MLS Playoff Chase: 3 Points Any Way You Can

I read as much MLS coverage as I can, especially big-picture items about potential structural changes. Multiple articles this week about the next iteration of the MLS Cup Playoffs started from the premise that there is not enough urgency or jeopardy in the regular season, since 20 out of 30 teams make the playoffs.

As Paul Tenorio wrote,

If you go to an MLS regular season game today and your team loses, it doesn’t feel like it matters. Will this [playoff format] really change that? Will it feel in the moment like a game of consequence?

I understand and largely agree with the larger point. I actually hate that so many teams make the playoffs. It's not a reward for elite performance if two-thirds of the teams qualify. I would prefer four or six teams from each conference make it. But I really disagree with the notion that there's no pressure on regular season games. It is not the same pressure as exists in promotion/relegation situations, but it is pressure nonetheless. I found my game this weekend to be a prime example.

It paralleled one of the most memorable calls in my career 15 years earlier, when my Dynamo team was getting such poor results on the road that home games felt like our only chance for a win. Most people at the time didn't understand why I was so exuberant as to yell, "WOOHOO!" following a stoppage-time goal in a late-August regular season game. But I knew *at the time* (to Paul's point) that the difference between a 7-point week and a 5-point week was significant. I was right: That 2-point standings bump wound up giving us home-field advantage in our conference semifinal playoff series.

Similarly, Charlotte FC has only one road win this year. They are hoping for a top-four finish and home-field advantage in the conference quarterfinals. In a three-game week against three teams below them in the standings (Columbus, Toronto, D.C. United), their 3-3 tie on Wednesday night in Toronto was similar to my 2011 Houston team's midweek draw at New England, a team we unequivocally should have beaten. In both cases, the midweek result upped the pressure on Saturday's game, because taking only 5 points from three favorable matchups was just unacceptable.

It's not "your contract will be canceled because the club will drop to a lower division" pressure, I'll grant you. But it is pressure, knowing you only have five home games left in which you're confident of taking the full three points.

D.C. United, Charlotte's opponent, had its own kind of pressure, sitting precariously in the final playoff spot (the club has not qualified since 2019), but struggling to convince anybody, even themselves, that they will stay there.

The game itself, which I called alongside Manchester United legend Phil Neville, certainly had pressure. It may have been stultifying pressure, in fact, in the first half. But it led to high drama in the second, and it felt like we largely got the calls right. Have a listen!

MLS Is Back: Catching Up

What a summer! MLS has returned to play after the World Cup, and I have returned to calling games ... but clearly have been derelict in my blogging.

I'll share the highlights from my recent games, but quickly: There are many changes occurring throughout sports broadcasting at the moment. One of these has seen my role at ESPN drastically reduced. Having called multiple college soccer games every year since 2014, I was told I would be hired on a free-lance basis (if at all) this fall, rather than on a set contract, which had been the setup since the ACC Network launched in 2019.

This was not welcome, by any means. It feels very strange not to be prepping 50+ college soccer rosters and trying to track lineups as the season gets underway. But we are used to going where the work is, and I am excited about the broadcasts I do have and will have this fall.

Since MLS returned to action, I have called three games in three cities with three partners, and each has offered its own unique high points. Lata drama and controversy in D.C. while working with a football legend, Phil Neville. My first trip to wonderful soccer-specific stadia in St. Louis and Montreal. A wonderful chance to see family and bring them out to a game, albeit a wet one! A reunion game with my man Jalil Anibaba. A first chance to work with a player I covered for years, Lloyd Sam, who I somehow convinced that I thought he was left-footed!

Here are the on-field highlights:

D.C. United 2, Toronto FC 1

St. Louis City 1, Real Salt Lake 1

CF Montreal 1, D.C. United 1

More trips and more games to come! I'm excited to see what the fall brings.

MLS Game 4: Out of Words

Tonight's game between D.C. United and CF Montreal was a wonderful, wild 4-4 thriller! I am out of words to describe it. My syntax wasn't perfect on every call, but hopefully my excitement helped share just how engrossing and fascinating and exhilarating this game was!

Enjoy:

MLS Game 3: Bouncing Right Back

I'm fond of saying, on air, that teams and individuals love to have a quick turnaround after a frustrating performance so that they can try to quickly right the wrongs of that disappointment.

That storyline was at play in my work last week, as I was able to move on from some Wednesday frustration to enjoy an exciting game on Saturday, one I feel had some really good calls of exciting moments.

They didn't all make the highlights, actually. This compilation leaves out one of the best plays of the game, a defensive intervention by Griffin Dorsey, but it still provides a good sample of our broadcast.

This game was also rare for me because of how much Spanish it involved. Both coaching staffs speak primarily Spanish, while my partner (MetroStars legend and former New York Cosmos coach Giovanni Savarese), my producer, and both of the Spanish-language announcers were all fully bilingual. This left me embarrassed at speaking only one language and relying on automatic transcription and Google Translate after the coach calls. It wasn't a problem, just something I hadn't experienced in a while, since my days in Houston when the Dynamo competed internationally.

It's an area of growth for me: I hope to be able to understand so much more and to be able to communicate in Spanish beyond "lo siento por mi español."

I've got one more MLS game before the World Cup, in D.C. on Saturday, and I can't wait to see what happens in that one. 

MLS Game 2: It’s Not Always Perfect

I’m not going to lie: I walked away from Wednesday night’s Apple TV broadcast pretty frustrated with myself. Our game—No. 1 (Nashville) vs. No. 2 (New England) in the Eastern Conference—had three goals, and I felt like I messed up two of them.

Not great, Bob!

I got caught storytelling on Nashville’s first goal and took too long to switch to calling the scoring chance. Then on the third goal, I initially identified Hany Mukhtar as the goalscorer, when I KNOW that I should wait until I’m certain before I say a name. I quickly corrected to Bryan Acosta, but it ruins the call.

Many other parts of the broadcast were good. A colleague praised our scene set, which opens the broadcast. I thought we covered a lot of topics relevant to each team. We got to tell some great stories (including the one that bled into the opening goal). I felt there were some good transitions from our promotional reads back to game coverage. We did an on-camera report after the game down on the natural grass surface. Plenty of things to be proud of and to build on.

For all of that, I was definitely holding onto the game’s big moments—which I feel I didn’t match—as I drove home. But as I tell my kids, we’re not perfect, mistakes will always happen, and what’s important is how you respond to them. So I’m ready to have a great call on Saturday, nail the big moments, and call these games at the top of my skillset.

The best part of my night? As I walked with my partner, Jalil Anibaba, and our Spanish play-by-play announcer, Moisés Linares, to the production truck, a young fan called out to me, “I like the suit you’re wearing! You look nice.”

Back in MLS With a Bang!

My voice is more than a little froggy this morning after calling a wild 3-2 win for D.C. United over Orlando City in a Major League Soccer game Saturday night.

We don't have time or space to go through all my emotions leading up to the show, my first on the primary English TV feed of an MLS game since an ESPN game I called in 2021. Suffice it to say, I've been looking forward to it! The event itself certainly delivered more than I could have asked for.

Five goals, multiple lead changes, and a 90th-minute game-winner from the home team in front of their supporters? Yeah, that's how you draw it up. What's more, the decisive goalscorer, Kye Rowles, was the D.C. United representative we talked to on Friday to prepare for the match. I did not expect that he would be the hero less than 36 hours later!

Here are the highlights of a game I thoroughly enjoyed calling with my partner, 12-year MLS veteran Jalil Anibaba, who I only met on Thursday but already consider a friend. We had a blast!

For my first broadcast on Apple TV and my first full broadcast in almost six months, I felt very good about our show. Getting fooled by the 80th-minute chance and calling goal on a shot that didn't go in will not make my personal highlight reel, but it happens to the best of us.

It was also a treat before the game to say hello to a broadcasting legend, Dave Johnson, for whom the broadcast booth at Audi Field is named. He is battling multiple sclerosis and doing so with remarkably good humor, maintaining a busy schedule of Wizards and United broadcasts, working with Bruce Murry on the latter.

Dave is a true class act for whom I have so much respect. He showed that American broadcasters can put their own stamp on soccer. Ever the insider, he had confirmed both lineups and bench rosters way before us TV folks, helpfully sharing that information to help us prepare.

I have a few weeks for my voice to recover before I call three more MLS games in May, and then everyone's focus will flip to the World Cup.

But for now, I'm very happy to have gotten my feet wet. As I texted a friend this morning, "God was it fun!"