MLS 2024 – Saturday 16th March Matches Tips and Betting Preview

Another weekend of MLS action begins on Saturday evening when the majority of the fixtures take place, although with teams involved in Champions Cup action throughout the week some games have been held back until Sunday.

Every match is available for free for Apple TV subscribers this week so you don’t need the MLS Season Pass to be able to watch. If you don’t have the Apple TV facility then you can watch them all via the bookmaker streams.

Saturday’s fixtures are as follows: (00.30 unless stated)

Chicago Fire FC v CF Montréal (18.00)

D.C. United v Inter Miami CF (18.00)

Seattle Sounders FC v Colorado Rapids (19.50)

Columbus Crew v New York Red Bulls (23.30)

New York City FC v Toronto FC (23.30)

Austin FC v Philadelphia Union

FC Dallas v Vancouver Whitecaps FC

Houston Dynamo FC v Portland Timbers

Minnesota United FC v Los Angeles Football Club

Nashville SC v Charlotte FC

Sporting Kansas City v San Jose Earthquakes

LA Galaxy v St. Louis City SC (02.30)


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Big Matches

We begin with a couple of early kick offs on Saturday with the highlight of them the one which sees Inter Miami heading to Audi Field to take on DC United, although there will be no Lionel Messi for the visitors as he sustained an injury in the Champions Cup in midweek. In behind Miami, there are four other sides with seven points from their opening three matches in the Eastern Conference and two of them meet in Ohio where the champion Columbus Crew take on the New York Red Bulls in what looks like the pick of the fixtures on the evening.

Best of the Rest

It is the Portland Timbers who lead the way in the Western Conference and they will head to the Houston Dynamo for another of the appealing matches on the evening. Other notable games include FC Dallas vs Vancouver Whitecaps while LA Galaxy will look to continue their positive start to the season when St Louis City FC are the visitors to California. LAFC are also on show on Saturday evening. They face a tricky trip to Minnesota United. At the other end of things San Jose Earthquakes will look for their first point when they go to Sporting Kansas City while New York City will be looking for similar when they host Toronto FC.

Betting

I’m not usually one to look at away sides in MLS, especially this early in the season but New York City FC look an ordinary side to me and I don’t think Toronto FC are anything like as bad as they have been in recent times and so the odds differential looks a little too large in this one to my eyes. New York City FC haven’t picked up a single point yet this season and only have one goal from their three matches, albeit two were on the road.

Toronto FC have come alive this season and are yet to lose and haven’t even conceded a goal in MLS this term which bodes well. I say that because we know with the Italian pair of Federico Bernardeschi and Lorenzo Insigne they have plenty of quality in forward areas to find a goal should they need it. In this match the odds are so in their favour that they don’t even need to score for us to win our bet as you can get the Canadians on a +0.75 Asian handicap line, which means if they avoid defeat we win in full and would get half of our stake returned should they lose by one. They look the better team of the two and I fancy them to get something here.

Tips

Back Toronto FC (+0.75AH) to beat New York City FC for a 3/10 stake at 2.05 with Bet365