MLS Trivia
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This MLS trivia quiz has 48 free questions with answers and sticks to Major League Soccer itself rather than the wider game. It starts with the founding story - the 1993 launch tied to the World Cup bid, the ten charter clubs, the first match at Spartan Stadium and the shootouts and countdown clock the league finally dropped after 1999 - then follows the growth of the league through the 2002 contraction, the first soccer-specific stadium, the Beckham Rule and the era of Zlatan, Kaka, Henry, Rooney and Messi. There are questions on the trophies too: MLS Cup finals, Supporters' Shields, the Leagues Cup, LAFC's record season, Atlanta's record crowd, and the expansion fees that pushed the league to 30 teams. It suits anyone who watches Season Pass every weekend as well as friends who only know Beckham and Messi; roughly a third of the questions are warm-ups, and the hardest few reach back to the 'magic triangle' and Kansas City's original name. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and the primary sources it cites, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01MLS was founded in 1993 to keep a promise the United States made when bidding to host which event?
The FIFA World Cup
The FIFA World Cup: U.S. Soccer promised FIFA a top-division professional league in return for the 1994 tournament, so MLS existed on paper for three years before its first match in 1996.
Q 02Which 1998 expansion club won the MLS Cup in its first season?
Chicago Fire
Chicago Fire beat the two-time defending champions 2-0 in the final and also won that year's U.S. Open Cup, completing a double in their debut season.
Q 03Who scored the only goal of the first ever MLS match on April 6, 1996?
Eric Wynalda
Eric Wynalda's goal spared the new league a goalless opening night on live national television, and it was later chosen as the first MLS Goal of the Year.
Q 04The San Jose Clash hosted the first MLS match at which Bay Area stadium?
Spartan Stadium
Spartan Stadium, San Jose State's football ground, stayed the club's home until 2005, when the players and coaches were moved to Houston and San Jose was left without a team for two seasons.
Q 05Which club won three of the first four MLS Cups and added a fourth in 2004?
D.C. United
D.C. United won the first final from 2-0 down in 1996, and its 2004 title came with 15-year-old Freddy Adu coming off the bench.
Q 06Which defender scored the golden goal that won the first MLS Cup final in 1996?
Eddie Pope
Eddie Pope turned in Marco Etcheverry's corner in the 94th minute, completing a comeback from two goals down in the driving rain of a nor'easter.
Q 07Which 1996 regular-season leader was retroactively awarded the first Supporters' Shield?
Tampa Bay Mutiny
Tampa Bay Mutiny had the best record of 1996 but missed out on the MLS Cup, which may be what moved a fan to propose a prize for the regular-season winner in 1997; it was first presented in 1999.
Q 08Which player was named MLS Most Valuable Player for the inaugural 1996 season?
Carlos Valderrama
Carlos Valderrama scored only four goals that season but set up 17 more, and the Colombian playmaker was also named MVP of the league's first All-Star Game.
Q 09Which pair of Americanised rules did MLS scrap after the 1999 season?
The shootout and the countdown clock
The shootout and the countdown clock: drawn games had been settled by players running at the goalkeeper from 35 yards with five seconds to shoot, until MLS fell in line with international rules.
Q 10Who succeeded Doug Logan as MLS commissioner in August 1999?
Don Garber
Don Garber came from 16 years at the NFL, where he ran its international arm, and after MLS shrank to 10 clubs in 2002 he oversaw its growth to 30 by 2025.
Q 11Under the 'single-entity' structure MLS was founded on, who technically owned each team?
The league itself
The league itself: investors operated clubs as shareholders in MLS rather than owning them outright, and in 2002 a federal appeals court let the structure and its salary limits stand when players sued.
Q 12Which club topped the 2001 MLS standings and was folded within months?
Miami Fusion
Miami Fusion had the league's best record in 2001 and its lowest revenue; citing poor support, MLS folded the club and its Florida neighbour in January 2002, cutting the league from 12 teams to 10.
Q 13Which club opened the first soccer-specific stadium built by an MLS team, in 1999?
Q 21Which forward scored 34 goals in 2019 to break the MLS single-season record?
Carlos Vela
Carlos Vela beat the 31 that Josef Martínez had set only a year earlier, in a season when Zlatan Ibrahimović scored 30 and still finished second.
Q 22Where did Atlanta United win the 2018 MLS Cup?
Mercedes-Benz Stadium
Mercedes-Benz Stadium held a then-record MLS crowd of 73,019 as the club won the title in only its second season, Atlanta's first major professional championship since the Braves' 1995 World Series.
Q 23Who was Atlanta United's first head coach?
Gerardo Martino
Gerardo Martino, once coach of Barcelona and Argentina, won the MLS Cup in his second season and left to manage Mexico; Atlanta hired him back in 2025.
Columbus Crew
Columbus Crew owner Lamar Hunt covered the whole $28.5 million cost with private money, and the ground started a wave of soccer-specific stadiums across the league.
Q 14Which MLS club played its first season as the 'Wiz' before a retailer's legal threat forced a new name?
Sporting Kansas City
Sporting Kansas City began as the Kansas City Wiz in 1996, became the Wizards after the electronics chain The Wiz objected, and took its present name in 2010.
Q 15The MetroStars were rebranded after being bought in 2006 by which company?
Red Bull
Red Bull announced the purchase in March 2006 and rebranded the team as part of its global network of soccer clubs, replacing the MetroStars' name, colours and crest.
Q 16Which MLS roster rule, adopted for the 2007 season, is nicknamed the 'Beckham Rule'?
Designated Player Rule
The Designated Player Rule lets a club pay a star outside the salary cap; David Beckham signed two months after it was introduced, though only a small part of his deal's headline $250 million was salary.
Q 17David Beckham's 2007 contract included a $25 million option he used to found which MLS club?
Inter Miami CF
Inter Miami CF came from that clause: Beckham exercised it in February 2014, but the league did not approve the club until 2018 and it played its first match in 2020.
Q 18Which club was MLS's first Canadian franchise?
Toronto FC
Toronto FC finished bottom of the league in its first season, 2007, but ten years later became the first Canadian team to win the MLS Cup.
Q 19Which Italian starred for the MLS side that won a treble in 2017?
Sebastian Giovinco
Sebastian Giovinco had left Juventus for MLS in 2015, and two years later his side beat the league's old points record by one in a season that also brought the MLS Cup and a domestic cup.
Q 20Chivas USA was a subsidiary of which Mexican club?
C.D. Guadalajara
C.D. Guadalajara, nicknamed Chivas, belonged to Jorge Vergara, who dressed the American offshoot in the parent club's red and white and kept it until MLS bought the team from him in 2014.
Q 24Which club in 2022 became the first MLS side to win the modern CONCACAF Champions League?
Seattle Sounders FC
Seattle Sounders FC drew 2-2 away to Pumas UNAM and won the home leg 3-0, which also made them the first MLS club to qualify for the FIFA Club World Cup.
Q 25Which supporters' trophy do Seattle, Portland and Vancouver contest?
Cascadia Cup
Cascadia Cup: supporters of the three clubs created it themselves in 2004, years before any of them joined MLS, and formed a council that kept ownership of its name when the league tried to trademark it.
Q 26Which MLS club counts a Native American tribe among its owners?
San Diego FC
San Diego FC is co-owned by the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation, a local tribe, and British-Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Mansour; their joint bid beat Las Vegas to the league's 30th place.
Q 27What expansion fee was reportedly paid for San Diego FC to join MLS?
$500 million
$500 million was a league record: only ten years earlier Manchester City and the Yankees had paid $100 million to add a New York club, so the price of a place in MLS rose fivefold in a decade.
Q 28Inter Miami beat which club on penalties to win the 2023 Leagues Cup, their first trophy?
Nashville SC
Nashville SC took the shoot-out all the way to the goalkeepers' turn, where Miami's Drake Callender scored his own kick and saved Elliot Panicco's to win it 10-9.
Q 29The Leagues Cup pits MLS clubs against teams from which league?
Mexico's Liga MX
Mexico's Liga MX and MLS both paused their seasons for a month in 2023 so that all 47 of their clubs could enter, but in 2025 the field was cut back to 18 teams from each league.
Q 30Inter Miami broke whose MLS points record in 2024?
New England Revolution
New England Revolution had set the mark at 73 points in 2021; Miami reached 74 with a 6-2 win over them, then lost in the first round of the playoffs.