The Daily Dirt March 5, 2018: Breakdowns and teenager goals

#MLSisBack was back this weekend and while no championship is won in the opening week, there were some interesting results over the weekend. While some results were unsurprising - New England looking like an embarrassment and Montreal inching closer to selling Ignacio Piatti - some things were a shock. The Columbus Crew showed that they can be a good, attacking team that is fun to watch even with Gyasi Zardes on the club, LAFC demonstrated that they can take advantage of teams playing on short rest even though they have no depth, and Minnesota United showed that they are still Minnesota United.

I won’t dwell on the Atlanta United game - you’ll get enough of that for the rest of the week!

Anyway, onto the Dirt...

Domestic

Did you really think I wasn’t going to talk about Saturday - for anyone who thinks that Chris McCann is a solution at defensive midfield or who watched the game and didn’t see how he didn’t fit in at no. 6, watch this tactical session from former MLSers Bobby Warshaw and Charlie Davies.

Here’s how Atlanta’s opponent next week did against Orlando City in week 1.

Bob Bradley has said some interesting things in his coaching career. For example, twas proffering the notion that Jurgen Klinsmann drove him away from his job at the USMNT and not giving up a lead to Mexico in a Gold Cup game. But now captain hindsight says he wishes Swansea had never called him - not that his judgement wasn’t better to never take the job to begin with.

International

There is some really, really interesting information in this data analysis of the World Cup since 1990. Kyle Williams of the 93rd minute looks at where all of the confederations stand in comparison with each other, breaks down the data by country, takes a further look at the data by and within confederations, and finally he rounds it out by giving observations and commentary about the results, using the information to make predictions about the upcoming World Cup.

The USWNT managed just a draw against France on Sunday afternoon. Stars and Stripes FC has a breakdown of the game.

If you missed any of the soccer action, here’s how LixaMX went over the weekend:

Goals

Not bad for a 17 year old

Speaking of first goals - the first one from Diego Rossi looks petty good

Finally, there was this phenomenal free kick from Lionel Messi

You should watch

Soccer Degrassi on Netflix