Power Rankings, 1-30 | Matchday 33

Wild week. Here’s the Sunday column!

• Charlotte FC's formula, Columbus Crew's limit & more from Matchday 33

You’ll notice, once again, that the column has gotten shorter in recent weeks. As I mentioned on BlueSky, the editorial desk has asked me to whittle it to about 3k words1, so I'm doing my part to give these guys less of a Sunday grind and to focus more on the major storylines.

That means lower-stakes games are getting shorter blurbs. My plan to ameliorate that is, for now, to give those teams more space in this column, and maybe even to do a Sunday supplemental here next year.

We’ll see. But I just wanted you to know that I’ve seen the concerns on social media and am working on how to address them.

OK, here’s my vote for this week’s MLSsoccer.com Power Rankings:

1. Seattle Sounders: Very bad home points to drop but still just one loss since the Club World Cup, and they got two DPs back, and we’ve seen them hit a level this year no other MLS team has matched.

2. Vancouver Whitecaps: Only one loss in two months and 10 goals in two games since Thomas Müller got into the XI. This team’s resilience has been remarkable.

3. Philadelphia Union: I don’t like it, but I’m basically giving them a mulligan here considering how rotated the squad was.2 We’ll see if they make me regret that midweek at Nashville.

4. San Diego FC: As I wrote in the column, one goal in nine league games and two in 12 games across all competitions from the center forwards since parting ways with Milan Iloski.

5. FC Cincinnati: Weirdly open game, which actually suited them. Open games have more moments for match-winners.

6. LAFC: That 3-5-2 worked really well. I’m still worried about the backline a bit.

7. Minnesota United: Huge win in hilarious fashion. I was impressed by Owen Gene’s 63 minutes in central midfield, by the way. Thought it was the best he’s looked this year.

8. Charlotte’s Old Boys: I’ve come to believe that sacrificial off-ball runs are the most important part of the game that nobody talks about, and basically everybody in Charlotte’s front six makes those runs (especially Brandt Bronico, who has an endless engine and spends every second he’s on the field trying to open up space for the guys around him. I am fully Brandt-pilled). They played beautiful soccer this weekend.

9. Inter Miami: Almost nobody in their front six makes those runs. They’re dragging.

10. Nashville SC: Now just one win in six after having one loss in 15. Ridiculous league.3

11. NYCFC: How the hell did they lose to D.C. two weeks ago?

12. Orlando City: Been a different team – and not in a good way – the last two outings. And the rest of the schedule is a blender.

13. Columbus Crew: As fun as they are, if you can’t defend in your own 18 you’re not really much better than mid-table. Especially now that Diego Rossi joins Sean Zawadzki on the injured list.

14. Portland Timbers: Very quietly now three unbeaten. Can they cobble together an actual winning streak for the first time since spring?

15. Chicago Fire: Columbus’s issue is box defending. Chicago’s is defending on the front-foot, where they eventually get ripped to shreds4 by good teams.

16. RBNY: The RBNY fans who got mad at me a couple years back when I commented on how bad their overseas scouting is are now asking me to write in depth about how bad their overseas scouting is. They hated me because I told them the truth!

17. Austin FC: **fart noise**

18. LA Galaxy: I’ve crushed Greg Vanney in this space before for his lack of interest in developing his young(ish) players, but now over the past few weeks Chris Rindov, Elijah Wynder, Harbor Miller, Mauricio Cuevas and Tucker Lepley have entered the regular rotation – some of them as, it seems, starters.
    This is the only way to keep the floor high in MLS year after year. You have to get real contributions from those down-roster players, and the Galaxy have not historically done that. If it’s suddenly changed, that’s the single best piece of news fans of this club could’ve asked for.

19. FC Dallas: I’ve really loved what I’ve seen of the Musa/Farrington forward pairing, and the 3-5-2 fits both them and the rest of the team overall. Now that Lucho’s gone Dallas’s attacking output isn’t going to come from pure midfield creativity, but of combination play around the boxes, attacking penetration from out wide, and guys who can win the 1v1 cage match against defenders.5
    They host Colorado this weekend, and if they get all three points I think I’d like their chances of sneaking into a play-in spot.

20. Colorado Rapids: Huge win – might’ve saved the season with that one. But it’s hard to ignore how much worse this team is than last year’s, both in terms of boxscore and underlying numbers.
    I like many of their pieces, but they haven’t really fit together. They will need to this weekend in Frisco.

21. San Jose Earthquakes: They are just so bad defensively. Holding onto the 9th spot now by the skin of their teeth, and this weekend is absolutely a must-win.

22. Real Salt Lake: Decent win against a team that was absolutely asking for it. Schedule stiffens up now. I have my doubts about their ability to make a push.

23. Houston Dynamo: As I wrote last week, they are exactly who their record says they are. 2025’s not done for them yet – there’s still a narrow path to the postseason – but do you trust this team to put together any sort of winning streak?

24. Toronto FC: Five unbeaten6 and Robin Fraser, like his buddy Greg down in Carson, is now finally playing the kids. They have delivered with effort and commitment and the occasional goal, and Djordje Mihailovic continues to be productive.

    Those two things – plus the debut of Jose Cifuentes as a starter – are this season’s silver lining.

25. New England Revolution: No silver linings here. The Revs turned over almost the whole roster and while they did improve, they’re still a bottom five team in the East by virtually any metric you can point to.
    And so this morning, the inevitable happened as they parted ways with head coach Caleb Porter. It very obviously had to be done.

26. St. Louis City: Boilerplate 4-2-3-1 with wingers on the wing, a forward up top at forward, your No. 10 being a No. 10… what a revelation!
    It was, of course, far from a perfect outing – they give up more of the ball in good spots than they’d like, and more chances than they should. But they’ve looked like a functional, coherent team over the past few weeks and it’s nice to see that being rewarded with a few results.
    Even so, it’s hard to imagine this winter won’t bring with it a massive roster overhaul.

27. D.C. United: Four unbeaten, with the last three of those coming against playoff teams? Ok fine, I’ll move them up a few spots. New head coach René Weiler is clearly getting some level of buy-in, which has greatly benefitted young players like Gabriel Pirani and Jackson Hopkins (very fun as a box-crashing attacking midfielder; Brandt Bronico vibes, maybe??).
    It’s hard to buy that this means anything, though, because this team and roster are always in flux, and outside of Christian Benteke, we’ve rarely seen good form carry over from one season to the next.

28. Montreal Impact: Marco Donadel has been toying with different formations and lines of confrontation, etc. over the past few weeks, which is the right way to treat the final two months of this lost season. That’s included a lot of minutes for the kids from the backline to the front, and so it’s been a bumpy ride.
    But I do hope that, for once, the front office has patience with the process.

29. Atlanta United: I will believe that second-half fightback was real when they play with that level of commitment and quality again.

30. Sporting KC: The way they just got shredded straight up the gut… man. Whoever takes over next year has to work on defending from the front as the first point of emphasis, because if your pressing triggers are unclear and your structure is bad, then you’re going to just be chasing the game every single time. And if you’re chasing the game in the modern version of the sport, you’re dead.
    I know Sporting have a few more points than some of the other teams just ahead of them here, but the underlying numbers say they are by far the worst team in the league this season, and that matches the eye test.
    Lots of work to do.