MLS Week 21: Chicago wins at home, Inter Miami comes back

Week 21 of the 2022 Major League Soccer season started with Montreal beating Toronto FC 1-0 at home. A 69th minute own-goal was the difference, with Montreal playing a man down from the 81st with a red card to Kamal Miller.

Philadelphia came back to beat New England 2-1 at Subaru Park. Gustavo Bou scored for the Revolution in the 61st. The Union’s Mikkel Uhre equalized in the 75th and Daniel Gazdag converted a 79th minute penalty.

“It’s a hard loss, because I think we really worked hard for about 70 minutes,” New England defender Jon Bell said. “Yeah, this is a tough loss. I think it’s the second time now we’ve played against, probably, the two best teams in the league and we held our own for about 70, 60 minutes, and close to the end we can’t finish and get the job done. It’s something we’ve got to work on ourselves, mentally.”

Chicago shutout Seattle 1-0 at Soldier Field. Rafael Czichos scored in the 23rd and Gaga Slonina made two saves to keep the clean sheet.

“You know, we had to be very good defensively,” Chicago coach Ezra Hendrickson said. “How we defend as a team, it’s a big part of what we do. The guys up front, they have to put into work because of how we defend; what they do depends a lot on how well the guys in the back do, because everything is predictable for the guys in the back. When the guys up top do their jobs, the guys in the back know where to be, know their positioning and everything. And that makes it easy for us as a team to keep teams from breaking us down.”

Inter Miami came back to beat Charlotte 3-2 at home. Yordy Reyna put Charlotte up in the opening minute, doubling the lead in the 42nd. Inter’s Robert Taylor pulled a goal back in the 59th and Gonzalo Higuain scored in the 72nd. Emerson Hyndman scored Inter’s winner three minutes into stoppage time.

“I thought it was the best performance of the season,” Inter Miami coach Phil Neville said. “I said after training on Thursday, the players looked unbelievable the last two days. I thought we performed brilliantly in the game today. We played with determination.”

Minnesota shutout DC United 2-0 at home. Emmanuel Reynoso scored in the 13th and 50th with DC finishing without a shot on goal.

“I thought after about 25-30 minutes in the first-half, we started to settle a little bit and start to drop a little bit too early and that gave them a little bit of possession,” Minnesota coach Adrian Heath said. “Probably a little bit more than we would have liked, but at no stage did I think they were threatening with that possession. Sometimes you let them have that in them areas and then you try your counter attack and I thought our counter attack was very very good at times.”

Colorado shutout the Galaxy 2-0 at home. Diego Rubio opened the scoring for the Rapids in the 20th minute with Gyasi Zardes doubling the lead in the 75th. Rapids goalkeeper William Yarbrough made two saves to keep the clean sheet.

“Giving up the goals and giving up the first goal in nine of our last 12 is obviously not a recipe for success,” Galaxy midfielder Sacha Kljestan said. “I think we have a very good record when we score the first goal and so that should be a priority for us. I think we are all disappointed with the performance tonight because tonight’s performance is, I don’t think a real representation of who we are as a team. That was a, I think a pretty bad performance, we can all put our hands up and say that – me, first and foremost. So yeah, we got some work to do.”

Dallas and Austin drew 1-1 at Toyota Stadium to finish off the Saturday schedule. Paul Arriola scored for Dallas in the 42nd with Diego Fagundez equalizing for Austin in the 79th minute.

On Sunday, Atlanta United and Orlando City drew 1-1 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Mauricio Pereyra put Orlando up in the 10th with Juan Jose Purata equalizing for United in the 71st minute.

“I think we feel good about our performance but we want to win,” Atlanta defender Aiden McFadden said. “There were definitely chances, we could have finished that game off and we wanted to, but it was a good team performance and it’s something to build on for sure.”

NYCFC beat the Red Bulls 1-0 on the road with Valentin Castellanos scoring in the 69th minute. NYCFC goalkeeper Sean Johnson made nine saves to keep the clean sheet.

“We have a mentality that we want to play, we want to dominate the ball, we want to keep possession, and we want to entertain the crowd with attacking football,” NYCFC coach Nick Cushing said.

Columbus won 2-0 at home over FC Cincinnati. Cucho Hernandez opened the scoring in the 16th and Lucas Zelerayan doubled the lead from the penalty spot in the 86th. Crew goalkeeper Eloy Room made two saves to keep the clean sheet.

LAFC beat Nashville 2-1 at GEODIS Park. LAFC took the lead from a 27th minute Cristian Arango goal with Nashville’s Hany Mukhtar equalizing from the penalty spot in the 43rd. Jose Cifuentes scored for LAFC in the 46th.

Real Salt Lake took three points at home with a 3-0 win over Sporting Kansas City. Sergio Cordova scored for RSL in the 50th. Sporting went a man down in the 62nd when Roger Espinoza saw red. Real Salt Lake’s Pablo Ruiz scored in the 64th and Jefferson Savarino finished off the goals in the 71st. Zac MacMath kept the clean sheet with one save.

Houston came back to beat San Jose 2-1 at Avaya Stadium. Jackson Yueill scored for the Earthquakes in the 53rd. Houston’s Sebastian Ferreira equalized in the 71st and Thorleifur Ulfarsson scored in the 76th minute.

Week 21 finished at Providence Park with Portland and Vancouver drawing 1-1. Brian White put Vancouver up in the 32nd with Portland’s Felipe More equalizing from the penalty spot in the 82nd minute.

Photo by Inter Miami