Stejskal: Opening day 2016 captures the true essence of MLS

I’ll admit, I wasn’t ready for MLS opening day. 

I was primed to watch some cagey matches and risk-averse play on Sunday. No one wants to make a bad first impression, right? It’s always easier to play it safe to start. 

Then came the massive, 10-game rush that we all took straight to the face. No way was I prepped for that.

Opening day had the sublime, the dramatic, the unpredictable and the exasperating – it even had a US national teamer roll up to a match looking like a high school English teacher who made a few too many bad decisions on Spring Break.

It was intense, and it was all wrapped together in the span of a few hours. At one point, six matches were being played at the same time, creating a bit of a head-spinning effect that, if I’m being honest, was a bit overwhelming. It was also enthralling, and my favorite open to any MLS season in a long time.

Sunday marked the first time in MLS’s 21-year history that every team in the league began the season on the same day. It was wild, almost right from the jump. We had legitimately insane matches in Chicago, Orlando and Houston (17 goals scored across those three cities), and highly entertaining – if slightly more conventional – contests in Portland, Vancouver and LA.

Instead of playing conservatively, most of the league’s 20 clubs came out aggressively on Sunday. It was a refreshing break from the “dispiriting, ugly soccer” that, as our own Armchair Analyst Matt Doyle pointed out on Saturday, we saw at the start of last year.

The result was a new league record for most goals on opening weekend, with the 36 scored on Sunday easily breaking the previous high of 27 set way back in 2001. The mark obliterated the numbers from last year, when the same 20 teams combined for only 16 goals on opening weekend and it took until the 17th game of the season to get to 36.

I can’t remember another opening day – or weekend, more appropriately – that better captured the essence of the league. 

There was parity, as four of the top six teams from last year’s Supporters’ Shield standings lost, with three of those defeats coming at home. There was star power, as Ignacio Piatti, Mauro Diaz, Diego Valeri and Chris Wondolowski all powered their teams to victories and Federico Higuain, Cyle Larinand Diego Fagundez each scored wild goals. There were surprises, as NYCFC youngsters Tommy McNamara, Mix Diskerud and Khiry Shelton each tallied a goal and an assist in City’s 4-3 win at Chicago. There were some seriously great crowds and tifo, too.

Most importantly, there was that little bit of folly that makes MLS so special, with New England scoring in the 93rd minute to draw 3-3 at Houston, NYCFC and Chicago collectively deciding not to play defense at Toyota Park and, most ridiculously, 10-man Orlando City scoring two goals in the fourth and final minute of stoppage time to eke out a 2-2 home draw against 10-man Real Salt Lake.

Opening day was at times brilliant, at times maddening and easily the most fun way the league has opened a season in years. It was a little rusty, but it was very MLS. And if Sunday was any indication, it’ll be a hell of a ride in 2016.