MLS REVIEW 12 Sep 2026: We made the home side favourite five times on Friday night and only Orlando obliged

Five Major League Soccer fixtures on Friday night and our models made the home side favourite in every one of them. One of the five obliged. Orlando City SC won 3-0 against Toronto FC and that was the whole of our return: D.C. United and Atlanta United drew 0-0, FC Cincinnati and Charlotte FC drew 3-3, Inter Miami CF and Nashville SC drew 2-2, and the Columbus Crew lost at home to the New York Red Bulls.

None of the calls was strong. The most confident was Columbus at 49.8 per cent against 24.4 for the visitors and 25.8 for the draw, and that was the one that went furthest wrong. Cincinnati at 42.1 and Inter Miami at 42.7 were nearer to coin-flips than forecasts, and both finished level.

The Columbus match turned on a single moment at the end of it. Ronald Donkor scored in the 89th minute, finishing a cutback from Cameron Harper, and there was nothing after it. Harper had already hit the post before the interval and Steven Moreira had struck the crossbar for Columbus inside the opening minutes, so the game had been asking to be settled long before it was. The win ended a six-match run without one for the Red Bulls, and Harper, back from a serious knee injury, was the man who created it.

Cincinnati against Charlotte was the loud one. Pavel Bucha put Cincinnati ahead in the second minute from a Tyler Barlow pass, Liel Abada levelled in the seventh, and Pep Biel converted a penalty in the seventeenth to turn the game round inside twenty minutes. Kévin Denkey made it 2-2 in the 51st, redirecting Andrei Chirila's shot, and Idan Toklomati headed Charlotte back in front four minutes later. Denkey had the last word in the first minute of stoppage time, turning in a Bryan Ramirez Leon corner, and Cincinnati had come from behind twice.

Abada's evening ended early: he came off injured in the 44th minute, having scored in three of his previous four matches. Biel's penalty made him Charlotte's all-time leader in goal contributions and tied their single-season scoring record.

Inter Miami had the best player on the field and still could not win. Sam Surridge put Nashville in front in the fourth minute from an Andy Najar pass, an own goal by Reed Baker-Whiting levelled it in the nineteenth, and Lionel Messi finished from distance in the 62nd after a one-two with Rodrigo De Paul. Surridge scored again in the first minute of stoppage time to take the point back. It was Miami's third successive draw in the league, and Nashville's head coach B.J. Callaghan said afterwards: "It's just another way to pressure test our mentality."

Orlando's win was the only one of the five our models and the football agreed on, and it was built on a goal on the stroke of half-time. Antoine Griezmann scored it, finishing a Zakaria Taifi cross. Harvey Sarajian added the second in the 82nd from Daryl Dike's pass, his first goal in the league, and Iván Angulo scored in the sixth minute of stoppage time after Justin Ellis had put him through. The defeat ended a seven-match unbeaten run for Toronto, who were without Jonathan Osorio, Nelson Palacio and Djordje Mihailovic.

D.C. United and Atlanta was the quiet one and the least representative of what happened in it. Atlanta had nineteen attempts and hit the crossbar through Luke Brennan in the fourth minute of second-half stoppage time; D.C. did not put a shot on target and still took the point, Sean Johnson making two saves for the clean sheet. Our 47.9 per cent on the home side was, in the end, about as wrong as being right can look.