MLS weekend wrap-up: Key takeaways from Matchday 8

New England found a new defensive shape

New England Revolution coach Caleb Porter finally cracked his defensive line against Atlanta United on Saturday. Instead of playing his traditional (and brittle) four-man defense, Porter leveraged a back five featuring American teenager Peyton Miller and Israeli international Ilay Feingold as flighty, aggressive full backs. New England nullified Atlanta’s $40M attack and won the game 1-0 thanks to a first-half Carles Gil penalty.

The Miller-Feingold back five was a breakthrough for New England, but let’s be real: the team still has plenty to work on in 2025. It’s played eight MLS games and has yet to score from open play. 

Let’s hope Porter can reorganize his attackers just as well as he reorganized his defense, because New England can’t survive on Gil’s dead ball prowess forever.

Charlotte FC star Patrick Agyemang hit a rough patch

Is Charlotte and USMNT striker Patrick Agyemang in trouble? Not exactly, but when you compare his 2025 goal contributions to the ones he made in 2024, it looks like he’s struggling to find his form. In 2024, Agyemang averaged an expected goal contribution of .49 per game; in 2025, he’s fallen to just .16.

Agyemang’s Charlotte beat CF Montréal 1-0 on Saturday thanks to a Pep Biel screamer. The win briefly lifted Charlotte to the top of the Eastern Conference standings, but most of the post-game discussion centered around Agyemang instead of Charlotte’s league position. 

With plenty of solid attackers on Charlotte's bench — and Vancouver's Brian White making his case as MLS's best USMNT attacker — Agyemang will drop out of lineups for his club and his country if he doesn't stop this skid.

The L.A. Galaxy hit a new low

What’s worse than kicking off your season with an eight-game winless run? Capping it off with a silly straight red card earned by one of your most experienced defenders:

Ladies and gentlemen, the L.A. Galaxy, your defending MLS champion. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Philadelphia shook hands with the consequences of its own actions

Philadelphia is going to do what Philadelphia wants to do, and what Philadelphia wants to do is sell its best players at a premium and sit on the money for the rest of time. So when the club announced it was selling respected striker Daniel Gazdag to its Eastern Conference rival Columbus this week, there was frustration, sure, but there was very little surprise.

Philadelphia kicked off the season with buckets of goals and Gazdag’s attacking play was a big part of why. This weekend, the club played its first game without him, and the results were telling. With Gazdag in 2025, the club averaged two goals and 5.3 shots on target per game; without him this weekend against New York City FC, it averaged zero goals and just three shots on target.

If signing Gazdag was a “no brainer”, as Columbus says it was, then what exactly was selling him? Philadelphia is about to find out.

MLS will return for Matchday 9 on Saturday.