For the past few weeks, we’ve focused a lot on Premier League soccer, and that’s great, but there’s way more soccer in the world. The roots of soccer in the United States are relatively unknown, but most historians can agree that the Oneida Football Club was the first football team to come to the United States. The earliest recorded game of soccer in the United States was played on October 11, 1866, in Waukesha, Wisconsin under the 1863 London Football Association laws. (Source: Wikipedia)

That’s all to say, soccer has been around for a bit, so I think it’s time we switch this blog’s focus to soccer in the United States, particularly the MLS (Major League Soccer). I’m not sure if we’ll maintain that focus on US soccer, so don’t be surprised if I do any of the following in the future A.) revert to the original topic of this blog B.) Only focus on MLS soccer C.) Alternate back and forth between MLS & Premier League.

MLS doesn’t use the same conventions as the Premier League, so there aren’t any match days. If you were to search MLS on google, a schedule would appear that’s segmented based on dates not Matchdays, which is an important distinction when following both leagues.

With that said, I’ll employ the same format that I used in the last blog post where I provide the scores of a few of the matches from the last gameday and then provide some analysis on one or two of my favorite games from the week.

Results

Philadelphia Union 1 – NYC 1

LA Galaxy 3 – Minnesota 3

D.C. United 3 – Toronto 1

New England Revolution 0 – Inter Miami 1

Real Salt Lake 1 – Sporting Kansas City 0

FC Dallas 1 – San Jose 1

NY Red Bulls 1 – Nashville 1

Atlanta United 2 – Cincinnati 1

Philadelphia Union v. New York City FC

I’m starting off with this match because it’s near and dear to my heart. Being from PA, Philadelphia Union was one of the soccer teams that I watched religiously. I also had the opportunity to train with their academy teams, so it was (and still is) exciting to hear news about the team.

Similarly, NYCFC has an incredibly unique style of play, so I’d watch their games to learn more about the sport. I distinctly remember spending my lunches with my phone propped up and NYCFC games playing through YouTube, so as I said, both teams are near and dear to my heart.

The game started with pace, as Philadelphia Union’s Kacper Przybylko put a goal in the back of NYCFC’s net at 26 minutes. His goal was met with immediate petition, as the NYCFC players believed Przybylko was in an offsides position. With the rise of technologies like VAR, it was easy to conclude that Przybylko was not in fact offsides. For context, VAR stands for Video Assistant Referee; it’s essentially a means of referees playing back plays to see what may have occurred.

In the 53^rd minute, Taty Castellanos, put one back in the Union’s net, tying the game up at one-one. Overall, it was a great game, and there’s more to come in the next weeks.

Alrighty. I’m going to experiment with a bit of a new blog post structure. In the last few posts, I’ve really been focused on a few matches, rather than the matchday. Consequently, there’s a lot of information that I could be giving, but I haven’t been. This week, we’ll start off with the scores of the matchday and shed some light on a few, particularly surprising and/or important matchups.

Scores:

Southampton v Aston Villa: 1-2                Arsenal v Watford: 1-0

Brighton v Newcastle: 2-1                           Everton v. Spurs: 0-0

Crystal Palace v. Wolves:  2-0                    Leeds v. Leicester: 1-1

Chelsea v. Burnley: 1-1                                  West Ham v. Liverpool: 3-2

Man Utd v. Man City: 0-2                            Bretford v. Norwich: 1-2

I’ve bolded the matches that I’d like to focus on in today’s blog post starting with Manchester United v. Manchester City.

Manchester United v. Manchester City

Manchester United started the match terribly. There’s really not much more to say there. Seven minutes into the match, Joao Cancelo’s (Man City) low cross was converted into an own goal as one of Manchester United’s defenders raced back to clear the ball. As the game progressed, it was clear that Manchester United was struggling. Not to delve too deep into the statistics, but oftentimes, you can tell who will win a soccer game based on possession, and in this game, the possession was seriously one-sided.

As the first half came to a close, Man City was able to put another goal in the back of the net making it 2-0 going into the second half. Despite the changes made to the personnel on the field and tactically, Manchester United could not pull through, and the game ended in a 2-0 win for Manchester United.

Following the match, manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was under intense pressure, as it was said that he was at risk of losing his job. He was quoted to have said, “Some praise has to go to them but we were not at our level. Standards need to be raised, We need to be on the front foot. I can’t look at myself and say this is the way I want Man Utd to play, I have good quiet communication all the time with the club. I want the best for Manchester United. As long as I’m here, I want to do what I can do to improve this.”

Only the coming games will tell if Solskajer will be able to retain his job.

In other news, next week’s matchups should be very interesting, especially given what they mean for standings. Four teams have changed their managers, so the upcoming matches will be used as assessments of the managers’ ability to successfully direct the respective teams.

Matchups to look forward to:

Liverpool v. Arsenal

Man Utd v. Watford

Leicester v. Chelsea

More to come next week!