We’re now three weeks into the 2026 MLS campaign, and the trajectories of Canada’s three MLS teams have begun to show themselves. 

This week saw all three Canadian teams win in the same weekend for the first time since June 28-29, 2025, and the first time on the road since May 5-6, 2017 (h/t OneSoccer for the stat). And while victories are expected for the Whitecaps, there was finally some optimism for fans in the Eastern time zone.

Here’s a look at what stuck out this weekend.

Continued dominance

The Vancouver Whitecaps have been among the class of MLS basically since the ball was kicked to start the 2025 campaign, and the ability of every single player in the lineup to control the game has been a main reason as to why.

Saturday in Portland, it was the Brian White show. But really, it was another showcase where everyone on the pitch showed their quality.

Portland started the game with the idea to step high and pressure Vancouver’s centre backs, and disrupt Vancouver’s ability to control the ball and the game in possession. This worked, but for maybe 10-15 minutes, before the ‘Caps started to break through the pressure, and start applying pressure of their own, which culminated in White’s opener.

“Our game plan and the way we play is being aggressive and active and not letting the opposition dictate the game,” Jesper Sørensen said post-game. “We don’t want them to just push us back. So for us it was about getting up and stressing them in their buildup.”

“And they wanted the same, so it’s about who can get control over the game with the ball. I think in general, especially in the first half, our pressure was extremely well-functioning, and I think that we could play at a pace where they started to get longer and longer in their team, so we could utilize the gaps they left,” he continued.

You could see the fingerprints all over that on the opener. Even after a giveaway, Jeevan Badwal’s repress won it right back, and the Timbers' scramble in the box left Berhalter able to arrive in between Joao Ortiz and Ariel Lassiter, and play a ball into White, who slid in behind the marking of Finn Surman to score inside the six-yard box. 

These are situations the Whitecaps have consistently created under Sørensen, and part of the way they’ve terrified so many teams across MLS.

From that moment, Vancouver dominated play pretty comfortably. They scored two more goals to go up 3-0 before a banger from Portland’s 18-year old debutant Eric Izoita, which marked the first goal the Whitecaps conceded in 2026.

That goal led to a bit of instability among the ‘Caps for a bit, as Sørensen noted in his presser, but it was a brilliant bit of play by White that put the game away for good — another goal off of a Timbers turnover.

The striker’s ability to receive the ball in front of the back line, bring his winger into play, and ghost into space to receive the ball back is a dream for anyone who enjoys watching good centre forward play.

This goal was a good example of all of that, and it was aided by a peach of a through ball by Kenji Cabrera.

With another Cascadian clash coming Thursday in the form of Seattle in Champions Cup action, the Whitecaps will need more of the same from White and the whole team.

House of horrors no more

TQL Stadium opened in May of 2021. Before Sunday’s contest, Toronto FC had not scored a single goal in the building in five visits, with the best result being a 0-0 draw in early 2024.

But finally, in the 86th minute, Dániel Sallói changed that fact. 

How we got there started with some setup changes. Under the vast majority of Pat Noonan’s time coaching Cincinnati, he’s set his team up in a 3-4-1-2 that utilizes a star attacking midfielder, high-flying wingbacks, at least one DP striker and a strong spine with the back three and double pivot.

The way a lot of teams have tried to counter this setup is by mirroring it. The benefits of this are having three centre-backs of your own to deal with the striker duo, having your wing-backs go head-to-head against theirs, and the ability to go man-on-man in the midfield. 

Robin Fraser went with this setup on Sunday, in what looked like a 3-5-2 most of the game. This marks the first time in a while he's chosen to divert away from the 4-2-3-1 setup that had shown success in the back half of 2025, but was struggling in the first two games this season.

In essence, the way to counter Cincinnati is by neutralizing the territorial advantages their formation provides — creating one-on-one battles all over the pitch to limit their ability to generate overloads.

This strategy is far from foolproof, as Cincinnati possess the quality across the pitch to win individual battles. That threat was somewhat diminished on Sunday, with star number ten Evander limited to a 15-minute cameo off the bench due to a hamstring injury — removing their most dangerous individual from the equation — but Toronto still had to come out on top in a significant number of those duels across the pitch.

Raheem Edwards was in for a tough test against Ender Echenique, and more than held his own. He got nutmegged twice, and the Venezuelan had a moment or two in behind, but for the most part, Edwards really kept with him up and down the touch line.

The midfield of Jonathan Osorio, José Cifuentes and Djordje Mihailović didn’t need to dominate the game, but they kept Cincinnati from doing the same on the other end. In particular, Cifuentes was very good at covering a ton of ground and jumping onto 50/50 balls, while Mihailović got on the ball way more than he did against Vancouver and created a good amount of danger.

The centre-backs were in tough against Kévin Denkey, and while the Togo international managed to get debutant Benjamín Kuscevic on a yellow in the first half, the back three did a good job containing the big man and not letting him drag his team up the field on too many occasions.

Add onto that a bit of individual magic from a Richie Laryea through ball and a good finish from Sallói, and you get the formula for a much-needed Toronto FC victory in a building they’ve never won in before.

With Josh Sargent entering the mix in the near future, we'll see if the 3-5-2 sticks around.

Positivity through pragmatism 

It was not working for CF Montréal. At all. 

Two losses and a minus-8 goal differential through two games, as it looked like the team didn’t even belong in the same league as everyone else had everyone asking what the point of the team even was.

In week three, they came up against a red-hot Red Bull New York side that had dominated through two games, with former TFC captain Michael Bradley in the head coach's post. They had taken advantage of some leaky back lines in the first two weeks, pressing high and dominating possession and territory to create endless chances against Orlando and New England.

So, what does Marco Donadel do? Sets his team up in a very low block 5-4-1, choosing to give up any opportunity to build up in favour of clogging the middle and making it hard for the Red Bulls to create uncertainty among what was a very resolute back line.

This also played into the hands of forcing New York into forcing chances to their wingers, where Jorge Ruvalcaba and Cade Cowell have been in dangerous spots through the first two weeks of the season, but really haven’t gotten themselves to a spot where they can be consistently creating chances. 

Rather, a lot of attacks have died on their feet, and it’s probably why the Red Bulls haven’t been able to turn their territorial success into a boatload of goals yet.

What Montréal were able to do was prevent chances from the inside, but also create in a direct manner the other way. On the play that created the penalty, it was one ball lumped up to Prince Owusu, who won his aerial duel and then lumped another ball in behind for Ivan Jaime to run onto. 

He wins the foul, Owusu converts the penalty — 1-0. For the second, a long goal kick from Thomas Gillier sees the Impact win a couple of second balls in midfield before playing a ball into the corner for Wiki Carmona to chase. He draws the foul and sneaks the resulting free kick through the wall to make it 2-0.

That gave Montréal an unexpected 2-0 lead at half, and a calamitous play building out of the back gave Carmona a second goal against his former team for a three-goal lead, which would hold through to the final whistle.

You probably aren’t going to be the best team in the world sitting in a 5-4-1 block from the start all the time. But, for a team that looked in total disarray through two weeks, being able to sit back and at least look resolute will help you climb out of the Wooden Spoon conversation.