MLS is back this weekend for Matchday 10 as we are almost a third of the way through the 2025 season.
While plenty of attention has been on the Concacaf Champions Cup this week, there is plenty of talking points back on the domestic scene as well.
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Let’s dig in.
Fixture of the weekend
It’s first vs third in the Western Conference as Minnesota United square off with leaders Vancouver Sunday evening.
The Whitecaps are fresh off of a famous victory at BC Place over Inter Miami in the Champions Cup Thursday evening, and should be flying high, but Minnesota United will be hoping the ‘Caps are suffering from a hangover.
Eric Ramsay’s side have proven to be one of the most well-drilled teams in the league this season, and have added a potentially high-quality piece of the puzzle in MLS veteran Julian Gressel at the transfer deadline.
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It should be a very tasty affair between these two Western Conference contenders.
Player to watch
📸 Luther Schlaifer-Imagn Images
The play of Orland City forward Marco Pašalić has not been highlighted enough this season. The Croatian is a key member of arguably the most lethal set of attacking DP’s in the league this season,
The goals have seemingly dried up for Orlando in recent weeks, as they head into the weekend off the back of three consecutive goalless draws, but if anybody is going to break them out of their slump it should be Pašalić.
Two questions ahead of the weekend
Can St. Louis City end their goal drought?
St. Louis City came into the season as Western Conference dark-horses after a bundle of summer signings hit the ground running at the tail-end of 2024 — but it hasn’t played out that way in 2025.
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Olof Mellberg’s side come into the weekend’s showdown with LAFC having scored just once in their last five games, and are search of a spark.
The deadline day signing of Xande Silva from Atlanta United should add another string to the bow, but Missouri side will have find a way to avoid firing blanks as soon as possible.
Have Sporting KC found a new spark under Kerry Zavagnin?
In the weeks since Peter Vermes departed Sporting Kansas City after nearly two decades at the helm, SKC have seemingly found a new spark.
Under interim boss Kerry Zavagnin, the Midwest club have won one of two games, and scored seven goals in the process, and the play of Hungarian winger Dániel Sallói has been a major catalyst in the apparent corner-turn.
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They will face perhaps their sternest test in the post-Vermes era on Saturday however, as they travel to Ohio to take on Pat Noonan’s high-flying FC Cincinnati.
📸 David Berding – 2025 Getty Images
