Power Rankings, 1-30 | Matchday 5

We've gotten some real movement in the middle of the pack over the past two weeks, but the top 10 has stayed relatively static. Of the teams I was pretty sure were really good to start the year, only FC Cincinnati has fallen out. And of the teams I was questionable on, only the Quakes – who I really, really thought were good but was too much of a coward to pick as high as I'd suspected – have climbed in.

What's the common denominator here? Underlying numbers.

• The Quakes' underlying numbers last year were excellent; they simply underperformed them. Those same underlying numbers said they'd be good this year, and guess what?
• Cincy's underlying numbers last year were catastrophic; their overperformance was unsustainable. And guess what?

The reason anyone with a brain pays attention to this stuff is because it's often accurately descriptive (Nashville won the xG battle 3.63 to 0.99 over Orlando this weekend) and, with a large enough sample size, reliably predictive.

That doesn't mean it's flawless, of course. A bad goalkeeper (Daniel last year) can submarine an otherwise good team, or a streak of golazos from outside the box (Evander last year) can paper over the cracks of an otherwise bad team.

Just don't count on those types of things to hold up year-over-year.

1. LAFC (-): Not playing all that well, and man am I worried about Marc Dos Santos running this group into the ground. But they’re unbeaten across all competitions and unscored upon in MLS play, so this is their spot to lose.
2. Nashville SC (+4): Unless Nashville take it from them. They’ve played a pretty easy league schedule thus far and weren’t as impressive against Miami as LAFC were, but we’re talking really tight margins here.
3. Seattle Sounders (+1): A 5-1 aggregate win over the ‘Caps, five straight road shutouts across all competitions, and all of it happening in the midst of yet another wave of injuries. That Tacoma pipeline is worth its weight in gold.
4. San Diego FC (-1): Suddenly winless in three across all comps, and lost their legs a bit down the stretch against RSL. They are so impressive in so many ways, but are also very obviously a piece or two short.
5. Vancouver Whitecaps (-3): As impressive as that 6-0 over Minnesota was last weekend, the ‘Caps have now lost three out of four across all competitions following the midweek CCC loss in Spokane and the home loss to the Quakes. They need to use the international date to regroup a little bit.
6. Inter Miami (-): Went 3-1-1 on their five-game road trip to start the regular-season, and while they're not exactly clicking and their CCC series against Nashville didn’t go the way they’d hoped… I mean, the ‘Yotes are really, really good.
   
   What I’m saying is you all should enjoy the schadenfreude now.
7. San Jose Earthquakes (+1): Not as deep as the top six, but they’re clearly an excellent team – they gave as good as they got two weeks in a row against the Sounders and ‘Caps.
   
   They’re really just one match-winner short. Could use a playmaking right-winger. Say, a Cristian Espinoza-type. 
8. NYCFC (-1): A very good team with a lot of very good players, but probably not enough firepower to trade punches with the best.
9. FC Dallas (-): Felt like they took a big step forward in how they used the ball this weekend. Balancing that without getting exposed defensively will be the project for the rest of the season – "can you carry play but not concede three goals??" It's harder to do that than it is to drop 11 men behind the ball and counter for 90 minutes.
   
   I expect there to be some highs and some lows.
10. Real Salt Lake (-): Devastating transition team that’s just finally getting their pieces healthy and on the field together. I have basically zero long-term questions about the attack. Ultimately their upside will be determined by what kind of pitch control they get from their midfield.
11. Colorado Rapids (+9): They’ve lost to the two good teams they’ve played but smoked the three bad teams. I’m buying it so far, but we obviously need more data to see if this turnaround is real.
    
    That said, there's thought and structure and reactivity – they have the ability to assess what they're going against and change on the fly – that they've already weaponized. I'm impressed.
12. Olympiacos Charlotte (+5): Dominant when they’ve gotten to play against 10, and Kristijan Kahlina is as great as ever. That’s good enough to land them here, but I need to see them do it against XI for them to climb any higher.
13. Minnesota United (+1): They’ve had the toughest schedule in the league so far this year, took a couple of beatings and clearly learned from them. And they’ve shown some resilience without Michael Boxall. Good signs, even if the results haven’t been great.
14. LA Galaxy (-3): I really like this roster, but man, I do not like the way they’re playing. The West is too tough to drop points like they did this past weekend.
15. D.C. United (+1): Very clearly they are going to be a tough out. That counts as a massive improvement.
16. Houston Dynamo (-1): Didn’t expect to see them down near the bottom of the table in possession, ahead of only D.C. and Orlando. On the flip side, definitely didn’t expect them to be leading the league in aerial win percentage. I’m not sure – at all – what to make of this team so far.
17. Chicago Fire (+1): I may be underrating them a bit here, as they’re clearly a different (read: much, much better) team when Andrew Gutman is healthy and bombing forward up that left side. He helps mitigate some of the playmaking inefficiencies in midfield.
18. RBNY (-7): Zero CB depth is, it turns out, a major issue – especially when your goalkeeper is questionable (I'm being kind) and the wingers keep leaving chances on the table.
19. Toronto FC (-): Suddenly unbeaten in three, and while that second half certainly was not great, the win was not undeserved.
20. Austin FC (+1): They’re missing their best chance creators and it shows. But they got themselves a much-needed shutout after a tough couple of weeks. 
21. FC Cincinnati (-8): I think it's buy-in, which you can see in this clip. I think it's probably a too-rigid structure as well. And after two years of playing on the edge – getting by with box defending and golazos – they've tipped into the abyss.
22. Philadelphia Union (-): I'm inclined to think they're much closer to the team we saw over two legs against Club América than what they've been in league play thus far, and now that they've only got one competition to focus on, I suspect the results will get better.
    
    But the Shield defense is over as is, most likely, any hope of homefield advantage in the East.
23. Atlanta United (+3): More a case of the teams around them dropping than the Five Stripes climbing. Atlanta have looked, over the past two weeks, pretty coherent defensively, and while the attack sputtered, they're certainly not the first team this year to have been caused problems by D.C.'s banks of four.
24. St. Louis City (+3): Not a great performance but a pretty great result. I'm buying a lot of what I'm seeing, and hopeful we get to watch a full-strength XI from this team on the other side of the international break.
25. Columbus Crew (-2): They've played a relatively easy schedule thus far and have managed only two points. Pretty grim.
    
    I just don't think they're maximizing any of their talent on either side of the ball.
26. New England Revolution (-1): They want to build from the back but their structure is kind of weird. The deep-lying midfielders are put in a lot of do-or-die situations, and this past weekend they died repeatedly.
27. Portland Timbers (+2): I'm not meme'ing here: they showed a very good mentality after going down a man, and I thought Phil Neville's adjustments in the second half (going from a back four to a back five once the Galaxy threw the kitchen sink in) was well done.
28. Sporting KC (-4): I wrote last week that the underlying numbers were warning this team’s in trouble. Turns out the numbers don’t lie.
29. Orlando City (-1): They’re not lying about Orlando, either.
30. Montréal Impact (-): I give Marco Donadel credit for trying something different this week, and at least Iván Jaime is fun. But this feels like an almost impossible talent deficit to face week after week.

The usual Monday breakdown with Gass on Soccerwise:

I also went on Kickback Committee with Susannah to talk everything from March Madness to World Cup memories to Ecuadorian food (I have some exploring to do in my new town).