TORONTO, Canada—Soccer is back, and it’s weird.
We’re about a month deep into the slow and belaboured re-emergence of the beautiful game; I’m not counting the Belarussian Prem for two reasons: 1) It never shut down 2) After watching several matches, I’m still not entirely convinced it’s actually soccer.
We’ve seen empty Bundesliga grounds, EA sports designed digital fans, and high-tech sex dolls in the stands. We’ve seen rust. We’ve seen exhaustion. We see you, Alphonso Davies, living all our best lives.
And now, we stand at the precipice of finally getting to see our beloved Reds back in action, as Major League Soccer prepares to travel en masse to Orlando for a World Cup-style Tournament they have dubbed, with zero imagination, the “MLS is Back” tournament.