One of the hardest things about covering MLS is that every week is the same. Weird shit happens but it’s not weird enough to make things interesting. Just weird enough so that you can’t build coherent narratives around the action and results. There are weeks where this league feels like if a strip mall were given legs and made to play soccer.

Anyway some stuff happened this weekend. If you want entertainment value I’d recommend watching the most important sporting contest of our generation, held on Saturday.

Toronto FC 3-0 Philadelphia Union

There’s this thing going around in Fire fan circles about how the club never replaced David Accam, to the team’s detriment. I’m not sure that’s an accurate characterization. When people say the Fire never replaced David Accam, they really mean 2017 David Accam. But we were going to lose him anyway. If we didn’t sell him to Philadelphia, we just would’ve ended up with 2018 David Accam.

2018 David Accam is not good at the soccers.

Maybe you could pin Jim Curtin’s decision to pull Accam around the hour mark to tired legs or some locker room tension or whatever. But pulling your $1m star attacker with 30 minutes to go while a goal down doesn’t leave a lot of room for ambiguity. Accam had zero touches in the box against Toronto. People expected him to lift Philly up and instead he’s just sunk to their level.

Anyway, Toronto got their season reboot win and the Fire have a bunch of MLS Funny Money. Things could definitely be worse.

Also, this kid is my hero.

New York Red Bulls 4-0 New York City FC

I just love that NYCFC can be so untouchable for long stretches of the season, and then they have games like this.

I mean, yeah, the Red Bulls have had a decent start to the season. But damn it, the Fire beat the Red Bulls. IN NEW JERSEY. What’s your excuse?

Montreal Impact 4-2 New England Revolution

So the Revs finally offloaded Lee Nguyen for a bunch of MLS Funny Money, they got trounced by Montreal (lol), and they lost Juan Agudelo to an injury.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

Houston Dynamo 3-2 LA Galaxy

I think it speaks to how weird MLS is and how messed up their priorities are that the Galaxy lost again and the league’s narrative for this game boiled down to, “ok but did you see Zlatan’s pass tho???”

I mean, yeah, it was a nice pass. The Galaxy still lost. It’s going to be a long time before this team gets its shit together.

San Jose Earthquakes 0-1 Portland Timbers

Nothing finer than the Quakes— who built their brand on scamming late points and “never say die”— getting a taste of their own medicine.

Also lol @ the Timbers player who injured himself while celebrating Valeri’s goal.

Classic.

Orlando City 3-1 Real Salt Lake

Ugh. Fucking Orlando.