As a little holiday treat in between new signings – I hope you’ve all got notifications for Tom Bogert’s tweets turned on – I decided to sit down and hand out my grades for 2025.
And I’m talking about the whole season here, not just their MLS performance. We’re talking Concacaf Champions Cup, FIFA Club World Cup, Leagues Cup and both the US Open Cup and Canadian Championship. All of it matters.
I’m also factoring in both last winter’s transfer window and what they did this summer, as well as how well they did promoting new and younger players into bigger roles.
What I’m not taking into consideration are signings, departures and SuperDraft picks that have happened since MLS Cup. Those will factor into next year’s version of this column.
And finally, I’m not handing out letter grades here. I’m instead going to go with “Exceeded Expectations,” “Met Expectations” and “Below Expectations.”
Reverse alphabetical order, because I want to start with something fun:
Well, let’s see: they stomped Miami en route to an appearance in the Concacaf Champions Cup final, set a single-season club points record, won their fourth straight Canadian Championship, and then made it all the way to the MLS Cup final – where, this time around, Miami got some revenge (though there was definitely no stomping).
They developed a bunch of academy players along the way, as well as their first-round SuperDraft pick, all of whom were teenagers to start the season. Then they hit it out of the park with mid-career guys like Sebastian Berhalter and Tristan Blackmon, and come summer they came out of nowhere to sign German legend Thomas Müller… who instantly integrated into the team and elevated everything everybody was doing in Jesper Sørensen’s aesthetically pleasing game model.
If, before a ball was first kicked in last year’s preseason, you’d asked me to simulate the 2025 Whitecaps season 1,000 times, I wouldn’t once have come up with something as great as what actually happened. Save for one crushingly disappointing night in Mexico City against Cruz Azul, they were pure brilliance.
Grade: Exceeded Expectations++
Sporting director Lutz Pfannenstiel’s decision to bring in Olof Mellberg as head coach this time last year didn’t exactly pan out, and that is a significant part of the reason why he is now ex-sporting director Lutz Pfannenstiel. Mellberg’s conservative approach undid everything that had worked under John Hackworth, who’d had the interim job the previous half-season. Meanwhile, the guy Hackworth replaced, Bradley Carnell, went on to win Sigi Schmid MLS Coach of the Year in Philly.
As with Toronto, the best thing to come out of 2025 was that it all reached a point where everyone realized a reset was needed. For the Reds that meant a roster overhaul, while for St. Louis it seems more pointed towards a cultural overhaul. New sporting director Corey Wray and his hand-picked head coach Yoann Damet both value ball-dominant, front-foot soccer, and I think that’ll play well with a St. Louis crowd that’s been starved for exactly that since the team’s inception.
Grade: Below Expectations, but real reason for optimism (though patience will be necessary)
I really love the way Sounders general manager/chief soccer officer Craig Waibel approaches talent acquisition and roster building. He’s not perfectly agnostic – nobody is – but both he and head coach Brian Schmetzer clearly trust guys coming through MLS NEXT Pro or USL just as much as they trust guys who come in with multi-million-dollar price tags (or via clever trade packages, a la the Jesús Ferreira heist last winter). That’s created an absurd amount of depth and allowed the team to keep the floor high even when the fixtures pile up.
What I didn’t expect was the ceiling to be raised so much as well. It started with their remarkable Club World Cup performance, and kept going right through their massive 3-0 win over Lionel Messi & Friends in the Leagues Cup final. That three-month stretch was the best soccer I saw anybody in MLS play this year, and the Sounders were doing it against the likes of Botafogo, Atlético Madrid and Cruz Azul in addition to the regular slate of MLS opponents.
Add in the fact that they kept the Tacoma conveyor belt going (welcome to the first team, Osaze De Rosario and Snyder Brunell), and it’s hard to have asked for much more from the past year.
Grade: Exceeded Expectations
I’ll put numbers to it: The Quakes went from the Wooden Spoon – 21 points, with a -37 goal differential – to the fringes of the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs with 41 points with a -3 goal differential. The underlying stats were in line with that, as they went from 14th in the West in 2024 with a -12.8 xGD to fifth in the West at +6.4.
Along the way, they developed some very good (none great, I don’t think, but we’ll see) young players, while some veterans delivered at something close to their respective peak performance.
Truth is, I expected this. Bruce Arena’s been doing it in MLS for 30 years; the man knows how to win.
What I didn’t expect was for the goalkeeping situation to fall apart. All the underlying numbers say San Jose had the worst goalkeeping in the West, and that certainly matched the eye test. If they’d had just average shot-stopping in net, they’d have made the playoffs and finally gotten that first postseason home game at PayPal Park.
Alas. There’s always next year.
They won the West, set the new single-season points total for expansion teams, and then canonized it by making a very credible run to the Western Conference Final before getting a valuable lesson from Vancouver.
They developed more young players than anybody else in the league, seemingly stuffing multiple years of developing into guys like Manu Duah and Luca Bombino, each of whom seems destined for multi-million-dollar transfers to ambitious European clubs. And the vast majority of sporting director/general manager Tyler Heaps’ signings were hits, none more so than winger Anders Dreyer. He’d have been the Landon Donovan MLS MVP in almost any other year; alas, he plays in the Messi era, so he’s playing for second place (and got Newcomer of the Year).
I’m going to pile the game model on top of the above. Nobody valued the ball more than San Diego, and that fits well in a league where, over the past few years, we’ve seen a strong and growing correlation between possession and points per game.
Could they have been more ambitious in the summer window? Yes, definitely. But even so, they’re set up as well as almost anyone in the league going forward.
Grade: Exceeded Expectations++
They were coming off a record 59-point regular season in 2024, remember. Yes, they had sold Andrés Gómez and Chicho Arango was next out the door, but there was still real optimism in the group.
It didn’t pan out. Head coach Pablo Mastroeni and his squad deserve credit for digging in and making the push that got them back into the postseason this autumn, but it was a very quick trip. Which matched both their CCC and Leagues Cup showings.
The new signings were almost all disappointing (thank God for Rafael Cabral in goal), none of the holdovers took significant steps forward, and the midfield structure that had worked so well in 2024 seemed to disappear.
Grade: Below Expectations. I don’t think anybody’s confident heading into next year.
The 2024 version of the Timbers was defined by their outrageously productive Designated Players and the rest of the team’s inability to deliver anything like stability around them.
Well, the most productive of those DPs (Evander) was gone by the start of the year, sent to FC Cincinnati in an MLS-record trade, and soon thereafter another (Jonathan Rodríguez) was injured for the season. But this time around – at least for half the year, anyway – the rest of the guys around them picked up (most of) the slack. They fought hard and didn’t give away many cheap goals, and when an attacker or two got hot, they’d actually string some wins together.
But even when things were good the underlying numbers were screaming “regression!!!” and, at almost exactly the midway point, that regression hit: Portland won just three of their final 17 games in league play, despite making some very ambitious moves in the summer window.
In the end, they went a round further in the playoffs and then put up a gutsy fight against a far superior San Diego side. But they had a marginally worse regular-season record and dangerously bad underlying numbers. So even though I like the roster construction and overall philosophy more than previous iterations, I’m worried it won’t translate.
Grade: Met Expectations. Barely.
Just a massively successful season in so many ways. They set a club record for points, set a club record for an outbound transfer with the sale of Tani Oluwaseyi to Villarreal, and set the world record for long throw-ins. Michael Boxall, hucker of said long throw-ins, got my vote for Defender of the Year. Dayne St. Clair, meanwhile, got my vote for Goalkeeper of the Year and actually won it.
They then punctuated all of that by eliminating the Sounders in Round One of the playoffs despite being the better team for about two of the 270 minutes comprising that Best-of-3 Series. Seattle fans are still, collectively, past the brink of madness ‘cause of that one.
There was also some young player development on display, which is not something Minnesota have done much of in their time as an MLS club. Nobody’s going to confuse them for San Diego or Philly here, but it does bode well for their future, especially if they can keep making mid-season additions like Nectarios Triantis.
Grade: Exceeded Expectations. And obviously nothing has happened since the end of the season that could possibly sour the taste of such a landmark year, or give cause to question whether they’ll be able to maintain this level into 2026 and beyond.
Season 1: They played, from mid-February to the end of May, 20 games across all competitions and won just once. Their losses included a 7-0 defeat at Red Bull New York in what was a rematch of MLS Cup 2024, which came one week after a 1-0 defeat at Sporting Kansas City in which they held – do you remember this? Do you? I do! – Sporting TO ZERO SHOTS.
Not “zero shots on goal.” ZERO SHOTS!! The Galaxy lost a game in which the other team did not record a shot!!
That version of the Galaxy is maybe the most cursed team in MLS history.
Season 2: From May 31 onwards, they went 11W-8L-6D across all competitions, including a third-place finish in Leagues Cup that earned them a berth in the 2026 Concacaf Champions Cup. They weren’t great, but they were pretty good, and head coach Greg Vanney finally showed some willingness to develop down-roster players, who almost uniformly outperformed the holdover veterans who’d been so culpable for the miserable first half of the year.
General manager Will Kuntz also did some nice work in selling homegrown winger Jonathan Pérez for up to $1.8 million to Nashville SC, which means the Galaxy actually have some General Allocation Money (GAM) in the coffers. Between that and, hopefully, the return of Riqui Puig, 2025 felt like a useful gap year.
Still, though, Galaxy fans are edgy these days. And I get it, because those first 20 games… woof.
Grade: Below Expectations
Like their neighbors down the 110, 2025 was a tale of two seasons.
Season 1 was the Olivier Giroud Era – remember that?? – during which now-former head coach Steve Cherundolo tried in vain to fit the legendary French striker into the lineup. The other weird part of that time period was the in-and-out nature of the third DP on the roster, which at one time included Turkish international Cengiz Ünder and then, when he was sent packing, in came (for a very brief spell) Javairô Dilrosun.
It was a mess. But the rest of LAFC’s roster was so well-constructed that they thrived anyway, and in fact registered one of the biggest wins of any team in MLS history by beating Club América in a qualifier to get into the Club World Cup proper, before showing quite well at the tournament itself.
After a brief interregnum, Season 2 began with the arrival of Son Heung-Min in early August. He and Denis Bouanga created instant chemistry and a ton of goals, while co-president and general manager John Thorrington once again scrambled extremely well to upgrade the midfield and backline in the summer window.
By the end of the year, they were very clearly one of the three best teams in the league, and probably should’ve beaten Vancouver in the West Semis in what was one of the very best games in MLS history.
In the end, no trophies kind of means this season was probably below expectations. But to me, that win over Club América was as big as any final, and I liked the way the game model evolved (watch that second half against the ‘Caps again), so I’m giving them passing marks.
They went big last offseason in purchasing a DP No. 10 (Manu García) from outside the league and splashing out on Dejan Joveljić, who became their DP No. 9, from the Galaxy in the first cash-for-player trade in MLS history.
It didn’t work. Legendary manager/sporting director Peter Vermes was out before spring was over, and it didn’t get any better under now-departed interim coach Kerry Zavagnin. Sporting spent the entire year down at the bottom of the West and only narrowly missed out on the Wooden Spoon.
The good news is they played a lot of young guys and cleared a lot of cap space for new president of soccer operations and general manager David Lee – who was hired in September – to work with. How he does with that will go a long way towards determining their 2026 grade.
Grade: Below Expectations
Things were always going to be tough for the Dynamo, who sold Coco Carrasquilla and saw Héctor Herrera depart almost immediately after being eliminated in the 2024 playoffs, and then got an offer they couldn’t refuse for Micael just before the season began. In between, they also parted ways with long-time goalkeeper Steve Clark (who, in my opinion, was underrated), which… yeah, that’s most of the team’s spine.
It went predictably, as they dropped from 54 points in 2024 to 37 in 2025. Houston had moments where I believed, and I really spent a long time trying to talk myself into them. But their backline was bad, the DPs didn’t deliver, their only reliable attacker was Jack McGlynn, and the goalkeeper situation was at the bottom of the league.
2025 left me feeling like this team is directionless. The front office has a ton of work to do.
Grade: Below Expectations
Dallas ended up in roughly the spot I expected them to: a mid-table West team that had a brief postseason cameo, but not enough quality to be a real threat to the top teams.
They just did it in a way I didn’t expect. What I’d thought would happen is that Lucho Acosta and Petar Musa would be instantly on the same page – genius playmaking No. 10 and natural goalscoring No. 9, right? – and that would patch over the rest of the roster’s shortcomings.
But Lucho pouted his way out of Dallas (and probably out of MLS for good) after a miserable half-season. And that’s when los Toros Tejanos started to win. Or, at least, to not lose.
It wasn’t the prettiest soccer in the world, but head coach Eric Quill built a functional attack around Musa and got defensive commitment from all over the field, while rediscovering Dallas’s homegrown pipeline.
It certainly felt like a step forward from a cultural point of view, one that leaves me fairly confident they’ll climb a few spots in the standings next year.
Except for goalkeeper Zack Steffen, who was remarkable – seriously, if he’d been able to stay healthy all year, he probably would’ve won Goalkeeper of the Year – the Rapids regressed across the board. That includes both boxscore and underlying numbers, as well as (most) individual performances.
There were two particularly frustrating things, I think:
- They still haven’t come close to replacing Moïse Bombito, who was sold in the summer of 2024.
- Now-former head coach Chris Armas was reluctant to develop any of the young wingers the team has spent so many resources on.
The good news is that homegrown No. 9 Darren Yapi took a big step forward, and that after selling Djordje Mihailovic they went out and got aggressive, bringing in Paxten Aaronson as the new DP No. 10.
Still, Colorado never looked like a playoff team (despite almost sneaking in) in 2025 after a promising 2024.
Grade: Below Expectations
They spent a huge amount on attackers who I was worried wouldn’t quite fit, and… they didn’t quite fit. And I was worried they wouldn’t have enough midfield creativity, and… they didn’t have quite enough midfield creativity.
But it was a good season anyway for the Verde & Black, as they made their first-ever tournament final (losing the US Open Cup to Nashville in heartbreaking fashion), punched their playoff ticket and got a breakout campaign from young Owen Wolff.
I think if you’d offered that to head coach Nico Estévez, who was appointed before last season, he’d have taken it. And so would the fanbase, and I don’t think either would have been wrong to have done so.
But the final three months of the season… they went just 4W-8L-3D across all competitions as their underlying numbers fell off, and then got bounced by LAFC in the playoffs. The gap was sizable, and sporting director/chief soccer officer Rodolfo Borrell’s hit rate on imports has been mixed.
How do they narrow it, then? If spending $30 million on attackers and getting an A+ outcome from a developing homegrown doesn’t help reel in the league’s best, what does?
Grade: Exceeded Expectations for their outcomes here, but I’m worried it doesn’t portend further growth.
