The first matchday of Major League Soccer’s 30th season kicked off with 13 matches on Saturday, Feb. 22, with Los Angeles Football Club playing an early game against Minnesota United at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles. LAFC reached halftime unscathed after a first half in which they were dominated by the Loons. Newly signed striker Jeremy Ebobisse would score the lone goal in the 78th minute for LAFC to give his new club the three points and keep their perfect record in season openers since their inaugural season in 2018.

The real excitement started later that night with six games kicking off in the 7:30 p.m. time slot. Possibly the biggest of the Saturday night games took place in Atlanta at Mercedes-Benz Stadium as Atlanta United hosted Club de Foot Montréal. Atlanta United is coming off of one of the biggest off-seasons in their history, in which they named Chris Henderson (formerly of Inter Miami) as the new chief soccer officer and sporting director, named Ronny Deila as the new head coach and signed several big-name players. The most expensive of those signings, striker Emmanuel Latte Lath from Middlesbrough of the English Football League Championship for $22 million plus add-ons, scored two goals in his debut for the Five Stripes in their opener against Montréal. However, both of those goals would get canceled out by l’Impact, first by Nathan Saliba in the 47th minute and then by Prince Owusu in the 71st minute. In the 83rd minute, Edwin “Shirra” Mosquera came on as a substitute for Saba Lobjanidze, and just two minutes later with his first touch of the game, Shirra scored a beautiful goal that went on to win the AT&T Goal of the Matchday award.

The defense from the Five Stripes was not at all where Head Coach Ronny Deila wants it to be, but I think that with the returns of right backs Brooks Lennon and Ronald Hernández from a dislocated shoulder and quadriceps injury, things will get much better. It is also worth noting that left back Pedro Amador is recovering from a hamstring injury, which will also help Atlanta United in a big way when he returns. But enough about the negatives in the defense for now.

I want to talk about this lethal attack that President and CEO Garth Lagerwey spent nearly $46 million (according to transfermarkt.us) on since the summer of 2023. That attack includes Georgian international left winger Saba Lobjanidze ($1.5 million plus), Russian international center attacking midfielder Aleksey Miranchuk (nearly $12.5 millions), Paraguayan international right winger and Atlanta United legend Miguel Almirón (nearly $10 million) who helped the Five Stripes win MLS Cup 2018 and last but not least Ivorian international striker and MLS record breaking incoming transfer fee man, Emmanuel Latte Lath ($22 million plus). If you watched the match on Saturday, you probably would think the front four had played a few games together. Wrong! The only minutes that Latte Lath had wearing Atlanta’s badge over his heart before this game was in a substitute appearance in a preseason match against FC Dallas. 

Did I mention that Saba, Miranchuk and Almirón had already been subbed off? And yet, there I was, sitting in front of the TV in the lobby of Purcell Hall, starstruck by the way the four of them just figured it out on the fly. So, all in all, if that is how the four of them looked playing in their first match together, just take a second and imagine what this attack will look like in just a few more weeks.

Also making his managerial debut for his new club was American soccer coaching legend Bruce Arena. Arena was signed by the San Jose Earthquakes in the off-season, and tasked with bringing the Quakes back to their glory days of the early 2000s. Well, if the season opener at PayPal Park in San Jose was anything to go by, then the MLS Cup 2001 and 2003 Champions will need to be paid attention to. The Earthquakes ran riot on RSL 4-0, including goals from American left back Jamar Ricketts and Brazilian center back Rodrigues. Though Rodrigues had one bad moment that nearly led to a goal for Salt Lake, the goal he scored was an absolutely beautiful header from a corner kick and should be a good piece to sure up Bruce Arena’s defense. San Jose also hopes that the signings of Cristian “Chicho” Arango in a trade from their first matchday opponents, Real Salt Lake and Josef Martínez from CF Montréal on a free transfer will deliver the goals for them as the dual-strikers.

To round out the weekend, MLS Season Pass on Apple TV started a new program called Sunday Night Soccer. The program includes a full hour of pregame buildup and post game analysis as well as a studio halftime show. The studio is headlined by host Kaylyn Kyle who will be joined by former MLS players Dax McCarty, Bradley Wright-Phillips and Sacha Kljestan as the analysts, with Andrew Wiebe live from the sidelines and MLS Season Pass’ No. 1 broadcast duo of Jake Zivin and Taylor Twellman. I have to say that after one week, it looks like it is going to be a big hit. The only two things we did not get, but I was hoping we would, was first and most importantly, a theme song by a big name artist. I can still hear my father telling me, my mom and my younger sister to be quiet during the final buildup to NBC’s Sunday Night Football. “We have to listen to Carrie!” he would say. Since the 2013 NFL Season, Carrie Underwood has been the singer of “Waiting All Day for Sunday Night,” a spinoff of Joan Jett & the Blackhearts’ “I Hate Myself for Loving You.” To say it has been a staple of many people’s Sunday nights would be a cruel understatement. The second thing, of less importance, is that I was kind of hoping for some different TV graphics (score and stat graphics to be exact) that were specific to Sunday Night Soccer. I suppose it is not a big deal since they just updated a lot of the graphics for all of the MLS Season Pass, but it still would have been cool.

Finally, we need to talk about the actual game that took place on Sunday Night Soccer. The defending MLS Cup Champions, LA Galaxy hosted the newest MLS expansion team San Diego FC (SDFC) for their first ever competitive match. Now instead of wasting time explaining all of the reasons you should want to hate this new club, I am going to just explain the facts of what happened in their first ever game, and why I think that they are a possible contender in the Western Conference. Their head coach is Mikey Varas, who spent a short time as the interim head coach of the U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT), but has never been the head coach of a senior team. The two biggest signings they have made so far are Mexican international left winger Hirving “Chucky” Lozano who they signed from PSV in the Netherlands for almost $12.5 million and Danish international right winger Anders Dreyer from Belgian club Anderlecht for close to $6 million. SDFC thoroughly outplayed the defending champs, and were rewarded for it. Chucky Lozano picked up the pieces of an LA turnover, and immediately squared the ball across the 18-yard box to Anders Dreyer for an easy finish in the 52nd minute to give San Diego their first ever competitive goal in club history. The goal that clinched the three points for Chrome and Azul was a beautiful team goal that started in the San Diego half with a clearance from former LAFC man Tomás Ángel. The clearance fell to Anders Dreyer, who played a gorgeous cross-field ball back to Ángel, who dribbled toward goal and almost effortlessly split the two LA defenders in front of him with a near impossible ball to back to Dreyer who finished with a finish off the bar in front of the G’s supporters section.

Look, I know that it is still very early days for this new club. I know that if you are an “MLS Sicko” like I am, you probably have some strong opinions about how this club came to be, amongst many other things. But as I sat in my Purcell Hall dorm room after the final whistle blew, I kept thinking about the beautiful soccer that Mikey Varas had his men play. They did not back as many buses into their 18-yard box as they could find and just waited to hit LA on the counterattack. They did not try to just keep control of the game with meaningless possession. No, this was swashbuckling passionate beautiful on-the-front-foot soccer that would make even my soccer-hating father get out of his seat in excitement. Again, I could end up being very wrong. This could have just been a blip. San Diego could end up finishing near the bottom of the Western Conference, but for now, I am gonna ride this high, just like their fans are.