After the shortest season in league history, one interrupted for four months by the coronavirus outbreak, MLS teams open training camps Monday in preparation for a year that is shaping up to be hugely consequential.
The league is expanding to 27 teams with the addition of a franchise in Austin, Texas. The flow of young South American talent has continued with FC Cincinnati’s addition of Brenner, a 21-year-old Brazilian forward, on a $13-million transfer, and Atlanta adding Argentine youth internationals Santiago Sosa and Franco Ibarra. And new stadiums are opening in Austin and Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, continuing a spurt that will see the league add at least 10 soccer-specific stadiums between 2017 and 2023, a building boom that rivals Major League Baseball’s at the start of this century.