In soccer, tactical trends are notoriously fleeting; nowhere else is that more pronounced than MLS, a league famous for its unpredictability.
“Metas” rise, fall, get recycled a decade later, misused, and thrown around like buzzwords – while it would be nice to imagine an evergreen tactic that transcends personnel and manager, no such strategy exists. In MLS especially, there is no one right way to succeed. This should be considered a gift: instead of a single leader followed by a legion of copycats, MLS viewers are graced with 30 (mostly) distinctive teams, all of which believe in their way to varying degrees of success.
The fun, now, is determining which of these strategies actually pass the sniff test and which deserve to be shelved.
Much has been made of teams’ offensive strategies in 2025 – San Diego’s possession-heavy scheme, Minnesota’s propensity for long throw-ins, and the Seattle Sounders’ post-Club World Cup goal spree. But what about the other side of the ball? Which defensive units have been excelling this season, and why? To answer that question, get ready to dig through some stats and discover the strategies that have seen success across MLS this year.
