The 2025 Major League Soccer season kicked off with a bang on Saturday, Feb. 22.
MLS’s 2024 offseason was its busiest and most expensive yet; it was the fourth-highest-spending league in the transfer market this winter, surpassing the likes of Spain’s La Liga and Italy’s Serie A. All that spending brought dozens of fresh faces to the league — and those fresh faces made an immediate impact.
While plenty of newcomers lit up opening day, here are the four who shined the brightest.
Emmanuel Latte Lath, Atlanta United FC: Pre-match hopes were precipitously high for Atlanta’s new Ivorian center forward; a league-record $22 million fee will do that to a player. But Latte Lath delivered — and maybe even exceeded — the sky-high expectations the Five Stripes faithful set for him. He was a force in his first game for Atlanta and scored two crucial goals to deliver a 3-2 win over CF Montreal. His first was a textbook striker’s header, and his second was an instinct-driven goalmouth poach.
