LAFC outduel Miami, RBNY’s youth movement & more from Matchday 1

Exactly 10 weeks after last year’s championship game in Fort Lauderdale, MLS returned with a characteristically breathless 2026 opening weekend, and we’re here to round it all up.

We got treated to 46 goals this weekend, averaging 3.07 per game and a shade more than the 3.0-per-game average from the 2025 season. Hopefully, that’s a promising sign of the fireworks to come.

Let’s make sense of Matchday 1, ranging from a clash of titans to a club reset overseen by a U.S. Soccer legend.

As you may have noticed, Saturday’s glamor fixture was inevitably reigning MLS Cup presented by Audi champions Inter Miami’s visit to LAFC, who hosted this one at the venerable Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, drawing a festive opening-day record crowd of 75,673, the second-largest gate in league history, to witness an emphatic 3-0 home win.

It reminded us that Lionel Messi and Son Heung-Min carry a global reach like few others, and also underlined A) why LAFC are so widely rated as MLS Cup favorites, and B) why Miami have a tougher road to defending their trophy than most realize.

Thanks to Son and Denis Bouanga, LAFC remain deadly in transition – they needed only 34.5% of possession here to create six big chances, compared to just one for Miami – and protect their penalty box well when they’re focused and disciplined, as was certainly the case here when Messi tried his trademark pass-and-move brilliance in the final third.

“The way we defended the box was excellent,” said first-year head coach Marc Dos Santos, praising his side’s ability to “suffer together” against the ball. “The way we followed runners in the box, how we moved our feet around the 18, and how we didn’t allow their one-twos to get through us was exceptional. For me, that was the best part of our team today.”

Messi has a famously photographic memory of any perceived slights, so I can’t help but suspect he made note of Dos Santos’ ready acknowledgment of his off night – “I don’t know if he took a pill before the match or what happened,” said MDS of the GOAT – for future vengeance purposes.

Still, Miami’s megastar will have to be prepared for more tactics like LAFC’s, particularly now that he’s without his old friends Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba and their tempo-setting, mind-reading genius.

Only three times in MLS history has a team won back-to-back titles, and it hasn’t happened since the LA Galaxy accomplished that feat in 2011 and 2012.

Matchday 1’s expected-goals champions were not LAFC but Red Bull New York, who flew down to Florida and carved up sleepy Orlando City – to the tune of 4.5 xG – in a manner the 2-1 final scoreline doesn’t remotely do justice to.

Debutant head coach Michael Bradley did this while fielding a historically young lineup: His starting XI was the first in MLS history to feature three players aged 17 or younger. Two of them, Julian Hall and Adri Mehmeti were the best players on the pitch, particularly in the Red Bulls’ rampant first half, where winger Cade Cowell – at age 22 a veteran of this squad, apparently – made Orlando left back Adrián Marin look like a traffic cone with an assist, five chances created, 4/6 dribbles completed and some agonizing near-misses.

“I was really proud of the way they played, really proud of the way they competed,” said a characteristically measured Bradley afterwards, praising his baby Bulls while also acknowledging their imprecise finishing made the second half more stressful than it needed to be.

“We try to play our football. We try to go after the other team. We try to put the game on our terms.”

Not many pundits have been expecting much from RBNY this season; they certainly have our full attention now.

No one got a sweeter dose of revenge this weekend than Tai Baribo, and he didn’t even have to wait for it to get cold.

The Israeli striker led the Philadelphia Union in goals as they won the 2025 MLS Supporters’ Shield. But with the two sides unable to agree on a new and bigger contract, and D.C. United eager to make him the capstone of their rebuild under head coach René Weiler, he moved south down I-95 in a $4 million-plus transfer over the winter.

Maybe it was kismet that the two clubs would face off on opening day. Baribo was certainly ready, stroking home the game’s only goal, clanging a shot off the post and seeing another strike waved off by a tight offside decision.

Was it really surprising that he’d celebrate against his old team? Not from where I’m standing.

United’s 1-0 victory was fully deserved, and pretty stunning given how badly the Union have dominated them in recent years: This was D.C’s first win over Philly since 2021, a stretch that’s featured some lopsided scorelines like 4-0, 7-0 and a couple of 6-0s. The biggest shock of all: With their tenacity, physicality and constant menace on the counterattack, United comprehensively out-Unioned the Union.

One note of caution. Even with a straight red card to DOOP newcomer Ezekiel Alladoh on the hour mark, the Black-and-Red had to hang on until the very end, because they struggled to manage the match’s tempo, allowing 10-man Philly to take seven shots and earn four corner kicks after Alladoh’s exit. I’m curious to see Weiler’s approach in March, when his team visits Austin, Chicago and Atlanta, and host Miami in Baltimore, a special occasion at NFL venue M&T Bank Stadium.

With the 2026 FIFA World Cup looming this summer, a long list of MLSers aim to impress their national-team coaches with strong starts to the new season. A few prominent winners in that department…

“He played at a very, very high level tonight, getting so many plays right,” said Cincy boss Pat Noonan. “You’re talking about one of the fastest attackers in the league with Latte Lath, he’s a handful … some of those were just controlled moments that you have to anticipate plays and get your footwork and your timing right, because you can’t miss a step against an attacker like that. He was outstanding, a couple of his blocks, the way he defended in front of goal.”

Also of note in that one: FCC lost star playmaker Evander to a hamstring injury just 13 minutes in, yet the drop-off was less than expected due to a solid outing from homegrown attacker Dado Valenzuela. That said, the kid would have to ball out of his mind if Cincy are to keep pace with Tigres UANL next month, if and when they advance (as is expected) to meet the LIGA MX giants in the Concacaf Champions Cup Round of 16.

Jack McGlynn was key in Houston Dynamo FC’s 2-1 comeback win over the Chicago Fire, pinging a gorgeous through ball into Guilherme’s path for the first of the new Brazilian Designated Player’s two goals.

It was just the kind of visionary distribution that makes the kid from Queens special, and more of that will give him a chance to sweep into Mauricio Pochettino’s USMNT squad come summer. With more talent around him this season, it also makes the Dynamo an intriguing proposition.

With Croatia’s stacked player pool, Petar Musa faces a tough task to distinguish himself.

Yet the FC Dallas spearhead did all he could in the North Texans’ roller-coaster 3-2 victory over Toronto FC, bagging a brace and doing all the little things that make him MLS’s top No. 9 in the eyes of many: winning aerial duels, combining with his strike partner Logan Farrington and turning in an honest defensive shift.

Most menacing of all is the way Musa loitered with malicious intent before becoming the fox in the box FCD needed for his clutch late winner.

St. Louis’s Marcel Hartel earned the distinction of scoring MLS 2026’s first goal, and a pretty one it was, lit up by a clever angled pass from Simon Becher.

While Charlotte FC’s equalizer in the 1-1 draw may leave CITY fans feeling sour, new coach Yoann Damet’s first game offered ample reason for optimism.

They directed 11 shots on target to Charlotte’s three and more than doubled their visitors’ xG total, flashing some of the same beguiling concepts as the Columbus Crew did so successfully under Wilfried Nancy, whom Damet worked with in Montréal and Columbus, just with a bit more directness.

Speaking of the Crew, they got sucked into a wild one out in the Rose City, and only have themselves to blame for letting points slip away. Most egregious, I think, was the ill-advised Dylan Chambost turnover in midfield that led directly to Portland’s tide-turning second goal, the type of error recently-retired Crew icon Darlington Nagbe almost never committed.

Timbers head coach Phil Neville asserted that “we’ve been a chaotic team all preseason, and that’s when we’re at our best” after their wild 3-2 triumph, a quote I suspect we’ll return to later in the year.

Meanwhile, new Crew boss Henrik Rydström pronounced himself “really disappointed… because I think we hid. When we had the ball, players were like, ‘I don’t show myself.’”

Down in Tennessee, another team in gold did just the opposite.

Nashville SC’s fluid 4-1 rout of the New England Revolution affirmed what an explosive effect Cristian Espinoza’s service could have on their Sam Surridge-Hany Mukhtar front line, while also pumping the brakes on the gathering hype around New England’s offseason overhaul (though their defense was missing several key pieces, we should note). 

As it stands, Surridge’s two goals in 82 minutes make him a very early Golden Boot presented by Audi leader.

San Diego’s dazzling 5-0 victory over CF Montréal adds to the nagging suspicion that we’re all still sleeping on just how effective the 2025 expansion side’s game model really is. And with five more road games before Montréal can return to Stade Saputo due to winter weather (April 11, to be specific), there’s work to do for Marco Donadel & Co.

Also, Miami loanee Tomás Avilés’ sending-off in his Montréal debut marked his fifth red card in just 64 career MLS regular-season appearances. At 0.078 red cards per game, the 22-year-old is on pace to smash the all-time MLS record for ejections, held by Sporting Kansas City alum Roger Espinoza, who saw red 16 times in 338 matches for an average of 0.047 per game.

Seattle wrapped Matchday 1 with a methodical 2-0 win over Colorado, a bruising, disjointed affair thanks to myriad stoppages, including injuries to Jordan Morris (just eight minutes in) and Hassani Dotson in first-half stoppage time.

Though it sounds like Morris’ latest frustrating setback isn’t as serious as feared, that’s a costly result for the Rave Green, who wade into Concacaf Champions Cup action next month.

Then again, it’s also a vivid reminder of why they’ve prioritized depth over star power in recent seasons. The Sounders retain the highest floor in the league thanks to guys like Cristian Roldan, Albert Rusnák and the effervescent local kid Paul Rothrock, the star of the night with 1g/1a.