MLS weekend wrap-up: Key takeaways from Matchday 14

Drawing this game doesn't save the Galaxy—the team remains winless in 14 league games in 2025, an ignominious all-time record—but the energy at Dignity Health Sports Park at the final whistle showed that the team hasn't given up just yet. It looked hungry and dangerous against LAFC and could easily have walked away with all three points.

San Jose found some depth

How do you survive a crazy schedule like MLS’s in May? By rotating your players and making use of your bench. San Jose gave a clinic in this by fielding its strongest eleven against Inter Miami, then benching nine of them for its follow-up match against New England three days later. The two San Joses we saw looked wildly different, for sure, but both pulled out competent draws against tough opponents. That’s all you can ask of your players in the midst of a wild week like this one.

San Jose’s lack of B-team depth was a big reason why it finished dead last in the league in 2024. It’s heartening to see the team growing and changing so quickly.

Inter Miami forgot to play to the whistle

Don’t stop until the referee makes the call. It’s one of the first lessons young soccer players learn, and more important than ever in this era of Video-Assisted Review. If the referee doesn’t blow their whistle, play hasn’t stopped, and neither should you. Keep pushing.

Inter Miami forgot this lesson during its all-Florida derby against Orlando City. When Orlando keeper Pedro Gallese picked up an errant ball toward the end of the first half, Miami’s players were apoplectic, certain that he’d committed a backpass infringement by handling a ball his own player had kicked. They surrounded the referee and vacated their field positions to plead their case. But the referee, who had gotten a better look at the supposed infringement than any Miami player, hadn’t blown his whistle to stop play. Gallese booted the ball up to his striker, Luis Muriel, and Muriel promptly scored, utterly unmarked and unnoticed by Miami’s distracted defenders.

Whether or not Miami had a case here is irrelevant. (Though it didn’t, for the record.) What matters is how you behave on the field when play hasn’t been stopped, and Miami behaved in a way that would get it chastised by an elementary school gym teacher, let alone a professional MLS referee. It was an embarrassing lapse of concentration from a team that cannot afford many more of them.

Brian Gutierrez looked like the real deal

Two goals, one assist and a whole lot of hype. American teenager Brian Gutierrez had a stellar weekend for the Chicago Fire, the kind of weekend that raises eyebrows for U. S. Men’s National Team fans everywhere. Will he appear in Mauricio Pochettino’s Gold Cup roster this summer? We’ll find out when the initial squad drops on Monday, May 19, but signs point to yes.

MLS will return for Matchday 15 on Saturday, May 24.