5 young MLS players I'm excited to watch this season

This newsletter is not particularly MLS heavy, but we can make an exception this week. The league starts its 2026 season on Saturday, our second biggest readership is from the United States, and I currently live in that country, so we can give MLS a little bit of love today.

I’ve picked out 5 young players that I’m excited to see take a big step forward in their careers this season. If you’re looking for stuff like MVP, golden boot and title contender predictions, I recommend this roundtable from my very smart and cool friends at The Guardian. If you’re a super giganerd, check out the American Soccer Analysis team previews.

Because these are all MLS players, we get to use ASA’s G+ wheels in addition to the usual StatsBomb viz. Check out this explainer of G+ if you’re not familiar. It attempts to measure how much all on-ball contributions contribute to their team’s chances of scoring or conceding, much like StatsBomb’s OBV, but as you’ll see below the different methodologies lead to some very different conclusions.

Frankie Westfield — RB — Philadelphia Union

Yesterday, Moe wrote about Birmingham City, who have rapidly improved since adding former Philly fullback Kai Wagner. While Westfield isn’t a direct replacement — he plays on the other side, and was on the field with Wagner quite a bit last season — the Union will be hoping that a leap forward from Westfield helps replace some of Wagner’s lost production.

While starting about half of the Union’s games last year, Westfield was a solid defensive contributor who improved quite a bit as a passer as the season went on.

Going into his age 21 season and his first as a clear first choice player, this could be a make-or-break campaign for how Westfield is viewed by both the national team program and potential European suitors.

Zavier Gozo — W/AM — Real Salt Lake

You’re probably going to look at these numbers and say “what’s the big deal?” But Gozo was a teenager playing his first significant pro minutes on a super mega stinky attack, and still managed to look productive.

I understand that there’s a lot of Source: Dude Trust Me in this. But Gozo is an ambitious dribbler, can shoot or cross with his left or right, and has excellent raw size and speed. He also had an excellent showing at the U-20 World Cup, which will not interrupt his MLS season this time around.

The counter-argument against a Gozo breakout is that RSL still has the same boring, defensive coach as last season. If you’re an MLS team with a really good academy pipeline and the ability to sell players abroad for millions of dollars, you probably shouldn’t hire a coach like that.

Beau Leroux — CM — San Jose Earthquakes

The college system and draft no longer hold the same importance in American soccer as they did a decade ago. Everyone has an academy, almost everyone has a B team, and teams sign local teenagers to professional contracts every season.

But there are still quite a few quality players who slip through the cracks and emerge from NCAA ball. One of them is Beau Leroux, a 4th (!!!) round draft pick. The Quakes probably took him out of San Jose State just because they knew they wouldn’t have to spend any money to get him to preseason camp and evaluate him. Turns out he’s really good!

(The age on the StatsBomb radar is wrong, by the way. He’s 22.)

I’m really curious to see if this production was real or if it was flukey in any way, but this guy just looks like an awesome box-to-box 8. Pretty insane for a guy who was playing regular public high school ball a few years ago.

Taha Habroune — CM — Columbus Crew

Speaking of talented all-around 8s, here’s a younger and possibly higher ceiling one. Habroune had a few chances to show what he could do with the Crew last season and holy sub effects, Batman. They told him to bring the energy and run his ass off when he got subbed on, and he did that job.

But Habroune wasn’t just a wrecking ball. He showed enough as a carrier and passer that he’s probably going to get a lot more playing time and responsibility this season. Like Gozo, he went to the U-20 World Cup, and will probably benefit quite a bit from not having his season interrupted by that this time around.

Mykhi Joyner — W — St. Louis City

This is the one instance of me calling my shot. The other 4 guys above have played a lot of MLS and/or youth national team minutes and are fairly well-known and hyped up in MLS nerd circles. But I haven’t heard a lot of chatter about Mykhi Joyner, who also hasn’t gotten many YNT looks.

And I’d certainly love to know why!

St. Louis certainly believes in him, and they’ve been giving him more time in preseason games this year. I expect him to get a lot more senior playing time this season. Those MLS numbers are in limited action, but between how promising they look and how great his MLS Next Pro numbers were, this is a dude who needs to get on the pitch more.

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