Here are the 10 things we learned from Week 25 of the 2015 MLS season.

1. LA continues to roll

The LA Galaxy are just outrageously good. So good, in fact, that after drubbing New York City FC 5-1 in one of the marquee matchups of the season on Sunday at the StubHub Center, a fair number of sharp soccer minds – including Bruce Arena – were impressed with NYCFC.

There was something to be said for NYCFC’s performance in defeat, too. They possessed the ball early, got some set pieces, turned in some great emergency defending, and hung around for a solid half before being absolutely cut to shreds by the kind of juggernaut MLS has never seen.

NYCFC’s performance was about as good as you can hope for in LA unless you’re Sporting Kansas City, Vancouver, the Red Bulls, or maybe a full strength Seattle team.

The Galaxy are not just extremely talented and well constructed. Hell, even Leonardo is playing is good soccer. If that’s happening, you just know you’re not beating LA.

NYCFC aren’t any worse today than they were yesterday. They still should factor into the Eastern Conference playoff race, especially with Orlando going up in flames and Montreal not exactly closing the door on any challengers for the sixth spot.

Frank Lampard will eventually sort out his fitness and make this New York City team better, and it’s Mix Diskerud who appears at this point to be the odd man out. In any case, this was always a fool’s errand for NYCFC. As long as LA stays healthy, they’re going to win everything this year.

2. Real Salt Lake show signs of life

The playoffs are almost certainly out of Real Salt Lake’s reach this year, but the 2-0 win over Seattle at the Rio Tinto on Saturday night might have been the side’s most complete and promising performance of the 2015 season.

Joao Plata’s presence changes things immeasurably in the attack for Salt Lake – and his presence has the added benefit of getting Olmes Garcia out of the starting lineup. It was the injury to Plata on the first day of preseason that was the first sign that this wasn’t going to be RSL’s year. A front office shakeup came this week, but on the field, the team is making steps in the right direction.

Jeff Cassar has finally settled down with a formation that more or less works, and he’s stopped trying to plug Luis Gil into the team in place of the excellent Luke Mulholland. Getting Luis Silva for Alvaro Saborio was a nice piece of business too, and the backline looks calmer with the return of Jamison Olave.

RSL’s win over the Sounders made the dramatic loss to Portland last week sting even more – with three points in that game, Salt Lake would have been level on points with Seattle and San Jose for the final playoff spot.

Salt Lake’s trip to Dallas next week will be a good barometer of their true potential to make a late playoff push.

3. A good night for a protest

Chicago’s supporters picked the right night for a protest, as their side slumped to a miserable 1-0 defeat to the similarly sorrowful Colorado Rapids.

Right now, the Fire are just about as irrelevant as MLS sides come. Neither the Chicago Sun-Times nor the Chicago Tribune had a reporter at Toyota Park to cover the fan protests or match last night, and the imprint of the club on the general Chicago area has seemingly become smaller as the imprint of MLS clubs on their cities everywhere else becomes bigger.

Despite the disadvantage of being located in Bridgeview, the Fire used to have strong atmospheres – especially for the big matches that used to be common. These days, that’s gone. Chicago is a great city, and it might be the one great city in the country that MLS isn’t doing well in.

It’s a shame. Those fans deserve better. They’re trying to make their voices heard, but with an absentee owner, a mostly absentee media, and a stubborn manager, it’s going to be an uphill battle for one of the league’s prouder clubs.

4. Frank Yallop

Yallop’s team selection in the Fire’s loss was somewhat bizarre. He benched Lovel Palmer and Razvan Cocis because they looked “jaded,” after Chicago’s last match in Philadelphia, but then made then run sprints for the better part of an hour after the Colorado match with the fitness coach.

The news this week that Yallop’s charges aren’t fond of him can’t exactly come as a surprise. Shaun Maloney, who is in the process of being sold to Hull City, was almost as disillusioned with Yallop’s setup as Fire fans were with him.

Not only has the Canadian failed miserably as a GM in Chicago, it just looks like the rest of the league has past Yallop by tactically. The accompanying hardheadedness and unwillingness to accept responsibility hasn’t exactly helped the manager’s reputation.

All in all, Yallop just appears to be in over his head in a competitive league with little room for error.

Yallop’s only good team in the last ten years, the 2012 San Jose Earthquakes, were a throwback playing direct, ugly, physical soccer. Take away that team, and Yallop’s pedigree is pretty soft.

It will be interesting to see if Yallop can secure another MLS role after Chicago parts ways with him. After he was fired by San Jose in 2013, Yallop had plenty of suitors – including Vancouver, who were prepared to give him the same amount of power Chicago ended up forking over for his signature. The market may be quite a bit thinner this time around.

5. Univision broadcasts aren’t getting any better

Univision had an extremely entertaining game on Friday night, as the Portland Timbers clawed back from a shock 2-0 deficit to draw the Houston Dynamo 2-2 in a match that featured the fantastic atmosphere at Providence Park, and plenty of controversy with a late red card on Portland’s Diego Chara.

Problem is, Univision viewers missed that red card elbow from Chara because at the crucial moment – during a Dynamo break led by Cubo Torres – the broadcast cut away from the game action to show the fourth official holding the board with the amount of stoppage time on it.

It was a shockingly amateur move. Speaking of amateur, announcer Ramses Sandoval butchered the calls of both Timbers goals. He first bizarrely identified Lucas Melano as Jorge Villafaña in the buildup to Darlington Nagbe’s goal, then mistook Nagbe for Chara and Diego Valeri for Will Johnson in the lead-up to the second goal.

The Friday night Univision game has worked for MLS this year in that it has built up a consistent following, but the English language broadcast itself has been an embarrassment to the company and an insult to viewers. Unfortunately, Univision has the big San Jose – LA game next week.

6. JP Dellacamera

JP Dellacamera hasn’t called many Philadelphia Union games this summer thanks to his commitments for FOX Sports and in and around the Women’s World Cup, but Dellacamera had a superb call of Philly’s upset win in Montreal to spoil Didier Drogba’s debut.

Dellacamera does his best work on Union games – passionate, prepared, and in synch with the pace. He also does a terrific job of balancing a desire to see Philadelphia do well – not a vice at all for a local announcer – with a commitment to fairness in the broadcast.

It’d be fun to see the Union win again just to hear Dellacamera do more big games. While his work all summer has been top notch, MLS and the Union matches are where America’s foremost soccer announcer should be.

SEE MORE: Listen to our interview with JP Dellacamera.

7. Orlando’s discipline problem

Orlando City have plenty of problems – notably a roster that has actually gotten weaker since the beginning of the season – but an easy and obvious one is the lack of discipline with which they play week in and week out.

The Lions are blowing away the MLS field with a league-leading eleven red cards this season, and they picked up two on Saturday afternoon in Toronto. When Rafael Ramos got sent off towards the end of the first half, it was 0-0. TFC would have three, though, by the time Adrian Winter conceded a penalty and was dismissed in the second half. It’d finish 5-0 Toronto.

It would be naïve to say that Orlando manager Adrian Heath’s fiery persona – he has been sent off himself this year – has some major impact on his team’s discipline woes, but all the red cards simply have to stop.

Heath is likable, and absolutely entrenched in Orlando’s lore and current setup. His job is most likely safe. But not only has this side fallen apart tactically, they fall apart mentally far too often. That ends up going back to the manager – fairly or not.

8. Montreal fail to impress

The Impact had their biggest stage since the CONCACAF Champions League Final, selling out Stade Saputo for the first time in god knows how long for Drogba’s debut, and they laid an egg against the Union.

The lesson here is that Montreal, Drogba or no Drogba, aren’t much to look at without Ignacio Piatti. When Piatti plays, the Impact are an exciting team to watch. When he doesn’t, they mostly just clunk around.

Eric Alexander may still be better than both of this team’s starting central midfielders, but Frank Klopas’ infatuation with Marco Donadel persists.

Getting Piatti healthy – and reintegrating Justin Mapp into the starting lineup – are the crucial steps for this team if they are to clamp down on that final playoff spot in the East.

Drogba will be a force, and the Impact have plenty of games in hand, but they need to snap out of their August funk – and next weekend’s trip to Toronto is going to be a tough place to start.

9. We don’t know anything yet

The playoff race could have been cleared up considerably this weekend, but in true MLS fashion, pretty much nothing went as expected.

San Jose won their third straight on the road at DC, the supposedly rejuvenated Sounders were pummeled by RSL, Columbus handed Sporting Kansas City their second straight loss, Portland dropped two points at home to Houston and Philly beat Montreal.

This league will keep you on your toes until the very end. Unless, of course, LA is playing at home.

10. Next week is big

The final Rivalry Week is coming up, headlined by Portland’s final meeting with Seattle this year. That’s a big game for both clubs – especially the Sounders – while San Jose will get a real reality check in Avaya Stadium’s first truly big game when the Galaxy come calling on Friday night.

In the East, Drogba could make his first MLS start at BMO Field – while the winner of the New York Red Bulls against DC United will decide who the conference’s Supporters’ Shield challenger will be.

Stay tuned. The best of this MLS season is yet to come.