Not even 20 minutes had passed in last night’s match between Inter Miami and Chicago when Lionel Messi’s team went down a goal thanks to a viral whiff by keeper Rocco Ríos Novo. It was the perfect encapsulation of the homegrown soccer spectacle Americans are returning to after the highs of the recent home-hosted 2026 World Cup. Thank goodness Premier League is back in just under a month.
What happened was that Inter Miami’s right defender passed the ball back to Novo while under pressure from Chicago. Novo had plenty of time to boot the ball out of danger, but proceeded to make a bizarre play on the ball that consisted of trying to one-time kick it with the outside of his right foot. He missed. Badly. So badly that the ball simply kept on rolling into the back of the Inter Miami net instead. Chicago immediately went in front as Novo’s teammates tried to help him shrug it off with smiles and pats on the back.
We’ll take it from here World Cup pic.twitter.com/YpjJz3eUuG
— USMNTrev (@Eyesandvibes) July 23, 2026
It was somehow worse goal keeping than the fatal giveaway by Matt Freese in the USMNT match against Belgium, when he overcomplicated a simple clear to blow open the hull of the U.S.’s already-sinking World Cup fortunes. Freese was in fact booed last night during his return to MLS for NYCFC, though his side went on to win 2-1 against Columbus.
Novo’s mental lapse didn’t hold his team back from a 3-2 win over Chicago, either, but it did provide the perfect opportunity for soccer fans to lampoon MLS’s post-World Cup slogan, “We’ll take it from here.” It included a commercial in which David Beckham, who happens to be Inter Miami’s co-owner, tries to persuade people tuning into the World Cup for the first time because it’s being hosted in the U.S. to continue enjoying the beautiful game by filling the void left over by the end of the tournament with with local MLS matches.
MLS teams are indeed reporting major jumps in ticket sales and viewership for their July 22 return. And those people turning their attention to it are witnessing a league whose quality and style of play, while continuing to rise, still leave a surprising amount to be desired. But at least my own Philadelphia Union snapped their winless-at-home streak with a 3-1 victory over the New York Red Bulls. That leaves them, uh, still dead last out of 30 teams. Nowhere to go but up. Maybe that’s what MLS’s slogan should have been.
