote columns. Here are the five things I had the most fun writing all year:

March 2: Welcome to Soccer, Angry Twins Fans!: Remember when Opening Day was canceled? Anyway, the potential for a lost baseball season didn’t actually come to pass, as baseball ownership - having proved that they were serious about ruining things for no reason - pretty quickly agreed to a deal with the players, and the games went ahead with a slightly later start date. But for a few days, it looked like it might be the Summer of Soccer in America, with baseball determined to shoot itself in the foot.

July 11: Cameron Knowles and MNUFC2 are still building something: For me, this was pure fun, writing a magazine-style blog about a random MNUFC2 game. There’s a recap, there’s some info about who played well, but it’s not a game story. I like writing this kind of thing because the internet is the only place it could possibly be published.

July 22: Everton, MNUFC, and the misery of fandom. Usually what’s happening on the field is the most interesting thing, but when Everton came to St. Paul (and walked out 4-0 losers), it was hard not to write about the angry people on social media.

August 18: The Joy of Emmanuel Reynoso: Again, this was so fun to write, and I can’t imagine an outlet publishing it other than the internet. If I had to pick, I think this is my favorite column of the year.

September 2: Brent Kallman steps again to the fore: Brent Kallman returned to the starting lineup when Bakaye Dibassy, which gave me a chance to write about the Loons’ longest-serving player, their one local link in the starting eleven.

Minnesota United’s 2022 season came to a crashing end last night, with the Loons losing a penalty shootout to FC Dallas in the first round of the playoffs. Next season is a long time away, but still, it’s time to think about the offseason - and it starts with knowing who’ll be back next year.

Here’s a snapshot of the Loons’ roster situation for 2023. I’ve compiled this list from various sources, and will update if more information comes out.

UPDATES OCTOBER 24:

• Andy Greder of the Pioneer Press has an update on Wil Trapp’s contract situation.
• Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune clarified Romain Métanire’s situation.

Goalkeeper

Has a contract: Dayne St. Clair

Team has an option: Tyler Miller

The team almost certainly has an option: Fred Emmings

Out of contract: Eric Dick

Defender

Has a contract: Michael Boxall, Bakaye Dibassy (will begin season on IR), Brent Kallman, Kemar Lawrence, Alan Benítez, Devin Padelford

Team has an option: Oniel Fisher, Nabi Kibunguchy

The team probably has an option, but I can’t say for sure: DJ Taylor, Callum Montgomery

Status totally unclear Out of contract: Romain Métanire

Midfield

Has a contract: Hassani Dotson, Kervin Arriaga, Wil Trapp

Has Schrödinger’s Contract (it was reported his option would automatically pick up if certain criteria were met, but I’ve also been told that this is nonsense; team definitely has an option though): Wil Trapp

Loan ending, team has an option to buy: Joseph Rosales, Jonathan González

Team has an option: Jacori Hayes

Forward

Has a contract: Emanuel Reynoso, Franco Fragapane, Luis Amarilla, Bongokuhle Hlongwane, Patrick Weah, Mender García

Has a contract and maybe should be listed with the midfielders now: Robin Lod

Team has an option: Niko Hansen, Justin McMaster, Aziel Jackson, Abu Danladi, Tani Oluwaseyi

MLS is a pretty unbalanced league. Each team plays 26 games against its own conference, and just eight against the other conference - but the standings only show the overall picture. With that in mind, I’ve calculated the conference-only standings for MLS - and it’s got some interesting notes about what we might expect come playoff time.

Here are the standings. Conference record comes first, then overall. MLS tiebreakers are number of wins, then goal difference.

WESTERN

Some takeaways:

• LAFC had by far the best record of any team against the opposite conference, with 22 points in eight games. When you remove the games against the East, though, LAFC doesn’t look like the dominant all-conquering squad that the overall standings say they are.
• Austin drops all the way out of the playoffs in the conference-only standings, as do the Galaxy.
• Portland missed the playoffs because the Timbers managed only seven points against the East. In fact, all three Cascadia teams managed seven points or fewer in their cross-conference matchups.

EASTERN

Takeaways:

• Part of the reason for doing this was to find out which conference did better against the other this year. I’m here to report that the West won 40 games against the East, the East won 40 games against the West, and there were 32 draws. However, the East scored 157 goals to the West’s 156. Therefore, by a margin of one goal, the Eastern Conference is obviously the superior conference.
• Congratulations to Montréal, the Eastern Conference champions (in this alternate universe)!
• Poor Columbus. Not only did they choke away a playoff berth this year, but now we know that if it hadn’t been for their failures against the Western Conference, they still might have made the playoffs.
• D.C. United had the worst overall record and the worst intra-conference record this season, but San Jose had a worse inter-conference record. So there you go, D.C., that’s the silver lining.

At any rate, congratulations to your 2022 MLS Supporters’ Shield conference champions, Montréal and LAFC.

Minnesota United clinched its fourth playoff berth in four years on Sunday night, and I was at Allianz Field to try to capture the spirit of the thing for Sota Soccer.

The Loons are one of four teams to make the playoffs each of the past four seasons. Adrian Heath is one of two coaches to make the playoffs in each of the past four seasons. The Loons’ overall record - four appearances in their six MLS seasons - is tied for sixth in the league in playoff appearances in that span.

Is that enough stats to show that I think this is a pretty good accomplishment?

The Loons are collapsing, and the team’s effort went missing last week against San Jose. For Sota Soccer, I wrote about how it’s up to the players - nothing else - to get themselves out of this spiral.

I’m not ready yet to talk about the bigger implications of this weekend’s game, but I do know that if the Loons lose on Sunday, it would be awfully hard to argue against major changes with the team.