Backheeled

Watching players across the USL break out and find a new level is the joy of any given season, but picking the individuals that’ll keep it up is like playing the stock market. There are “blue chip” stars that have answered questions, cemented their all-league status, and positioned themselves for a future move. Successful rookies and academy prospects might as well be making their initial public offering. Which players have earned that investment in 2026?

MLS, at its core, is a local product. That’s a problem. There still aren’t enough people in one city that care about what’s happening with a team in another city for the league to drum up interest for a far juicier TV deal when their arrangement with Apple winds down in 2029. I’m not here to solve that problem — oh, no. But I am here to give you, dear reader, a reason to glance at an MLS team or two outside your city every now and then.

When you’re 6’7”, it’s an obvious question. Even from a stranger. Especially in the United States. “Every time, even just randoms just ask me, like, ‘You play basketball? You definitely play basketball, right?’ All the time,” Neil Pierre, the Philadelphia Union’s 18-year-old rising star center back, told Backheeled. And he did indeed hoop.

Here's what stood out from League One's latest action. Who should be League One’s Coach of the Year? As in any awards race, the answer depends on what you value. In Omaha, Vincenzo Candela has put Los Búhos in position to win the Players’ Shield in his first full season at the helm, and he’s done so with an overhauled roster that got raided over the winter.

It’s in the title, folks. Every week during the MLS season, Backheeled is here to dive into the biggest Winners and Losers from around the league. Let’s get right to it! Winner: Seattle Sounders’ silver lining It’s been a tough stretch for the Seattle Sounders, losing eight-in-a-row in league play heading into the weekend. But the Sounders finally snapped their streak via a 1-1 draw away to FC Cincinnati on Saturday.

The gap between first place and 11th in the Western Conference is just eight points. That’s the same margin between seventh and 10th in the East. The two conferences have always brought distinct competitive vibes to the table, but there’s a historic gulf between the anything-can-happen West and more conventional East in 2026. Those trends only depend in Week 25. Chaos and upsets defined the action in one conference, while stratification remained persistent in the other.

If you read Backheeled’s weekly USL Championship Power Rankings, you’re getting the view of a hyper-specific point in time. Are, say, the Las Vegas Lights actually the sixth-best team in the USL? Are there truly 14 clubs with a better shot at a trophy than Louisville City? The answer to both of those questions is probably “no.” With 10 weeks to play in the Championship’s regular season, it’s useful to reframe the competitive landscape.

Manu Duah threw his head back in frustration. It was a hot, sticky Texas summer evening, but the weather wasn’t the source of the San Diego FC youngster’s frustration. No, Duah, playing as a defensive midfielder just like he had in college before being drafted into MLS first overall, had just sent a pass directly into the path of Petar Musa. Musa, of course, is one of MLS’s deadliest strikers. Crucially, he doesn’t play for San Diego.

Next weekend, League One will officially hit the two-thirds marker of the 2026 season. For any club hoping to make a late run, it must start now. Week 24 offered up a preview of the action to come – both in terms of the on-field landscape and the role the transfer market might play down the stretch. What should we take away from the week that was? I’m digging into all 17 League One teams to find out.

It’s in the title, folks. Every week during the MLS season, Backheeled is here to dive into the biggest Winners and Losers from around the league. Let’s get right to it! Arguably the biggest game of the MLS regular season went down on Saturday, when Nashville SC welcomed Inter Miami to Geodis Park in a clash of one versus two in the Supporters’ Shield race. The result? Well, it was pretty emphatic.