What are the five biggest MLS early-season surprises?

Philadelphia Union (3-0-0)

Fans always know what they're getting with Philadelphia: a best-in-class player academy and precious little else. The Eastern Conference mainstay is respected around the world for its youth development (15-year-old Union phenom Cavan Sullivan is set to join Manchester City as soon as he turns 18) but not for its continued investment in trophy-winning stars.

That was all well and good under longtime coach Jim Curtin, who turned succeeding against Philadelphia's operational constraints into an art form. But when Curtin left the organization in 2024, Philadelphia was widely expected to crater. 

It did precisely the opposite: the force of its 2025 impact has sucked the rest of the Eastern Conference down instead. Here's how the MLS Golden Boot race looks this season: Union's Tai Baribo with six goals, Inter Miami's Lionel Messi with zero. 

Congrats, Philadelphia. Long may this wild run continue.

Los Angeles Galaxy (0-3-0)

MLS doesn't forgive a winner. Take home the trophy one season and the league's bizarre, restrictive roster rules will ensure you're hobbled and hamstrung for the next one. The Galaxy was forced into making moves before they had even cleaned up the confetti from their MLS Cup celebrations: they sold off multiple players, not because they wanted to, but because MLS's roster rules demanded it.

With so many players leaving and other key talents like Riqui Puig and Joseph Paintsil absent with long-term injuries, pundits expected the Galaxy to falter in 2025. But none of them expected Los Angeles to falter quite like this. The team is winless in MLS with three straight losses and just one goal to its name. 

It took just three weeks of play for the Galaxy to drop from first to worst in the Western Conference. The team will improve, but it's hard to say when.

San Jose Earthquakes (2-1-0)

While the Galaxy dropped from first to worst, the Earthquakes were busy rising from worst to ... well, not exactly first, but close enough. 

Last year's disastrous Wooden Spoon season led to wholesale changes, and those changes have paid off handsomely for the Quakes. New coach Bruce Arena brought in some reliable veterans and a few high-risk, high-reward strikers in Chicho Arango and Josef Martinez. 

The effect has been glorious chaos. Welcome back, San Jose.

San Diego FC (2-0-1)

San Diego, MLS's newest franchise, kicked off 2025 in grand style: with an emphatic 2-0 away win over the league's defending champions, the Galaxy. It's only gotten better from there. 

The team remains unbeaten and looks like a genuine Western Conference challenger. Not bad for a group of players who just met five weeks ago.