MLS

The United States is used to being the best at everything, from income to athletics. When it comes to the economy of sports, there are two areas where America lags far behind its overseas counterparts: soccer and eSports.

In soccer, European leagues attract the biggest stars with the biggest salaries. In eSports, South Korean and Chinese players earn more per capita than those in the U.S. and are treated like rock stars.

This begs the question: Who is better paid, players in Major League Soccer or eSports? The answer isn’t quite clear cut.

Los Angeles FC is cool. Los Angeles FC is hip. Los Angeles FC is new and here to vaccuum up social media audiences and youth attention spans. They are so ahead of the game. Their brand is just so goddamn strong, they are going to take over MLS and the internet and various apps.

Look at their announcement for new manager Bob Bradley and tell me their brand promise is not being fulfilled.

Major League Soccer revealed today that  German star Bastian Schweinsteiger will wear the captain’s armband when the MLS All-Stars take on Real Madrid in Chicago on August 2. Schweinsteiger beat out Tim Howard and David Villa for the honor in a Snapchat vote. 

The latest addition to the Allianz family of stadiums is Minnesota United’s new home in St. Paul, scheduled to open in time for the 2019 MLS season, Allianz Field. The 19,400-seat state of the art facility joins an impressive crop of stadia bearing the Allianz namesake — chiefly the homes of Bayern Munich, OGC Nice, Palmeiras and Juventus. 

Brothers: you can’t live with them and you can’t live without them. After years of what may have been some separation anxiety plying their trades thousands of miles away from each other, Jonathan and Giovani dos Santos may play on the same club team again. 

America’s favorite soccer couple is splitting up — at least geographically. 

Major League Soccer will begin using VAR (video assistant referee) on the arbitrary date of August 5 in the middle of the season. Little good that does FC Dallas.

In the 21st minute of Dallas’ match with Montreal on Saturday, Cristian Colman hit a shot well over the goal line before it was headed out by Impact defender Daniel Lovitz. Replays show the ball clearly went over the line but referee Robert Sibiga waved play on.

The printer is a mysterious creature with a mind of its own. Often magnanimous in its ability to create documents and dole out copies, a printer can quickly turn against its owner and decide to pretend there’s a paper jam when there is no jam because damnit I looked all through the thing and there’s no jam and there’s not even any paper anywhere nearby and just work please oh please just work.

In an effort to protect the interests of official league provider adidas, MLS issued a $1,250 fine to New England Revolution striker Kei Kamara yesterday for visibly wearing TRUsox, an unapproved piece of kit. This would’ve passed unnoticed but Kamara took to Twitter to denounce the sanction, citing, among other things, the fact that faces of the league like Michael Bradley and Jozy Altidore also wear the socks without receiving a similar fine. 

Welcome back, MLS. We didn’t really miss you, but we’re glad you’re back.

After taking a two-week break for the start of the Gold Cup (but resuming before the end of the Gold Cup, because, you know, CONCACAF), MLS returned with a bang on Wednesday. 

But, since most MLS fans were probably watching Team USA on Wednesday instead, here’s a rundown of the night’s action, which included six pretty good matches and then a drab 0-0 draw between Minnesota and Houston.