MLS

Should Alejandro Bedoya just stick to sports? After an eight-day period which left 34 dead and 65 injured following a hailstorm of bullets aimed at people attending a garlic festival in Gilroy, shopping at Walmart in El Paso and enjoying a night out in Dayton, the 32-year-old Philadelphia Union midfielder felt like that was out of the question.

So after scoring the opening goal in Philadelphia’s 5-1 road victory over D.C. United on Sunday, Bedoya delivered a message via the pitch-side microphone that was heard loud and clear on FS1.

The 2019 MLS All-Star Game averaged only 182,000 viewers for its English-language coverage on FS1, the smallest audience for the game on any network over the last decade and the smallest English-language TV audience in the 24-year history of the event. That number is down 60% from 2018 (452K on ESPN) and 57% from 2017 (420K on FS1).

Atlético Madrid won the match 3-0 in front of a sell-out crowd of 25,527 at Exploria Stadium. 

Atlanta United thrashed the Los Angeles Galaxy 3-0 — although the Five Stripes only scored one goal of their own — in front of 72,548 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Saturday night, the largest regular season crowd in MLS history.

Two own goals cursed the Galaxy, and without the legendary Zlatan Ibrahimovic up top, who was serving a one-game suspension, the team went cold in attack.

The Colorado Rapids are being affected by the plague. And we don’t mean a plague of poor play — we’re actually talking about the Black Death.

An outbreak of sylvatic plague among flea-infested black-tailed prairie dogs in areas of Adams County, home of the Rapids’ Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colorado, has led to the MLS club altering plans for its Saturday night match against the Montreal Impact.

After making six Bundesliga appearances for Bayern Munich last season following his January move from the Vancouver Whitecaps, much more is expected from 18-year-old Canadian phenom Alphonso Davies during his first full season in Bavaria. Although Davies only totaled 74 minutes of action with the first team last year, he was the Bundesliga’s youngest goalscorer throughout the 2018-19 campaign (as well as Bayern’s youngest goalscorer in 20 years) after opening his account against Mainz back on March 17.

I’ll admit that my own excitement over last night’s MLS All-Star Skills Challenge led to disappointment for the better part of an hour. The Shooting Challenge round — kicks from the spot aimed at targets in goal — was turgid and tedious as all hell, and then I sank even lower after the Touch and Volley round, which I’d likened beforehand — in my own head — to be soccer’s equivalent of the NBA’s Slam Dunk Contest. 

When whoever’s in charge of the worst competition ever created sits down to look at their social media numbers, they’ll see that the most liked/shared/commented/engaged with post of the 2019 Leagues Cup was a cat. Hopefully they’ll then decide to make the 2020 edition strictly cats. 

You see, it’s a helluva fine boi.