A journey through the bottom of MLS’s lesser conference to find potential contenders.
Early in this MLS campaign, a noticeable gap is forming between the Eastern and Western Conferences. The league’s best teams are mostly from the east — Toronto FC, the New York teams and Atlanta United have separated themselves as the four best clubs in MLS. It could be argued that even the slumping Columbus Crew are superior to any western side.
This was also the case last year, when the top five Eastern Conference teams all would have won the west. Since the beginning of 2017, the league’s elite teams have been centered almost entirely east of the Mississippi.
Who among this year’s Western Conference contenders is capable of reversing those fortunes? We’re combing through the bottom of the conference standings to see if there are any that could step up:
Seattle Sounders
We’ll start in last place, where the Sounders are languishing with just one point from four games. Their start to the season, as is recent tradition, has been suboptimal: They flopped out of the Concacaf Champions League against Chivas and lost their first three league games, picking up a red card in all. They’ve scored just two goals total, both of which came in a 2-2 road draw at Sporting KC.
Injuries have hit hard. But Seattle have been disconnected in attack, as Joevin Jones’s departure has painfully revealed the problems that come with the lack of an elite hold-up No. 9. Despite Nicolas Lodeiro’s consistently model-breaking possession statistics — he leads qualified players in touch percentage, again, by a wide margin — they aren’t getting runners in behind and pushing and pulling backlines to create the necessary space.
Jordan Morris was important to this team. Even at his sloppy worst, he had the speed to stretch defenses, and if you can do that, you can open space underneath for Lodeiro and the Sounders’ midfield distributors, which are talented and plentiful. Morris’s torn ACL hurt and they haven’t yet replaced Jones’s overlapping ability, creating congestion and stagnation.
Their road back to conference relevance is comparatively short given their history of success. They’ll storm back in June or July. But it might just be better in the long run to figure it out now. Fernando Torres is available!
San Jose Earthquakes
I haven’t written much about the Quakes this year. They’re a curious team, one that teeters between “legit contenders” and “young team with missing pieces” almost every week.
San Jose are 1-2-2 on the year, their win a Week 1 triumph over Minnesota United. That result has since been offset by home points dropped against NYCFC and Houston. Their attack can be fun when they bomb bodies forward, but they are gappy in deep midfield and struggle to distribute when Jackson Yueill doesn’t start.
Mikhael Stahre is still finding the right combination of players. They have a high ceiling, but they have to be wary of getting complacent and remaining at the mediocre level they’re at now, which is not a playoff level.
Houston Dynamo
As weak an excuse as this can often be, the Dynamo’s struggles this season come down to their inability to finish. It’s like they got all the fluky goals out of their system in their Week 1 demolition of Atlanta but lost the ability to score regular goals after that. Alberth Elis is underperforming his Expected Goals by 2.2, tied for the highest mark in the league.
The shooting models don’t tell all in this situation, though, simply because the Dynamo aren’t shooting. They’re putting themselves in positions that should result in quality shots, but rarely has that been in the end result.
Minnesota United
Darwin Quintero is here and looked like the real deal in his debut, a 3-2 road loss to Portland. Their attack is capable, even above average if they play their cards right. But they can’t defend. That might end up being problematic.
None of their defenders have been good this season. They should look to trade for an asset, someone like Columbus’s Alex Crognale or, as The Athletic’s Jeff Reuter suggested, Colorado’s Eric Miller to solve the talented deficiency that has plagued them since their inception. They’ve got two DP slots available. Use one on a center-back.
Real Salt Lake
The midfield is the issue for RSL, who’ve been a sour disappointment thus far. In six games, they have two wins, three losses and a draw, scoring six goals and giving up 14 for a -8 goal differential. Damir Kreilach has not been the answer next to Kyle Beckerman as a number 8.
RSL have no connectedness in midfield, something I’ve written extensively about. Kreilach has to be better, and they have to get more from their full-backs, who’ve been subpar.
Colorado Rapids
Dominique Badji, long a symbol of Colorado’s mediocrity at the forward position, already has four goals and an assist in five games for the Rapids. He’s missed just seven total minutes and more than doubled his goal output from last season, in which he appeared in 33 games. Badji has never looked better.
None of this means he isn’t replaceable. He still very much is. New Ivorian signing Yannick Boli will soon join him full time in attack, presumably locking down one of the forward positions in Anthony Hudson’s 3-5-2, and one could assume that Colorado are still scanning the globe for another DP or TAM player to pair with Boli.
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But Badji, just like his team, is playing just well enough to make us look harder. He’s helped Colorado to a (somewhat) impressive 2-2-1 (W-D-L) start that puts them fifth in the west in points per game. This is still the team built on mid-tier Americans, Scandinavians and New Zealand internationals that no one anticipated would do anything this season.
Maybe, just maybe, a back three of Deklan Wynne, Axel Sjoberg and Tommy Smyth will see them into the Western Conference playoffs. Not something I’d bet on, but who knows? There are certainly a few more Badji-types on the roster hoping to play their best soccer.