{"id":38137,"date":"2025-04-07T16:27:35","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T16:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/07\/mls-talking-points-how-vancouver-became-elite-and-no-rest-for-leo-messi\/"},"modified":"2025-04-07T16:27:35","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T16:27:35","slug":"mls-talking-points-how-vancouver-became-elite-and-no-rest-for-leo-messi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/07\/mls-talking-points-how-vancouver-became-elite-and-no-rest-for-leo-messi\/","title":{"rendered":"MLS talking points: How Vancouver became elite and no rest for Leo Messi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A single play has led Charlotte FC to multiple wins, while Minnesota United\u2019s strikeforce is thriving<\/p>\n<p>The Vancouver Whitecaps weren\u2019t supposed to be here, perched on top of the Western Conference.<\/p>\n<p>They lost Stuart Armstrong, a key Designated Player, over the offseason. Star attacker Ryan Gauld has missed the last month with a knee injury. They\u2019re still alive in the Concacaf Champions Cup quarter-finals, and Concacaf success and regular season success don\u2019t tend to mix well for MLS teams. And yet, here they are. On top of the West. The Vancouver Whitecaps.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2025\/apr\/07\/mls-talking-points-how-vancouver-became-elite-and-no-rest-for-leo-messi\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A single play has led Charlotte FC to multiple wins, while Minnesota United\u2019s strikeforce is thriving The Vancouver Whitecaps weren\u2019t supposed to be here, perched on top of the Western Conference. They lost Stuart Armstrong, a key Designated Player, over the offseason. Star attacker Ryan Gauld has missed the last month with a knee injury. &#8230; <a title=\"MLS talking points: How Vancouver became elite and no rest for Leo Messi\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/07\/mls-talking-points-how-vancouver-became-elite-and-no-rest-for-leo-messi\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about MLS talking points: How Vancouver became elite and no rest for Leo Messi\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}