Lionel Messi's star power,aston villa San Jose's hot start & more from Matchday 3

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A high-altitude ambush of aristocrats. Familiar faces producing familiar exploits in unexpected places. A Canadian colossus laying down a powerful statement against a rival. A second head-turning performance from one gang of kids, and a bracing splash of icy water in the face of another.

And that’s just a handful of the MLS Matchday 3 storylines. Let’s wade in.

That's a wrap on another electric weekend. ⚡️

🎟️: https://t.co/yMNDcJ4hbm pic.twitter.com/In398UJyw5

— Major League Soccer (@MLS) March 9, 2026

Crab cakes and GOAT

The biggest crowd of the MLS weekend, and one of the biggest in world soccer, gathered in a whole new spot Saturday afternoon: M&T Bank Stadium, home of the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens, on the Maryland metropolis’s atmospheric Inner Harbor.

Making the most of Lionel Messi’s magnetism, D.C. United shifted their home fixture with Inter Miami CF up the B/W Parkway to their northern neighbor city and reaped a record-setting sellout of 72,026 fans, the latest in a steady string of bumper gates for the Argentine icon.

The GOAT did his usual work, scoring the game-winner in a 2-1 victory in which United showed they’re made of sterner stuff than last season, yet couldn’t raise their level to match that of the defending champs.

Inter Miami's eyes now turn to Music City, where they open their Concacaf Champions Cup campaign with Wednesday’s Round-of-16 Leg 1 clash at Nashville SC.

Rocky Mountain way

A week after looking fearsome in a 3-0 home win over Charlotte FC, the LA Galaxy ventured up to Colorado and crashed back to earth, soundly defeated, 4-1, by a lively Rapids side whose good work was greatly magnified by a Gabriel Pec red card.

There’s long been a line of thought in MLS that the right mix of tactics and personnel can combine with Colorado’s mile-high altitude to make Dick's Sporting Goods Park one of the hardest road trips in the league.

With two well-taken home wins after an underwhelming display at Seattle on Matchday 1, Matt Wells’ young Rapids are giving it credence so far, and the heaps of snow piled up around their pitch made it easy to imagine the Galaxy pining for the palm trees and balmy breezes of home as they chased the game.

The Bruce Arena effect

Click on the ‘Standings’ header at the top of this page, and you’ll note only four teams retain unblemished, nine-points-out-of-nine records after three matchdays, all of them from the Western Conference. Three of them are to be expected: San Diego FC, Vancouver Whitecaps FC and LAFC were last year’s top three finishers in the West and are widely pegged as top contenders in 2026.

The fourth are the... drum roll... San Jose Earthquakes, who traveled cross-country and handled defending Supporters’ Shield winners Philadelphia Union, 1-0, thanks to a swashbuckling possession sequence capped by this truly gorgeous pass from new star Timo Werner to Ousseni Bouda:

7-11… they’re always open 👀 pic.twitter.com/4mzmekcuSK

— San Jose Earthquakes (@SJEarthquakes) March 8, 2026

Not many expected this from the Quakes. Maybe we shouldn’t be so surprised, though. It’s year two of Bruce Arena’s tenure by the Bay, and he’s only the winningest coach in league history, with the most Sigi Schmid MLS Coach of the Year awards, the most MLS Cups and most Supporters' Shields in league history for good measure. In both results and performances, the godfather of MLS managers has San Jose humming.

RSL storm the A

Next, we leap from a tribute to MLS’s oldest head to some praise for a few of its youngest.

Real Salt Lake, a club who delight in confounding expectations, did so again in an impressive 3-2 road win that ruined the home opener of stumbling Atlanta United, yet again fielding teenagers Aiden Hezarkhani, Zavier Gozo and Luca Moisa, and yet again getting key contributions from all three.

The kids made ATL’s rearguard look downright glacial with their speed of thought and execution, quieting the big crowd at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, where at least a new lawn of natural grass looks resplendent ahead of the US men’s national team’s high-profile friendlies vs. Belgium and Portugal later this month.

Commanding in Cascadia

Speaking of the USMNT, three MLSers making their case for a spot on this summer’s 2026 FIFA World Cup squad absolutely balled out in Portland Saturday night, as the Whitecaps steamrolled the Timbers 4-1 thanks to dominant displays from Sebastian Berhalter, Tristan Blackmon and Brian White (with a helping hand from Thomas Müller, naturally).

Despite a fiery start from the home side, this was another masterful outing from the 'Caps, who methodically picked apart their Cascadian rivals with the same stylish, scintillating soccer they produced time and again last season. Now they pivot towards a truly tasty ConcaChampions series vs. their other Pacific Northwest adversaries, the Seattle Sounders, who visit BC Place for Leg 1 of their CCC Round-of-16 duel Thursday night.

One silver lining for a Timbers outfit that has long struggled to nurture homegrown talent in volume: A bright debut from 18-year-old academy product Eric Izoita, who fought gamely in central midfield and uncorked a golazo to give the Rose City faithful something to cheer about.

A Red reality check from Le Bleu-blanc-noir

Red Bull New York were quite good in the first two weeks – so good, with their sheer attacking verve and new head coach Michael Bradley’s ready reliance on very young homegrown talent, that they commandeered a good chunk of the MLS discourse with their 2W-0L-0D start. Meanwhile, CF Montréal struggled badly, conceding eight goals and scoring none in opening losses at San Diego and Chicago that led some to ponder if they were on course for a historically poor year.

It epitomizes MLS’s profound unpredictability that, of course, the Quebecois comprehensively outplayed RBNY in their own house Sunday. Prince Owusu deposited an early penalty-kick opener after the clever Iván Jaime drew the foul, tipping the game state in their favor, then coolly managed the rest of the game with organized discipline.

Nothing can be taken for granted in this league, and that cold, hard lesson for Red Bull’s kids was driven home by the sight of Wiki Carmona, traded from RBNY to Montréal over the winter after a largely underwhelming stint in Gotham, bagging a brace against his old team. It’s an early test for the Bradley Revolution.

The first points are the hardest?

Soccer is often said to be a game of mistakes. And as Montréal proved, in the early stages of any season, teams that punish their opponents’ errors efficiently often scoop up points. When those instances snowball against you, things can spin out of control in a hurry.

After a guilty nod towards Atlanta, nowhere does that feel more the case than in Orlando and Philadelphia. Two of the league’s top sides in recent years, they’re currently winless, pointless, already carrying two home losses and bottom of the overall table following Saturday’s setbacks against New York City FC and San Jose, respectively.

Orlando City paid dearly for an instance of the proverbial brain flatulence from goalkeeper Maxime Crépeau, leading to an early red card and thus a long afternoon for his shorthanded Lions teammates at Yankee Stadium that ended in a 5-0 Pigeons rout. When it rains, it pours.

Took the baseball jokes too far @OrlandoCitySC 😅🤷 https://t.co/QEGF8VpURs pic.twitter.com/qjHDOTo69A

— New York City FC (@newyorkcityfc) March 7, 2026

We’re not usually having ‘must-win’ conversations in early March. But it already feels like gut-check time in a couple of locales as we shift towards Matchday 4.

• National Writer: Charles Boehm
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