If you hadn’t figured it out by the fact that we dropped in-depth previews for all 30 MLS teams earlier this week, the 2026 season begins on Saturday. Go check out those previews — there’s truly no better resource on the Internet to get you ready for the new year.
Today, though, we wanted to zoom out to look at the absolute biggest questions for the year to come.
Our MLS experts are here to share their predictions for the 2026 campaign, from standings to trophies to awards to bold predictions. Backheeled’s Joe Lowery, Ben Wright, Andrew Clausen, and Brian McKay are joined by a special guest: Matt Doyle, who’s recently launched his own independent site called Tactics Free Zone. If you’ve read this far, you should subscribe to Doyle – his work covering soccer in the U.S. has inspired much of the direction we’ve taken here at Backheeled.
Now, to the predictions. Which ones will age like fine wine? And which will age like milk? Let’s find out.
Backheeled Staff
The team you’re most excited to watch is…
Joe Lowery: There are more obviously elite MLS teams than I can ever remember heading into a new MLS season, which means there are more reasons to tune in than I can ever remember heading into a new MLS season. Still, no storyline intrigues me more than this one: will Inter Miami be historically great or just great? Boo me if you must, but deep down you know that you’ll either be watching or hate-watching, too. They've lost two legends, but stacked the defense and the attack. Could they be better than ever?
Matt Doyle: Right now, believe it or not, it’s the San Jose Earthquakes. They had great underlyings last year and should have been better, they have a ton of young domestic players on an upward curve (including a homegrown No. 10 in Niko Tsakiris), and made one huge Designated Player signing in Timo Werner with another on the way.
