MLS Winners and Losers: LAFC’s new potential, a legend moves on & more

It’s in the title, folks. Every week during the MLS season, Backheeled will dive into the biggest Winners and Losers from around the league. This week, LAFC raised their ceiling, a Seattle Sounders’ legend headed into the sunset, Sandro Schwarz had a meltdown, and more.

Winner: LAFC

A 1-0 loss to the Vancouver Whitecaps on Sunday night isn't what earned LAFC a spot on this week's 'winners' list. Instead, they qualify thanks to a recent off-field move – the team is going to be without Olivier Giroud for, well, forever following his final appearance for LAFC against the 'Caps. 

After a massively disappointing year for France’s former line-leader in Los Angeles, the player and club announced a parting of ways on Friday. Giroud is heading back to his home country to play in Ligue 1, according to reports. His exit opens a Designated Player spot for LAFC, where he won’t be missed given his dismal scoring record. In 21 MLS regular season appearances, he managed just three goals and had been relegated to an every-other game starter by Steve Cherundolo earlier this season.

The 38-year-old appeared to completely run out of steam upon arriving in the United States following three-straight double-digit scoring seasons for AC Milan. Plus, he wasn’t a match for Cherundolo’s system that rarely involves the No. 9 in possession play. Coming into the weekend, Giroud only took 2.8 out of every 100 touches for LAFC — that put him slightly ahead of Jeremy Ebobisse’s 2.3 touches per 100, but still 43rd out of 71 strikers with at least 300 minutes to their names this year as per American Soccer Analysis’ data.

Even if LAFC don’t add a DP in Giroud’s place, the team won’t be any worse off. Still, expect them to fill his high-value roster spot. Between Giroud’s vacancy and a DP spot that could be opened by declining Javairo Dilrosun’s purchase option from Club America, John Thorrington and co. have multiple DP spots to play with.

Additions in the summer transfer window tend to factor in more for the following season than the current one, due to MLS’s current schedule. But getting Giroud out of town has raised LAFC’s ceiling in both the short term and the medium. Take your eyes off them this summer at your own peril.

Winner: Nico Lodeiro

Speaking of players departing midseason, Nico Lodeiro played what will almost certainly be his final MLS match on Saturday evening when he subbed off the bench late in a 1-0 win for the Houston Dynamo over St. Louis City. The Seattle Sounders legend is returning to Uruguay’s Nacional, his boyhood club.

Though he finished his MLS career with unremarkable stretches in Orlando and Houston, Lodeiro will go down as one of the league’s all-time greats. After signing for the Sounders from Boca Juniors in 2016, he served as the consistent attacking force for Seattle during their run as a dominant force in MLS in the late 2010s and the early part of this decade. Between his two MLS Cups and a historic Concacaf Champions League title, the 36-year-old will have no shortage of fond memories from his time in Seattle to look back on.

So few players in MLS’s existence have combined Lodeiro’s off-ball engine with his on-ball playmaking — and it’s that blend that made him an absolute nightmare to track over a 90-minute game. Pumas found that out the hard way in the second leg of 2022’s CCL final:

While Lodeiro is turning pages to get to the final chapter of his career, most MLS teams will still scour the transfer market every other year in search of a No. 10 who plays just like him. I’ll put it this way: Garth Lagerwey, the man who called Lodeiro the Sounders’ “top target” when he signed in Seattle, sure would like to find a player just like him in Atlanta.

Happy sailing, Nico.

Loser: Charlotte FC

Dean Smith’s Charlotte team was an elite defensive outfit in 2024, allowing fewer goals than every team in the league outside of the Seattle Sounders. But this year? Things look very different for Sir Minty’s boys: they've allowed more goals than all but six other teams in the league, rising from 1.09 allowed per 90 last year to 1.70 per 90 this year. Just on Saturday night, they allowed three to the Chicago Fire in a loss to a fellow fringe playoff foe.

So, what gives? How did a team that returned 87.9% of their minutes — more than all but four others in MLS — suddenly forget how to defend? Well, they didn’t. 

While Smith has shifted his game model to include noticeably more possession (up from a league-low 44.2% possession to 48.8% this year), Charlotte FC are allowing fewer passes into their box per 90. They’re not allowing more xG from fastbreaks. And on the whole, they’re allowing a nearly identical non-penalty xG figure (1.33 this year, 1.29 last year).

No, Charlotte aren’t worse at defending than they were last year. They weren’t above a comical error then and they’re not now, either. Instead, they simply stopped stopping shots at a superhuman rate.

Kristijan Kahlina was the league’s standout goalkeeper in 2024, saving a staggering 10.5 goals above expected, as per FBref, en route to winning Goalkeeper of the Year honors. But this season, the Croatian’s numbers have flipped. He’s now allowed 2.9 goals more than expected. It doesn’t look like Kahlina’s recovered from Charlotte FC’s season-ending playoff loss to Orlando City last year.

“After the last penalty, I can say I was really sad,” Kahlina told Backheeled last year. “In this moment, you recognize, ‘Okay, one more year is behind me. One more year it will never go again. It will never be the same year like this one.’ It was really sad. Immediately, all my energy went out from me. You feel it in your muscles and everything.”

Charlotte’s struggles that have seen them fall to 10th in the East shouldn’t all rest on Kahlina’s shoulders. It’s unfair to ask him to be best-in-class season after season. But if Charlotte’s loss to Chicago — or the four other games in which they’ve allowed at least three goals this season — made anything clear, it’s that Charlotte FC really do need him to be just that to compete in the East.

That’s no enviable position in my book.

Winner: Evander and set piece lovers everywhere

“He’s a special player.”

That’s what Pat Noonan said of Evander following the attacking midfielder’s two-goal outing in a 2-1 win on the road in Orlando. It’s high praise from the refreshingly honest (and critical) Noonan, but still might be an understatement when it comes to the Brazilian. Just take a look at this free kick goal from Evander that kicked off the scoring on Saturday night:

To see Pedro Gallese cheating towards the far side of the goal is one thing. To punish the goalkeeper for that position is another. Evander did both.

Noonan did have a bit more to say about postgame his No. 10. I’ll toss out the full quote, via Carter Chapley: "He's a special player. You saw it on the free kick. He's just doing things that others can't do…He's getting on the ball in good ways and helping to control the rhythm.”

Evander goes supernova on set pieces more than any player in the league. Since signing for the Portland Timbers in 2023, his six free kick goals are tops in MLS. It’s not just volume for Evander. It’s efficiency. His 0.08 free kick goals per 96 minutes leads all MLS players with at least 1,100 minutes since 2023. Even Lionel Messi with his 0.06 free kick goals per 96 can’t touch Evander, according to American Soccer Analysis.

It sure is a good thing for FC Cincinnati that Evander can create something out of nothing on dead balls (and in open play moments, too). Boasting a negative xG differential and a full-on sluggish team outing against Orlando City, Saturday’s game was a reminder of just how crucial the No. 10 is to Cincinnati staying afloat. Without Evander, they wouldn’t be second in the East. No, they’d be fighting for a playoff spot.

But for as long as Evander’s banging in set piece goals, all is good in Cincy.

Loser: Sandro Schwarz

You might think that New York Red Bulls’ manager Sandro Schwarz picked up a red card over the weekend for his egregious choice to wear a white t-shirt with a wide neckline. But it was, in fact, his egregious choice to sprint on the field to confront referee Ricardo Montero immediately after the final whistle of a chaotic 2-2 draw with Minnesota United that saw him earn red.

Miffed that his team’s counter attack deep in second half stoppage time wasn’t allowed to play out, Schwarz wasted no time pulling out the Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting-level afterburners. 

“I wanted to tell [the referee] it was a great performance. Such a great performance," the German said sarcastically after the match, before adding: “You’re not allowed to criticize the referee, so what can I say?” He then went on to criticize Montero at length. Schwarz’s frustration is understandable, though Montero was justified in his judgement call to end the match. But the coach’s reaction?

Well, we wonder why there’s a referee shortage.