MLS Second Half 2026: Teams Dominating the Restart

Last Updated on julho 28, 2026 1:52 pm by Erwin Noguera

The World Cup break is officially over. Matchdays 17 and 18 delivered for every team in the league, and the picture that emerged looks nothing like the one MLS paused on back in May. Some teams came back sharper. Others came back broken. Robert Lewandowski, Antoine Griezmann, and Casemiro all made their debuts. The league restarted at full speed and immediately reshuffled itself.

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Here are the teams that have taken over the second half, and the ones losing ground fast.

Inter Miami: Six Points Without Messi

Inter Miami are pretty close to the top right now, and they did it without Lionel Messi or Rodrigo De Paul on the pitch. Both were still recovering from Argentina’s World Cup final heartbreak. Miami collected six points anyway.

Luis Suárez is the reason. At 39 years old, he has six goals in his last three games. That is not a veteran contributing. That is a striker in the best form of his MLS career. Miami won 5-3 at Cincinnati and 2-0 at home against Portland, then beat Montréal in a game marked by a frightening head injury to Germán Berterame.

Casemiro made his debut with no training time with the group and still looked composed. Manager Guillermo Hoyos also made a call that raised eyebrows, starting Rocco Ríos Novo in goal over Dayne St. Clair, the reigning MLS Goalkeeper of the Year. Ríos Novo conceded an own goal against Chicago in his first outing back. He has been solid since.

Messi and De Paul rejoin this week. Miami are already the best team in the league without them. The club is under investigation over the Casemiro signing, but that is a problem for the front office. On the pitch, nobody is playing better.

LAFC: The Heung-Bu Duo Is Back

Three games back from the break. Three wins. Combined scoreline: 10-1.

LAFC beat the Galaxy in El Tráfico, then Real Salt Lake, then Sporting Kansas City. Son Heung-Min went 13 games without a goal to start the season and endured a miserable World Cup group-stage exit with South Korea. He has three goals and an assist since the restart. Denis Bouanga has four goals and an assist. The partnership that made LAFC so dangerous in 2025 is fully operational again.

The Canadian pair of Jacob Shaffelburg and Mathieu Choinière have added three assists between them. Marc Dos Santos has LAFC playing a lower block than Steve Cherundolo ever did: they held under 50% possession in all three wins, but the counter-attacking output has been devastating. They travel to Vancouver next, where over 30,000 tickets have already been sold.

New England Revolution: The Best Saturday of the MLS Season

Over 35,000 fans at Gillette Stadium. A 4-1 win over Atlanta United. A new Designated Player introduced in Jack Harrison. The Revs could not have scripted it better.

New England opened the restart with a flat scoreless draw against Toronto. Then they took Atlanta apart in every phase. Carles Gil completed five successful dribbles and scored a genuinely outstanding goal. Eighteen-year-old Peyton Miller found the net in a rare attacking role.

The Revs sit third in the Eastern Conference. They are behind Miami and Nashville and realistically will stay there. But this is a team built to cause problems in the playoffs, and Harrison’s arrival gives them attacking quality they lacked in the first half of the season.

New York City FC: A Reborn Identity

NYCFC jumped from 13th to 9th in the power rankings, and they earned every place. This is not the possession-obsessed team from earlier in the season. They are engaged now, and Nicolás Fernández Mercau is the engine.

He arrived as a number 10 and spent months bouncing between positions trying to adapt to MLS. Since Maxi Moralez went down injured, he has been given freedom and has taken it. His season output is now 12 goals and four assists. He did not make the All-Star roster, which was a mistake.

NYCFC beat Columbus midweek. Then they dismantled Lewandowski’s Chicago Fire. Two convincing performances against playoff-caliber opposition in the same week is the clearest evidence any team has produced that the restart suits them.

Nashville SC: Grinding, Not Dominating the MLS

Nashville are still in the two-horse race for the East alongside Miami, but the restart has been slower than expected. Two 1-0 wins over Atlanta and Montréal, then a 1-0 loss to Orlando City in a game where Griezmann was the best player on the field at both ends.

The attacking form of Sam Surridge and Hany Mukhtar has dropped off. It is too early to call that a real problem, but the electric output from the first half of the season has not carried over.

What has carried over is Brian Schwake. The goalkeeper is heading to the All-Star Game and has two clean sheets from three matches with 10 saves across 270 minutes. Nashville are winning ugly. That still counts.

FC Cincinnati: Inconsistent, But Dangerous

Cincinnati climbed from 9th to 6th on the strength of one result: a 4-3 win over Western Conference leaders Vancouver. Then they lost the Hell Is Real derby to Columbus and reminded everyone why they are hard to trust.

Kévin Denkey scored in both matches. Evander rediscovered the creativity that characterized his last season. Pavel Bucha scored a brace against one of the stingiest defenses in MLS. The pieces are clearly there.

Pat Noonan’s problem is consistency, and it has been all year. San Jose next week is another test of whether Cincinnati can string performances together instead of alternating them.

Vancouver Whitecaps: The Berhalter Problem

Vancouver were first in these rankings before the break. They are fourth now, and the reason is simple. Sebastian Berhalter left for Middlesbrough in the English Championship, and the Whitecaps have not replaced what he gave them.

One point from a possible six on the road. A 4-3 loss at Cincinnati. A scoreless draw at Minnesota. The midfield has no engine driving the attack forward, and the set-piece and long-range threat that came with Berhalter’s game has disappeared. Thomas Müller missed the Cincinnati match with a minor injury. Center back Ranko Veselinović had to come off early against Minnesota, which adds another concern.

Ryan Gauld is finally back from an injury he picked up in March 2025. That helps. But this team is objectively weaker than the one that led the West in May, and the transfer window is now their best hope.

San Jose Earthquakes: Two Games, Zero MLS Wins

San Jose were one of the best stories of the first half. The restart has been rough.

It started with a 4-0 home beatdown in Antoine Griezmann’s Orlando City debut. Then a 1-1 draw with the Galaxy in the Cali Clásico at Stanford Stadium; a result that should have been different. Timo Werner missed a penalty after Beau Leroux picked out Ousseni Bouda with an excellent pass to win it.

Bruce Arena’s biggest bet for the second half is Angus Gunn. The Scottish goalkeeper played every minute of Scotland’s World Cup campaign and arrived as a marquee signing, taking the starting job from Daniel, who had been one of the best keepers in MLS through the first 15 games. That is a lot of faith in a new arrival. San Jose needs it to pay off quickly.

Chicago Fire: Lewandowski Has Not Fixed It

Chicago were supposed to play three matches since the restart. Smoke postponed the anticipated Lewandowski-versus-Müller clash with Vancouver to October 6. That left two games. They lost both.

Lewandowski debuted against Inter Miami, then played again against NYCFC. In both, the defensive structure fell apart around him, and the Polish striker lacked the intensity MLS demands. He will score goals; that is not in question. The question is whether Chicago can defend well enough for it to matter, especially with Mbekezeli Mbokazi facing a potential months-long absence.

Hugo Cuypers scored 13 goals in the first half of this season before making way. Lewandowski has to match that, and Chicago has to fix a back line that is currently leaking. Charlotte is next for Gregg Berhalter’s side. The results need to turn.

Real Salt Lake: A Hard Two Weeks

RSL dropped from 8th to 10th, and it has not been pretty. Zavier Gozo and Diego Luna both got time off after missing out on the final USMNT World Cup roster, and neither has returned to form.

They lost 3-1 to LAFC in a game they were never really in, undone by the Black and Gold’s defensive shape and a statement performance from Son. Then they lost to Portland, where Felipe Mora said goodbye to the Timbers with a brace after Morgan Guilavogui was sent off.

The Timbers Army spent the match chanting “U.S. reject” at Luna. It has been that kind of stretch. St. Louis next week should offer some relief.

What the MLS Restart Tells Us

Two teams have genuinely taken over: Inter Miami and LAFC. Miami are doing it without their two best players and are about to get them back. LAFC have scored ten goals in three games and rediscovered the partnership that carried them last season.

Behind them, New England and NYCFC are the teams whose restart form looks most sustainable. Nashville are winning but not playing well, which is a skill but not a guarantee. Cincinnati are dangerous and unpredictable in equal measure.

On the other side, Vancouver’s decline is structural rather than temporary: they lost a player they could not afford to lose. San Jose and Chicago both have expensive new pieces that have not fit yet.

The All-Star festivities take over this week. After that, sixteen matchdays remain, and the playoff picture is still wide open in both conferences. But the teams setting the pace right now are doing it convincingly, and the gap they are opening is real.