Diego Chara breaks an MLS record while Lionel Messi chases one: Takeaways

Diego Chara breaks an MLS record while Lionel Messi chases one: Takeaways

Jeff Rueter, Tom Bogert and Pablo Maurer
Apr 29, 2024

In many ways, Diego Chara’s Saturday evening was the same as so many have been for the past 13 years: Head to the stadium and lace em’ up for another game with the Portland Timbers, where he’s a club legend.

Taking his familiar spot in central midfield on Saturday, Chara moved, tackled and smiled the same way at 38 years old that he did as the 25-year-old that debuted in MLS in 2011.

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Only two things were out of the ordinary: For one, he got a red card — somehow only his ninth across all competitions for Portland in 13 years despite someone constantly getting stuck into tackles. For another, he broke an impressive record: with his 377th regular season game for the Timbers, Chara set a new league record for appearances with one team.

go-deeper

GO DEEPER

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“This club means a lot to me,” Chara told The Athletic ahead of the game last week. “They gave me the opportunity to come to MLS, it was my first time winning a trophy. It means so much for me as a player, but even more for me as a person and my family.”

Chara has accrued 425 appearances across all competitions with the Timbers, helping lead the club to an MLS Cup title in 2015 and another two finals in 2018 and 2021. The Timbers won the 2020 MLS Is Back Tournament as well.

At any point along the way, Chara was among the top three defensive midfielders in the league. Today, he’s easily among the top three defensive midfielders in the history of MLS.

He did so in a style so unassuming it became his signature on and off the field. When Chara was getting sworn in as an American citizen in 2019, the judge began proceedings by apologizing for the state of his voice, as he was at the Timbers match the night before. He had no idea Chara was in the room, sitting at the back, until the time came.

“This milestone shows how professional Diego is, how much he loves the game, how much he cares about our club, the Portland Timbers,” said Diego Valeri, another Timbers legend who formed one of the league’s best midfield partnerships with Chara for much of the 2010s. “And what kind of person he is: A fighter, a winner.”

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Chara arrived in Portland two years before Valeri, and was the person to introduce Valeri to the squad. The team’s two marquee players, they knew how important it was to build the foundation of a great relationship. It came naturally and it came quickly. In those early days, Valeri says he asked Chara what his style was.

“You know, Diego,” Chara told Valeri, “I pray and I play.”

“That is my favorite story about Diego,” Valeri said with a laugh.

Chara has made so many memories in Portland, even when he can be overlooked. He doesn’t score the goals nor does he assist a ton, but he was as integral as any attacking star. There was a period between 2014-19 over 24 matches where the club went winless without Chara starting.

“It’s crazy when you have the time to think about it,” Chara admitted. “It’s going to be a good legacy— To show hard work, discipline and always trying to do your best.”

Trophies will be easy memories to point to, but his presence even in defeat is comforting.

“I remember right after the final whistle when we won MLS Cup, hugging him,” Valeri said. “Even when we lost finals, hugging him was special. Those moments in the  locker room, those were the best.”

Chara will be suspended following his red card on Saturday, but that’s about the only thing slowing him down. He looks and moves the same as he did at 25 to the naked eye. This record is going to have plenty more games added to it.

“You can tell he’s going to play as long as he can,” Valeri said. “Everytime I watch him play this year, he still looks great. I assume he’ll play many more games.”

Can Lionel Messi break Carlos Vela’s single-season record?

Before facing Inter Miami and Lionel Messi on Saturday, multiple New England Revolution players were late scratches due to food poisoning. After Miami played the Revs off the field in a 4-1 thrashing, the rest of the locker room might have felt just as sick.

Messi led the way with two goals and an assist, finishing the match week atop the MLS Golden Boot standings for the first time since joining the club last summer (though it’s worth noting Miami has played at least one more game than every other MLS team).

The rate at which Messi has made this rise despite missing 405 minutes due to injury or rest is extraordinary – and potentially record-breaking.

Carlos Vela put together one of the league’s greatest individual campaigns in 2019, leading LAFC to the Supporters’ Shield with a record 34 goals. That total, coupled with 15 assists, established a benchmark of 49 goals and assists that looked downright unassailable at the time. Messi might be in a position to break it if this keeps up.

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Through 11 games, Messi has 15 goal contributions from 585 MLS minutes — a rate of 2.31 per 90. It’s an impressive rate, one that would far outpace Vela’s record season (1.62 per 90). The determining factor, then, will be Messi’s availability. The Argentine has played just 59% of available minutes for Miami this season, missing four games and coming off the bench in a fifth. Vela missed three games in the entirety of 2019, concluding the year having been on the field for 89% of LAFC’s season.

If Vela had played 59% of the 2019 season and put up a similar output, he would have been good for 31 goal contributions. If Messi keeps up his 2.31 per 90 pace and plays 59% of Miami’s season (1,716 minutes), he would end the season with 44 goal contributions. It is actually a testament to Vela’s quality, and his consistency five seasons ago.


The “59% of all minutes” estimate isn’t just conservative hedging; assuming Argentina is competitive into the semifinal of this summer’s Copa América, Messi will miss another five Miami games and could miss a sixth that’s scheduled three days after that tournament’s final. That doesn’t factor for scheduled rotations for a 36-year-old who must continue to take his recent hamstring issues into consideration.

If we’re fated to see Messi for 59% of this season and he’s set his sights on giving the league its first 50-contribution season, he’ll need to up his rate significantly: 2.78 goals and assists per 90 minutes across his projected final 1,134 remaining minutes. That’s box office stuff, no doubt, but then again his not-quite-record-setting pace already is. – Jeff Rueter

Offside! Offside? Offside.

Sporting Kansas City head coach Peter Vermes is an MLS legend, the league’s longest-tenured coach ever and, as of 2024, the sixth-longest tenured manager in the world. As a player, he was a fixture in the early days of MLS and a mainstay on the U.S. men’s national team.

Vermes is also one of the league’s most colorful figures, and very rarely bites his tongue. On Saturday, after SKC’s 2-1 defeat at the hands of Minnesota United, Vermes led off his press conference with a visual aid, hoisting up an iPad displaying a freeze-frame of Minnesota’s second goal, a close-range strike by Tani Oluwaseyi that — on first glance, at least — appeared to be offside.

It ws a move that evokes memories of Real Salt Lake head coach Mike Petke’s famed “pass em out, Trey” blowup of 2017. Vermes should be credited for the entertainment value of all of this, which is extremely high, but his gripe gets a little more complicated when you take into account the facts of geometry.

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There’s a scientific explanation for the way Vermes, along with many others, views the call: parallax effect. Put simply, it’s the difference in the appearance of an object when viewed from different lines of sight. Put a camera — or an assistant referee — perfectly even with the last defender and that effect is minimized, making an offside call relatively straightforward. But position the camera or official at a greater viewing angle from the action and things become a little distorted.

A closer look at the call in question by X user @OffsideModeling shows that Oluwaseyi was actually onside by all of one inch. It’s a razor-thin margin, one that the AR may not have even deliberately and intentionally spotted, but in the end it was the correct call.

The close call was never sent down to center referee Ted Unkel for review, for obvious-enough reasons: despite Vermes’ complaints, it wasn’t deemed clear and obvious enough to be overturned.

None of this, of course, will stop complaints. And thankfully for all of us, it didn’t keep Peter Vermes from hoisting up his iPad. In a league full of bland personalities, I would not have it any other way.  —Pablo Maurer

Wild late winner finally hands Union a loss

At last, a league so synonymous with competitive balance has seen its final team suffer its first defeat in the 2024 regular season. The Philadelphia Union expertly navigated the aftermath of their shocking CONCACAF Champions Cup exit, going 3-4-0 in their first seven games to make an initial case in the Supporters’ Shield race. They welcomed another early season front-runner, Real Salt Lake, to Subaru Park on Saturday — another side in search of a statement result to pad their bona fides as a contender.

MVP frontrunner Chicho Arango continued his brilliant spring by setting up an early goal for Andrés Gomez, before the Union equalized thanks to Daniel Gazdag. Philadelphia kept pushing the Salt Lake defense, including a golden 61st minute opportunity for Gazdag on a low cross into the six-yard box that the Hungarian midfielder shanked wide of goal. Instead, the visitors held their nerve as stoppage time neared, when a cleared free kick landed at Alexandros Katranis’ feet. The Greek sent in a looping 26.8 yard strike, leaving Andre Blake to flail in vain.

Philadelphia concluded the weekend sitting seveth in the East, but also has two or three games in hand on each of the teams ahead of it in the table with plenty of room to rise in the coming weeks. The result is also the kind of gut-check win that sends a message to the rest of the Western Conference. Although some (see: me) foresaw a trip to MLS Cup for this youthful collective, Real Salt Lake’s strong start was often overshadowed by the LA Galaxy’s resurgence.

Make no mistake about it now: this RSL side is for real. – Jeff Rueter

Prince Owusu steps up for Toronto FC

If someone had told you that Lorenzo Insigne and Federico Bernardeschi would combine for two goals and two assists in Toronto FC’s first 10 games, you likely would have worried about the state of things under head coach John Herdman. And yet, the Reds ended the weekend seated 4th in the East on 16 points in spite of their Italian duo’s middling returns — though each can be explained.

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Insigne has played just 328 minutes, but just returned to training this past week as he recovers from a hamstring injury. Bernardeschi has assumed a more selfless role in Herdman’s system, trading last year’s “off-center forward” responsibility for something more akin to a wingback. That shift has left more room for a true striker to step up — and Prince Owusu has done exactly that, putting together one of the best stretches of line-leading for any Toronto forward since Jozy Altidore.

When Owusu joined the Reds on a free transfer last summer, he was the undercard of a press release focused primarily on U-22 Initiative signing Cassius Mailula. Owusu had been nomadic throughout his career in Germany, playing for seven different clubs from 2015-2023. Most recently, he’d bagged nine goals in 32 games with 2. Bundesliga side Jahn Regensburg.

On Saturday, the 27-year-old scored his fifth goal of the young season in dramatic style. Toronto had conceded early in its trip to Orlando, and was still down 1-0 in the 86th minute. Tyrese Spicer (the first overall pick in the 2024 SuperDraft) scored his second professional goal from a towering header in the 87th minute, while Owusu nodded home a cross from Bernadeschi in the 90th minute to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Owusu’s role in Herdman’s system is that of an ideal line-leader. The match-winner came after a one-man counter at Bernardeschi’s feet up the right wing, with Owusu often four or five yards offside during the Italian’s mazing run. By the time the defense caught up and forced Bernardeschi to cut back onto his left, Owusu was in the perfect position. Four of his five goals have come from inside the six-yard box, with the other tally only a mere yard or two beyond its territory.

Of course, the team will still be eager to see Insigne return as soon as possible. In the meantime, however, they’ve found another attacker they can rely on to turn chances into goals. – Jeff Rueter

More Portland soccer, more trees

We certainly don’t hesitate to criticize MLS’ penchant for adopting bland, lifeless European naming conventions. The league has long been full of Uniteds and FCs and the like. The Crayon Flag died an ignominious death, and so did Columbus’ work crew.

Meanwhile, down in the USL, clubs are still comfortable naming themselves after natural disasters, steam engines or whatever riverhounds are. And now, they’ve got another creative entrant: Portland, Maine’s Hearts of Pine. The name is a nod to the city’s “Valentine’s day bandit,” a local resident who for four decades plastered storefronts and buildings with hearts on Valentine’s day. His identity was never revealed until his death earlier this month.

The club will take the field in 2025 and its crest is truly spectacular.

It would be unfair to say that the name doesn’t have any influence from abroad. There’s Scotland’s Heart of Midlothian FC, for example, or Ghana’s Hearts of Oak. But full credit to the club for their work here. The name and crest are immediately among the most memorable in American soccer – right up there with the Northern Colorado Hailstorm. —Maurer

(Top photo: Getty Images)

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