The 2026 MLS season is back from its World Cup break, and the first week of action already delivered the kind of chaos that makes this league impossible to ignore. Portland went into Seattle and hung five goals on the Sounders. LAFC put three past the Galaxy in El Tráfico. Nashville edged Atlanta in a southern scrap that felt personal. The league is wide open, half the storylines have already shifted, and there is a lot of soccer left to play.
Let’s start with the obvious: Lionel Messi is still the MVP frontrunner. The Inter Miami captain leads MLS in shots and shots on target, and he is the only player sitting in the top five for goals, assists, and key passes. He is 39 and still doing this. That is absurd. But there is a real debate underneath him. San Diego’s Anders Dreyer has been electric. Son Heung-min looks comfortable at LAFC. Cristian Espinoza runs the show in Nashville. And Preston Judd keeps banging them in for San Jose. The race is not a coronation.
The Golden Boot race is even tighter. Hugo Cuypers currently leads with 13 goals, but reports have him heading to Monterrey in Liga MX. If that deal goes through, seven players are within two goals of the top. Messi and Dallas striker Petar Musa are both on 12. Orlando’s Martín Ojeda, Judd, and San Diego’s Marcus Ingvartsen have 11. NYCFC’s Nicolás Fernández and Vancouver’s Brian White are lurking on 10. This thing could go down to Decision Day.
Now add the summer arrivals. Robert Lewandowski landed in Chicago, and the fit makes too much sense. The city has a deep Polish community. The Fire have a gap up front if Cuypers leaves. And Gregg Berhalter now gets to figure out how to deploy a legend who scored everywhere he went in Europe. Orlando answered by bringing in Antoine Griezmann, which adds fuel to a rivalry with Miami that already had Messi on one side and now has a French World Cup winner on the other. Those two spent years battling in La Liga. Now they get to do it in Florida.
Charlotte replaced Wilfried Zaha with Allan Saint-Maximin, who brings flair and experience from the Premier League, Ligue 1, and a recent stint at Club América. That is a lot of mileage, but the talent is undeniable.
Then there are the return stories. Kai Wagner came back to Philadelphia Union after a spell at Birmingham City in the Championship. He is the club’s all-time leader in assists. Philly sits dead last in the Eastern Conference, one year after winning the Supporters’ Shield. That is a collapse nobody saw coming. Wagner can help steady the ship, but the Union have a climb ahead of them. His first game back is against the Red Bulls on July 22.
Orlando also brought back Daryl Dike, their former fifth overall pick in the 2020 SuperDraft. He scored 18 goals in 35 league appearances before spending years in the Championship at Barnsley and West Brom. He is 26 now and more experienced. The Lions need him to stay healthy and push them back into playoff position.
And the pressure is not just on Philly. San Diego FC won the West in their inaugural season and now sit in a serious sophomore slump. Goalkeeper CJ dos Santos returned from the World Cup as a national hero for Cabo Verde, but the team around him has work to do. The Western playoff race is unforgiving, and SDFC is running out of time to fix things.
Two teams nobody expected to struggle are stuck near the bottom. A 39-year-old Messi is still the best player in the league. And a Polish striker just showed up in Chicago. The second half of this MLS season is already weird. Bet on it getting weirder.
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