We asked our staff if we expected FC Cincinnati to finish atop the Eastern Conference and—spoiler alert!—no one had the confidence to give the Orange & Blue another Supporters’ Shield.
Last year was a bummer for sure, so perhaps everyone is gunshy to pick Cincinnati to finish higher than the 2025 MLS Cup winners. But does everyone think that Inter Miami is a slam dunk to sweep the board in 2026? Considering the last Western Conference champ to win the Shield was LAFC in 2019, do the Black & Gold have a better shot? And what about the MLS Cup itself?
We sat the staff down one more time to get their final prediction. Who wins it all this year?
MONDAY: FC Cincinnati’s MVP
WEDNESDAY: FC Cincinnati’s finish in the standings
FRIDAY: The Shield and MLS Cup winners
Photo by Rob Moore.
Jason Ashcraft
Shield: I’ve not fully bought in to Miami being a super club. While a lot of MLS sickos are trying to start the narrative that parity is gone in MLS, I haven’t bought into it. That being said, barring some disaster, I don’t think anyone catches Miami in the regular season. The Herons will raise the Supporters’ Shield in their new stadium.
Cup: MLS Cup is anyone’s game. One of the reasons I love MLS is because of the great equalizer that is the MLS Cup Playoffs Presented by Audi as written about by Cincinnati Soccer Talk. Since moving to the new format with the three-game opening round, no top seed has won MLS Cup, nor has a top seed made it to the final. If FC Cincinnati can get the offense humming (again, the biggest ‘if’ of the offseason) then I see no reason why FCC can’t earn their first MLS Cup championship.
Justin Blair
Shield: Gotta go with Inter Miami here. Too good, too talented to drop points consistently this season.
Cup: Gimme LAFC to lift the cup this year. I think they have the right blend of talent, experience, and youth to navigate a playoff run.
Bonus: As for other cups, who knows honestly?! Cups are just one bad moment from disaster even for the best of teams. As it stands, FC Cincinnati is guaranteed participation in the CONCACAF Champions Cup and Leagues Cup.
Do I feel like FCC could win those two competitions? Absolutely!
Do I think FCC will win either of those two competitions? No.
The club, historically, has had a poor first leg in playing Liga MX clubs in round two of the CCC. With Tigres awaiting in the second round if FCC were to advance past O&M, I’d say we will see a near identical departure as we had a year ago.
If I’m not mistaken, the details of Leagues Cup are due to change, yet again, this year. Without full understanding of where competitions will be held or how the format will be, I am going to say we will probably run into a hungrier MLS club somewhere in the knock-out rounds and fall there too.
Similarly to the other two cup competitions, it is impossible in February to predict the field and even hard to predict a winner. I will venture to take a stab in the dark and say FC Cincinnati finishes the season falling in the MLS Eastern Conference Finals.
Josh Dye
Shield: Miami is the easy answer because they were the most “creative” team in the transfer window by legally *wink* replacing their biggest gaps with better players.
But I’m not going with the obvious answer. The World Cup factor will combat The Messi Factor, and His Holiness will be in and out of the lineup enough to open the door for…the OTHER obvious answer in LAFC. Bouanga and Son will sprint them out the gate and they will pull even further away when Bouanga is sold in the summer and replaced by Harry Kane.
Cup: Maybe this is wish casting, but I’m not going with EITHER Miami nor LAFC. Like almost every season, it’s about getting hot at the right time, which is to say: it’s a crapshoot. Let’s give it to Charlotte.
Bonus: Another trophy-less season for FCC? Not so fast, my friend. The Orange and Blue are due for a knockout run and the Leagues Cup is coming back to the 513.
Gracin Galbreath
Shield: No other team in this league has perhaps ever been as talented and filled with depth as Miami, to the chagrin of fans around the league. Somehow they have improved on a cup-winning season. Seeing them as anything but a contender for every trophy out there is disingenuous.
The Shield is won with longevity, which means having subs who can step in and provide multiple match-winners. Miami has both, so I believe they will lift it come late October.
Cup: But the Cup is entirely different. It is never guaranteed. Miami did not look like true contenders until late last season, when they found a starting attack and shored up their defense. That is to say, any club can emerge late in the season or even just in the playoffs.
I expect Miami to be finalists, but something in my gut wants to name LAFC. With a star-studded duo of Bouanga and Son—if the former doesn’t leave—they could be even more elevated than prior seasons. This, combined with their knack for cup competitions, makes them my pick for the 2026 MLS Cup Champion.
Jacob Holton
Shield: It’s really hard to envision a world where Inter Miami does not win the Shield this season. They were able to retain all the core pieces of their championship roster. They have, head and shoulders, the best roster in the league on paper. They have probably been the odds on favorite every year since Messi arrived, and quite frankly it’s hard to see anyone else being the best team in MLS during the regular season. I am going to make the obvious pick and take Inter Miami to win the Shield.
Cup: Inter Miami will also be favored to win a consecutive MLS cup as well. They pretty much walked through everyone until Vancouver gave them a good shot in the final last year. They have shown some weakness in knock out style tournaments in the past, so maybe that’s their only weakness?
Despite all of this, they will not win back-to-back MLS cups because it’s incredibly hard to do. FC Cincinnati have been on the brink a few times in the last few seasons. The team will stay fully fit headed into the playoffs and capture the first Championship for the city since 1990.
Rupesh Sharma
Shield: I think last season’s Supporters’ Shield winners, Philadelphia Union, will see a substantial decrease in points this year, based on additional games in both Leagues Cup and the CONCACAF Champions Cup (CCC). I also think that Inter Miami is going to prioritize CCC, so I believe that LAFC will take the Supporters’ Shield.
Cup: I think that Miami has the most complete and deepest roster this season, so I do not see any reason they cannot repeat as MLS Cup Champions.
Geoff Tebbetts
Cup: Chris Albright made some smart transfers that resulted in the team going just a little further into the 2025 playoffs, as well as future seasons. I still feel Cincinnati could set some dominoes to fall into the right place in 2026, but I don’t predict anything in the trophy case (save for bragging rights in the “Hell Is Real” derby).
The potential downfall of the plan to the top is the mere fact that superteams exist. Paths to title success are littered with minefields like Inter Miami, and the competition looks stiff in the East. Getting a trophy would involve a lot of good fortune and karmic balance. However, Cash Rules Everything Around Me—Miami has the C.R.E.A.M. to get their second consecutive MLS Cup.
Shield: However, I do have confidence in some league unpredictability. Miami will not own every bit of silverware they see. A Western Conference team will own the Supporters’ Shield for once, and my hope is that former Spurs captain Son Hyung-Min lifts it with LAFC.
Bonus: If you want an off-the-wall prediction, how about two? Mexican teams will win both the CCC and Leagues Cup this season. Additionally, a USL team will somehow win the U.S. Open Cup (but if it’s Lou City, I may lose my mind).
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