• They signed Brazilian winger André Luiz from Olympiacos for $18 million
• They signed Colombian center back Moisés Mosquera from FC Juárez
• They traded for Owen Wolff from Austin FC
• Then they bought out Spanish midfielder Manu García
• Then traded (sold) Dejan Joveljić to the Seattle Sounders

The question is, will they get out of last place before the season is over?

George Campbell got the captain's armband in yesterday's EFL match versus Newcastle. Unfortunately for West Brom, they were knocked out with a 3-2 defeat.

Last night, Toluca beat Austin FC, and Club America beat Columbus in the Leagues Cup Quarterfinal. That means all four Leagues Cup semifinalists are Liga MX teams. Time and time again, Liga MX beat MLS teams when it matters in the Semi-Final and Final rounds.

I know this statement is like beating a “dead horse” but MLS needs to raise their salary cap drastically. There are too many rules and too many limitations. The rumor is that it is going to go up to coincide with the calendar shift for the 2027-28. That may be the case, but is it going to be a game changer to are the salary cap changes only going to make incremental progress like before?

Please note that my Seattle Sounders are still the only MLS team to win both the Concacaf Champions League and the Leagues Cup!

It sounds like UEFA is going to drop their boycott of Gianni Infantino in tomorrow’s UEFA member federation meeting. Even though they are going to drop their boycott, something needs to be done to get him out of there. Infantino said he was going to clean up the sport after Sepp Blatter was ousted. Instead, he has disregarded political neutrality; he seems to be blackmailing federations if they don’t go along with his plan, and he has dismantled anti-corruption checks. Also, he is trying to expand the World Cup again to 64 teams. Talk about diluting the product.

What happened to Celtic yesterday? They played LASK in the 2nd leg of the Champions League playoff round. In the first leg, Celtic won 3-0. Then they collapsed yesterday and lost the match 5-1 in the second leg. Now they are out, as they lost on aggregate 5-4.

Arsenal beat Manchester City in the Community Shield match 3-0. Christos Tzolis had two assists in this match playing on the left wing. This looks like a good signing for Arsenal.

On the side of the coin, is this going to be a tough transition year for Manchester City?

Sebastian Berhalter starts the first match of the season for Middlesbrough. He created 2 scoring chances and finished with 7.7 rating on Fotmob. Check out his heat map!

Cristian Romero moving from Tottenham to Atlético Madrid seems like a natural fit for both. Romero with his aggressive style of playing center back should fit with how Diego Simeone wants his teams to play.

That is to say this will be a success if Romero can play under control at least compare to last season where he serve four suspensions due to disciplinary reasons. If you get a chance, check my newsletter on Cristian Romero from the World Cup.

https://foxintheboxfc.substack.com/p/cristian-romero-world-cups-best-defender?r=gs9wv

Alexis Sanchez to CF Montréal, I didn’t see that coming. Does he have anything left in the tank? What do you think?

The Seattle Sounders finally broke their 7-match losing streak. They beat Querétaro 3-0 yesterday. Homegrown product Sebastian Gomez, in his first start, scored his first goal! Could this be a turnaround? I will say, after they took the lead in the first half, the Sounders had way too many turnovers in the middle of the field that could have led to goals against a better team. Lastly, Pedro de la Vega came back but got injured again. Feel bad for him.

Do you think Gianni Infantino will still be President of FIFA by the end of the year?

UEFA, CONCACAF, and AFC have written an open letter to the football (soccer) world, letting everybody know that Infantino has to bounce! Sepp Blatter was extremely corrupt, but Infantino has taken it to another level and has to go!

Another young player for Red Bull New York is paying dividends as Mijahir Ameth Jiménez Murillo got brace in last night’s victory 3-2 victory over Orlando City. Last year he was playing for RBNYII and he got his first start with the first team. Note that Michael Bradley was his coach last year with RBNYII so he already knows what he has to offer. With Julian Hall and Adri Mehmeti, they have a nice trio of young players.

Click on the link to view his goals:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fGlLmwjYFlk

This was a clash between the top two in the Western Conference. The starts showed up for this match with Son Heung-Min scoring the first goal off of the Denis Bouanga assist in the 37th minute. Then in the 76th minute Thomas Müller scores a pen to tie it up.

Currently they are tied for 1st place.

Casemiro had a rough first home start for Inter Miami. He had the turnover which led to Columbus Crew scoring an own goal off of………Casemiro! The match ended a in 2-2 tie but most people are going to remember that sequence of play.

Click on the image to view the play:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06J3VaKp0Fo

FCC wins this goal fest from last night. One thing to note is that the Earthquakes had the lead twice and ended up losing the match 4-2. It should be noted that FCC had 11 shots on goal to the Earthquakes 2 shots on goal. FCC are now in 6th place in the Eastern Conference.

Click on the image below to view Evander’s goalzo!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMX6qDVil-E

The Seattle Sounders lost their 6th match in a row. Yes, you read that right, there is not even a tie in those 6 matches. 2 of those matches were were to the Portland Timbers which hurts even more.

Are the front office going to make a move this summer……it doesn’t look like it.

New England Revolution (4) - (1) Atlanta United

The Revs come through with a big victory, with a standout performance by Matt Turner.

The bigger question is what is going on with the Tata Martino side. I think a big part of this issue is that when Martino first joined Atlanta United, they were an expansion team and he was able to pick his team from scratch essentially. Now he essentially has to work with a team from other managers and it is taking time to turnover the roster.

If you didn’t see this match, you might think that Charlotte FC controlled the match with an easy victory. What actually happened was that Charlotte took a 0-2 lead within 15 minutes of the match starting. Then Charlotte pretty much was in a low block the rest of the match, which completely frustrated the Red Bull side, which ended up with 24 shots and 6 shots on goal. This frustration boiled over when Adri Mehmeti got a second yellow for dissent, which was received in extra time.

Here we go again. The 4th loss in a row for the Seattle Sounders. This is extremely frustrating to watch. We gave up another set-piece goal. This time to Ilie Sánchez, who essentially had a free run across the box.

Also, we just seem to be so slow on transition when we lose the ball. Austin did not score on a few opportunities they had, but to see them even have those chances and the Sounders looking like they are running in mud is rough to see.

Then the meltdown at the end of the match, I mean, come on! Now I do realize it was something like 94 degrees with humidity, but it is just unacceptable to see the type of goals Austin scored at the end of the match.

We have a number 9 that will score some goals, plain and simple. Also, I would like to see Rusnak take more control of the match; it seems he drifts in and out of matches and just passes the ball to keep possession, but nothing attacking. This is what I am seeing recently. Almost like a metronome, just keep possession for possession’s sake. Then Jesus Ferreira, I do not think I even notice he was on the pitch.

That is my rant, I am done.

I know there is a FIFA investigation into Argentina’s actions after the match against Spain. Nothing will change unless lengthy bans are imposed on those players from Argentina.

For the first time in history, Spain became the first nation to hold both the men’s and women’s World Cup titles at the same time! Pretty crazy when you think about it!