Berhalter's optimism, Bradley's pragmatism, Turner's excellence & more | Matchday 12

Let’s just go around the league, shall we?

Toronto FC 2-4 Inter Miami

The Reds have an injured list a mile long – what are they supposed to do here?

Lose. They were supposed to lose, which they very obviously did. They were never walking away from this one with one point, let alone three.

We, however, walked away with two things to at least note:

• Emilio Aristizábal, the 20-year-old Colombian TFC signed just before the season, scored both (late) goals and continues to be interesting.

He’s now got three goals in about 330 minutes, and while his underlying numbers aren’t great – he’s not finding high-quality looks – he’s at least finding a lot of chances. There is nothing shy about him in the box, and quantity has a quality all its own.

I am still generally against using a premium roster slot (Aristizábal is a U-22) on an unproven import, and certainly not on a No. 9. Not when 1) it’s so easy to find a No. 9 via the SuperDraft, and 2) you’ve already used a DP slot on a No. 9 (of course, with Josh Sargent’s injury track-record being what it is…).

It doesn’t make a ton of sense to me from a roster-building perspective, or from a marginal value perspective.

But sometimes bad process leads to good results, and thus far Aristizábal looks like a player.

• Did Maxi Falcón lose his starting job for real, or just for one game?

The Uruguayan shithouser rode pine following last weekend’s misadventures vs. Orlando City.