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The marquee match of the week saw a team claim first without any doubt as now #1 Sporting Kansas City edged now #2 Real Salt Lake. SB Nation Soccer's MLS power rankings took that into account and nearly everyone has the Sporks in first. Seattle Sounders FC is still in a solid second tier with the San Jose Earthquakes and New York Red Bulls. Those top three started the year within the top four and for RSL and Sounders they have remained fairly steady as you can see on the graph.
The Vancouver Whitecaps are essentially neutral for another week, a truism since week three. There are a decent MLS team in the eyes of the voters. Lower in Cascadia is the Portland Timbers who are in free fall now down to 15th. To quote the SBN story;
Four points through six matches was not how anyone really saw this team getting out of the gate. They have some very serious issues on defense, namely they don't play it very well.
In classic Timbers fashion they addressed that defense by acquiring forward Sebastian Rincon at the close of the transfer window.
David Beckham's LA Galaxy beat Portland and has steadied their fall at 9th, and only need to look at Red Bull to see a team that performs well by not playing defense and having a good offense. Still, they are far off their target for the season and too many changes in their backline are clearly to blame.
Playoffs by Ranking
West
Real Salt Lake
San Jose Earthquakes
Seattle Sounders
FC Dallas
Colorado Rapids
East
Sporting Kansas City
New York Red Bulls
Houston Dynamo
D.C. United (11th)
Chicago Fire (12th)
Dave's Rankings
- Sporks
- Sounders
- RSL
- Quakes
- Red Bull
- Dynamo
- Toros
- Whitecaps
- Rapids
- United
- Galaxy
- Goats
- Fire
- Crew
- Wooden Trophies
- Revs
- Marsch
- Nowak
- Winter