Every MLS team's biggest tactical question for 2026

First of all, welcome to Ghost! It's the new home for my newsletter after the move from Substack. The tl;dr on that is 1) there's no Nazis here, and 2) because Ghost is an open-source non-profit, they're unlikely to rug-pull creators with new features that privilege AI slop in the algorithm.

And that, folks, is what we call "whistling past the graveyard."

I am here to build upon last week's MLSsoccer offerings, which looked at the biggest tactical questions I'm pondering – the ones that I think will/could have league-wide implications (and also, for some reason, St. Louis) – and fill it out with the tactical/formational questions I've got for the rest of the league.

• Eastern Conference: 5 teams with pressing tactical questions
• Western Conference: 5 teams with pressing tactical questions

You can see that there are 10 teams already in the hopper, questions addressed at length. Here's the other 20, in brief:

• Atlanta United: Will they play with true wingers?

By that I mean "Will the left-footed Miguel Almirón play on the left and will the right-footed Saba Lobjanidze play on the right?" I actually think both players are better when they're not playing inverted, but it's rare to see teams play with two non-inverted wingers these days. It risks a fatal lack of pressure directly on goal.

So I'm not entirely convinced both these guys will be starters, and that could really change the way the Five Stripes look on a game-to-game (or even in-game) basis.

• Austin FC: 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 or what?

Say it with me: formations aren't tactics, but they do inform the tactical choices a coach makes, and vice versa. In this case, I'm not sure which of the above formations best fits Austin's personnel, and I'm not sure what downstream effects that might have.

They brought Myrto Uzuni back, which suggests 4-4-2... but they also tried really hard to get rid of him and don't have another second forward in the roster, which suggests either a 4-2-3-1 or a 3-4-2-1 or a 4-3-3. Confounding all of that, last year they tended to be more dangerous playing purely on the counter – which, again, suggests a 4-4-2 (or maybe a 3-5-2?). But also, you don't win much that way.

• Chicago Fire: I'm slightly worried about midfield chance creation, and thus an over-emphasis on getting the fullbacks forward

Brian Gutierrez is gone, off to Chivas. André Franco is out with that torn ACL at least until early summer. Even with those guys around last year, the Fire often got out over their skis pushing numbers forward from the back. As a result were gappy in a way that was very unlike previous Gregg Berhalter teams and shipped goals any time they played someone good.

Back to the original point: Robin Lod, Anton Saletros and Sergio Oregel are all more ball-movers than chance creators. "Unbalanced" might be the buzzword – in a bad way – in Chicago this year.

• Colorado Rapids: How deep will Paxten Aaronson play?

Aaronson arrived in last summer's transfer window and I thought he played well the final ~10 games of the year, but wasn't productive in the way you'd hope from a 10. He then pointed out, after the season had finished, that his best moments in the Eredivisie came playing a little deeper than a true 10, as more of an 8.5.

A good rule of thumb is "play your best/most expensive player in their best spot." Not only does this get the best out of them, but it ostensibly lets them be ceiling-raisers for the rest of the squad.

So for Aaronson... free 8 in a 4-3-3 with more of an emphasis on possession under new head coach Matt Wells? Feels like a good guess.

• FC Dallas: How high will the wingbacks fly?

Dallas made a very admirable run down the stretch and into the playoffs, one that was built almost entirely on solid, deep-lying defense, set pieces and counterattacks (and otherworldly shot-stopping from Michael Collodi).

And it was very much a 5-3-2 for much of that time. Will they get enough of the ball to let the wingbacks – Bernard Kamungo on the left and, presumably, newcomer Herman Johansson on the right – get forward and create numerical advantages in the final third? If they do, will anybody in central midfield be equipped to lay them in with the final ball?

• D.C. United: Will this be a high-pressing, Philly-style 4-4-2?

So far in preseason, the answer seems to be "yes." Which makes sense for a team that's generally going to be at a talent deficit, and lacks a primary chance creator.

"The press is the best playmaker" is still a workable option in this league, and most others. I think that's what D.C. are trending towards.

• Houston Dynamo: How heavy will they go on possession?

The Dynamo have been one of the most ball-dominant sides in the league over the past three or four years, but have turned over a bunch of the roster since the glory days of their 2023 US Open Cup triumph. Thus they still had a bunch of the ball last year, but were nowhere near as dynamic (sorry) with it.

Now they've gone out and spent a lot on Mateusz Bogusz, whose best year came in a transition-heavy LAFC side. Feels like a change may have been heralded with that move.

• Sporting KC: 4-3-3?

I mean, there are so freaking many questions with this team, with the big one being "are they going to sign more players at some point?"

But just in terms of how they look, KC are synonymous with the 4-3-3 in MLS. Even though it's clearly a new era, it'd be jarring to see them in a different default formation.

• LA Galaxy: Where will Justin Haak play?

I thought they got him as a CB to pair with Jakob Glesnes, but Haak's been playing at d-mid so far in preseason. If you put him and Edwin Cerrillo together in a 4-2-3-1 you get a lot of defensive solidity (something foreign to the Galaxy for the past decade), but not much attacking dynamism.

If Riqui Puig was there to be the 10, that'd be fine. But he's not, so I could see LA's attack spending a good chunk of the season looking like a guy trying to unlock his front door using his car keys.

• Montréal Impact: How much rein does Iván Jaime have?

Just eyeballing it, I could see head coach Marco Donadel deciding that his best course of action is to let the playmaker go wherever he wants whenever he wants and just ball out. Might be the best way to create some sort of rhythm and, for lack of a better description, connect the midfield with the various, somewhat ill-fitting pieces of the attack.

Problem is if your 10 goes anywhere then your other two midfielders need to be able to go everywhere. That is a tall order both tactically and physically.

• Nashville SC: Can they build more keep-ball into the game model?

The 'Yotes were one of the best teams in MLS last year, but they ran out of gas down the stretch. Part of that was that they were thin, especially in the attack.

Another part is that they simply weren't at, say, Vancouver or San Diego or Miami's level when it came to putting a foot on the ball, knocking it around and making opponents chase til they were gassed. They were good at that, mind you, but there's clearly another level to hit.

• New England Revolution: Can Brooklyn Raines be a single pivot?

It looks like the Revs are going to play a 4-2-3-1 oriented around Carles Gil as a true No. 10 (duh).

In my head, that looks like Alhassan Yusuf as a No. 8 whose movement is strongly linked towards Gil's space interpretation – which can mean anything from dropping waaaaay deep to get on the ball basically on the backline, to pushing way up and arriving in the box almost as a winger.

Yusuf (if he's actually the starter; no guarantee there) then becomes Gil's bodyguard, a sort of shadow. That leaves Raines to do both the ball-winning and backline protection, as well as the distribution from the back point. It'd end up being a very 4-3-3ish interpretation of the job.

Raines was really excellent at this for the US U-20s under head coach Marko Mitrović, who now happens to be New England's head coach. Look at me connecting dots!

• New York City FC: Talles Magno, false 9? Or Nico Fernández, false 9? Or Seymour Reid, true 9?

For a hot minute it looked like NYCFC had all their ducks in a row when they acquired Moussa Sylla to be their new No. 9, but that shit fell apart.

“We are irritated by the behavior of New York City FC. The contracts were not only negotiated but already signed.”

Sick.

Now it seems to be a question of whether head coach Pascal Jansen will play someone out of position (Magno stinks as a false 9, for what it's worth, while Nico's pretty good there – but much better as a winger), or trust the high-upside kid.

The team will obviously look very different depending upon which choice the coach makes. Or on the off chance they do bring in a new DP 9.

• New York Red Bulls: How big a shift in the game model?

Simple one here: I do not think Michael Bradley was brought in to coach this team back towards murderball. That's certainly not how his RBNYII team played last year en route to a title, and it's certainly not what he was like as a player.

I hope he's given the time (and talent) to put together a squad that approaches the game the way those great TFC sides Bradley anchored a decade back did.

• Philadelphia Union: Is Frankie Westfield going to be the right-footed Kai Wagner?

There is as-yet no replacement for Wagner, who was Philly's best and most reliable chance creator for a half-decade.

Maybe there doesn't need to be? The idea would be to just let Westfield off the leash to push forward from the right side in the same way that Wagner had a free run up the left basically any time he wanted it. Westfield was already one of the best attacking right backs in the league last year. Putting him in a spot to feature that even more makes sense for a team that, as usual, will be balling on a budget.

• Portland Timbers: Can they build final third attacking patterns?

The Timbers have a weirdly formless and ad hoc approach to life in the final third for a team that spends a ton of cash/premium roster slots on attackers. You'd think that, at some point, they'd drill the kinds of attacking patterns that their northern neighbors put to such great use last year in crafting one of the league's best attacks.

Portland don't score a ton of goals off of coordinated ball- and player-movement like this.

I think there'll be a lot of focus on how they'll use the newly DP slot newly opened after the Jonathan Rodriguez contract termination (my take: they'll go the 2/4/GAM roster build model, which is the right call). But whatever they go with, I don't think they have a shot at finishing top-4 in the West unless they sharpen the collective knife in the final third.

It's not a talent or mentality thing. It's a tactical thing.

• San Diego FC: Can they keep dragging opponents upfield?

This graphic is from John Muller's excellent column in The Guardian from last year:

His data from Futi, a new data/analytics app John developed that will soon fill the FBRef/Second Spectrum-shaped hole in my heart, showed "that San Diego spend more time in the fast break phase of play than any team in the league, edging out Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami."

In other words they used the ball to drag suckers upfield, then murdered them in transition. By the end of the season most MLS teams had caught wise, but last week's Concacaf Champions Cup opener showed game film hadn't yet made it south of the border.

Anyway, SDFC are much more than a one-trick pony. But their first trick is definitely their best trick, and I'm eager to see what adjustments they've got if opponents start changing the conversation.

• Seattle Sounders: How much freedom will Snyder Brunell or Hassani Dotson get with their box arrival?

Neither player is as good as Obed Vargas, but each is arguably better at arriving in the box to finish off those pullbacks the Sounders create time after time after time.

Which is dope as hell, but also a risk. Because if you're throwing your 8s into the box like that, there's one less guy laying back to win clearances or stop counters. Obed was really superb about picking his spots to push up, and if these guys are less tuned in to the risk/reward calculus, that could cause some pain for a team likely to lean heavily on dominance-via-possession.

• Toronto FC: Where does Djordje play?

If Djordje's a playmaking left wing, that probably means an overlapping left back and a central midfield trio with an emphasis on rhythm and pitch control rather than pure playmaking.

Djordje's at the 10, though, means the pitch control will likely come from a double pivot and less aggressive fullbacks.

So far in the preseason my spies say it's been more of the former than the latter. But TFC's roster's only like half-built, so things could change in a hurry.

• Vancouver Whitecaps: How will their final third spacing hold up?

Ali Ahmed's ability to stay wide and tilt the opposing defense to his side was a skeleton key that unlocked a lot of beautiful attacking sequences for the 'Caps.

He is gone now, as is his back-up Jayden Nelson, and while Vancouver have spent to replace them, bringing in Cheikh Sabaly and Bruno Caicedo to join holdover Kenji Cabrera, it's not exactly a guarantee they'll be able to replicate Ahmed's off-ball gravity and on-ball devastating awesomeness.

Yes, that's me doing season preview content on Soccerwise. Much more to come!