Who’ll win the East?

Graham Parker: Columbus look solid again and should be able to take advantage of the Red Bulls having a target on their back and trying to bed in younger players in a transitional year. Toronto have made good signings to surround their star players and should be more competitive again, but need to do better against the top teams in their own conference to be serious contenders.

Graham Ruthven: The New York Red Bulls. The erratic, tediously tragic franchise of old is gone – at least in the regular season. Two Supporters’ Shield wins in three years illustrates a club which has found something of a groove of late, with Jesse Marsch confirming RBNY as MLS’s most consistent side last term. How times change.

Caitlin Murray: It’s tempting to say Toronto FC, but it’s the Columbus Crew who look the most poised to lead the East, especially after the Red Bulls have not brought in top talent the way other clubs have. The Crew are holding on to most of the talent that earned them the spot to host last year’s MLS Cup, including Kei Kamara, Federico Higuain and Ethan Finlay, who again should terrorize defenses throughout the East. Wil Trapp and Tony Tchani continue to grow into their positions and coach Gregg Berhalter knows how to get the best out his players.

Simon Veness: Toronto. Teams struggled to cope with Sebastian Giovinco last season and I don’t see that changing in 2016, while the rest of the team is more coherent around him. Seba’s dead-ball skills remain supreme and he could well break the league goalscoring record.

Who’ll win the West?

GP: I think Dallas will hold off Vancouver, but both teams feature youthful rosters that should be peaking this year. LA have a great-looking first XI, but injuries could derail them at any point. Seattle need time for the post-Obafemi Martins era to kick in, and Portland will be solid again without dominating the regular season.

GR: The LA Galaxy. 2016 could either go one of two ways for MLS’s shiniest club, with Bruce Arena leading a revamp of his squad in the post-Landon Donovan age. It could go horribly wrong, with the likes of Nigel De Jong, Ashley Cole and Steven Gerrard all well into the twilight of their careers, but the Galaxy’s transfer record in recent years suggests they deserve the benefit of the doubt.

CM: The LA Galaxy are perennial favorites, but it remains to be seen how all their new pieces will fit together. The Seattle Sounders are always in the conversation, but with Obafemi Martins off to China and no replacement lined up, judgement there needs to be withheld. The Portland Timbers have lost some key players, but they have managed to bring in strong replacements. Jack McInerney and Zarek Valentin are good pick-ups, and Diego Valeri will have Darlington Nagbe by his side and Fanendo Adi in front of him, giving him plenty to work with. Lucas Melano should perform closer to his $5m price tag, and the Timbers look poised to improve their third place last year.

SV: Seattle Sounders. Jordan Morris will soon have fans saying “Obafemi who?” The Sounders got the best out of Martins for three years but USMNT whizkid Morris is primed to step straight in, and he couldn’t have a better mentor in the shape of Clint Dempsey.

MLS Cup winner?

GP: It’s the question you least want to answer. It’s thankless to guess who’s going to time their run of form, let alone luck with injuries, at that stage of the year (Portland were 25-1 outsiders at the start of last year). If you extrapolate to who’s been building towards it over the last couple of years, it ought to be Dallas v New York in the final, but things never quite work out that way, so I’ll stick with the answer I’ve given elsewhere — Vancouver. Depth, organization and a year’s more experience for a young side, make them as solid a shout as anyone.

GR: With a settled squad and a relatively tranquil off-season – which saw a number of key players signed to new contracts – the New York Red Bulls have the look of frontrunners, especially having lifted the Supporters’ Shield twice in three years. It’s time the Harrison franchise finally lifted MLS Cup.

CM: FC Dallas was the young, gritty team that took some by surprise in topping the West last year. With vital playoff experience under their belts after being knocked out by eventual MLS Cup winners Portland, Dallas will be better equipped to go all the way in 2016.

SV: Toronto. The Supporters’ Shield winner will also come through the knockout tournament with flying colours as Michael Bradley steers the team to its first title – and to the delight of Jürgen Klinsmann, who won’t have to field quite so many questions about his international captain.

Who will be crowned MVP?

GP: It really ought to be Giovinco’s to lose again — especially since he’s surrounded by more experienced players this year, so the Toronto team workload will be more evenly spread.

Sebastian Giovinco caused problems for all of MLS last year – and you can expect more fireworks from him this term. Photograph: Kevin Sousa/Icon Sportswire/Corbis

GR: Sebastian Giovinco. How could you possibly look past the Italian Antman? At times last season he lived up to his nickname by carrying the entire Toronto FC team. He was so good they could have piled the CN Tower on his back and he still wouldn’t have slowed up. Giovinco could become a true MLS great.

CM: Giovani Dos Santos joined the Galaxy last summer and quickly made his mark, tallying four goals with eight assists in 13 appearances. With the benefit of being in LA from the start, he should be better acclimated to MLS and have the time to make a major impact. The flashy, attacking midfielder with a penchant for showcasing his individual fair looks ready to make a major impact in LA. Assuming, of course, Giovinco doesn’t take it.

SV: Even more silverware for Giovinco. With a new scoring record in his pocket, it will be impossible to ignore the explosive second-season impact of The Atomic Ant. He is highly motivated to be in the Italy squad for Euro 2016 and that will add to his appeal.

Who’ll be the most significant off-season signing?

GP: There are some center backs who’ll be important for different reasons: Jelle van Damme coming in for Omar Gonzalez in LA; Gideon Baah for Matt Miazga at New York Red Bulls; Frederic Brillant across town at NYCFC. How Masato Kudo does up front for Vancouver will be important for them taking the next step, and it’s just possible that Shkelzen Gashi’s goals finally provide some inspiration for Colorado, as he arrives from a prolific period with FC Basel. And having been snubbed by his beloved Chicago, it’ll be interesting to see how Harry Shipp does as a creator in a Montreal team set up to be sympathetic to his technical virtues.

GR: The new-look Toronto FC defence. Greg Vanney might finally have found a platform on which to build his otherwise inherently attacking side, with full-back Steven Beitashour joining from the Vancouver Whitecaps and goalkeeper Clint Irwin and centre-back Drew Moor making the move from the Colorado Rapids. TFC won’t be so lopsided this season.

CM: It’s all eyes on Jordan Morris. Ever since he was given the option to play with Werder Bremen or stay stateside with the Sounders, it was assured that the youngster would face intense scrutiny either way. Morris has stirred the latest rumblings of an age-old debate about whether America’s top talent should play in MLS or go overseas. Pressure aside, Morris is a promising young striker who has shown well for the national team, only whetting the appetite of fans who are anxious to see what the Stanford grad can do on the professional level. Right now, there’s a real sense he could be one of the Sounders’ biggest newcomers of 2016 and a major factor beyond that.

SV: Yura Movsisyan. While Real Salt Lake are poised for a bounce-back year in general terms, the Armenian striker gives them a significant boost in the area they need it most, goal-scoring, and that should put them right back in the Western Conference mix.

Who will surprise us?

GP: Possibly Colorado, if Gashi clicks. Don’t underestimate Earnie Stewart’s abilities to work the type of Moneyball approach Philadelphia Union have brought him in for, and which he was so successful with in the Netherlands.

GR: Eric Ayuk. The 19-year-old Cameroonian is already widely known in North American soccer circles as one of MLS’s brightest young talents, making 14 appearances for the Philadelphia Union last season, but 2016 could be his breakthrough year as one of the league’s headline acts. Ayuk might be somewhat renowned, but he could play a part in turning Philly into a surprise package.

Eric Ayuk could spring a surprise with Philadelphia. Photograph: Bill Streicher/USA Today Sports

CM: The Chicago Fire haven’t made the playoffs since 2012 and were generally underwhelming under Frank Yallop. But they may finally be ready to start to turn things around. Veljko Paunović comes in after leading Serbia to the under-20 World Cup title, and he’s shown a willingness to try more creative and sophisticated tactics than his predecessor. Paunović spent his final year as a player with the Philadelphia Union and should be familiar with the unique challenges in MLS. The Fire have brought in 13 new players, the most in the league, and have held on to many their best veteran pieces, including Gilberto, Matt Polster and David Accam. They now have a bevy of young talent to provide roster depth and balance.

SV: Los Angeles. While most teams look to get younger these days, the Galaxy took the diametric opposite tack and that is not a recipe for success in today’s MLS. With half their starting line-up likely to be over 30, it’s asking a lot to get a full season out of all of them.



What are you most looking forward to?

GP: Am I allowed to say Copa America? If not, I think a year without new expansion teams and a chance for the talent pool to settle and consolidate a little will be a modest pleasure.

GR: The materialisation of two reconstruction jobs at the LA Galaxy and New York City FC. At MLS’s two most illustrious clubs, on the East and West coasts, there has been much activity over the off-season. Both teams have put their faith in big names on big money, but of course, in MLS that never guarantees success. Bruce Arena and Patrick Vieira are at differing ends of the MLS management spectrum, but they find themselves in a similar situation this season.

CM: The quality continues to grow and, looking across the rosters in the league this season, MLS is poised for its best year yet. The debate about when (or if) MLS can become one of the top leagues in the world is really beside the point. The league is attracting more talent and the on-field product continues to improve, even as it expands into new markets. I think there is some good soccer ahead that will be a lot of fun to watch and the league will become more competitive.

SV: Orlando’s USL star Kevin Molino was poised for a breakout year in 2015 when his season was cruelly cut short after just seven games by an ACL injury. It will be intriguing to see if he can now turn all his promise into reality after looking razor-sharp in pre-season.

What are you least looking forward to?

GP: Copa America and European Championship along with the usual clutch of European teams playing friendlies to build their US market, will muddy the domestic picture more than usual this summer. Season could appear more fragmented than usual.

GR: Watching any match played on the Yankee Stadium pitch. The days of watching MLS played on baseball fields were supposed to be behind us. Now, not only are they back, but the league’s most attention-grabbing club is playing on one for the foreseeable future. With players like Andrea Pirlo, it’s as if New York City FC have bought a Maserati and are driving it on a vegetable patch. A vegetable patch with confusing markings and dimensions.

David Villa shows his disdain for the Yankee Stadium pitch. Photograph: Ira L. Black/Corbis

CM: Complaints about refereeing. It’s inevitable: a single person is not always going to be able call everything correctly when trying to follow 22 players moving at full speed. Refereeing mistakes are as old as soccer itself and are certainly not confined to MLS, but every year fans declare that the refs in MLS are the worst. Until MLS introduces video replay, which they have been experimenting with for quite some time, calls will be wrong – and they will even make games more exciting sometimes.

SV: Watching games on the so-called soccer field at New York City’s Yankee Stadium was painful to behold in 2015. Having more of the same on that awkward, postage-stamp pitch is a borderline embarrassment for the league, irrespective of the off-field atmosphere.

What’s the one change you’d like MLS to adopt?

GP: Seeded round-robin playoffs with home advantage throughout for conference winners. Keep a larger playoff pool and play-in games if you must, but in a four team “group” fourth seed would play three group games on road, and top seed would play three at home. It just puts a more appropriate weight on regular season accomplishment and still allows high finishing teams to be guaranteed at least three games. Believe Grant Wahl of Sports Illustrated first suggested this, by the way, but I approve.

GR: More accommodating breaks for international fixtures. In Concacaf it is admittedly difficult to integrate so many international matches into the MLS schedule, but a better compromise needs to be made somewhere. Simply too many games have been warped by call-ups and call-offs. It’s unfair on both players and clubs.

CM: The playoff structure is convoluted. You have single “play-in” matches and one championship game, but then home-and-away series match-ups in between. Compared to the “European method of whoever has the most points at the end of the season wins”, American playoffs seem designed to create an exciting finish with competitive, high-stakes games. But if that’s the design, have single win-or-go-home matches to increase the odds of thrilling games like last year’s memorable penalty kick shootout in Portland.

SV: Giving teams the option to take a break during international weeks was a positive step towards rationalizing the league with the rest of the world, so let’s also now do away with the ridiculous Discovery Process rules for bringing in players from abroad, which also presents an amateurish appearance to outside observers.