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| Wow. How do you spell "compensation?" |
“Fortunately, that also signals that Major League Soccer had survived its growing pains – the acne (teal uniforms), hair in places that it wasn’t before (going with the Tampa Bay Mutiny), breaking voices (no ties and the shootout) and random boners (I don’t know…the Colorado Rapids?). MLS has been a (probably) viable league (old habits die hard) since then and the panting of The Grim Reaper grew fainter and fainter with every season after 2001 (well, until the COVID). In general terms, the league keeps adding teams and raising the salary cap; fans see only tweaks to the rules of competition, maybe a poorly-scheduled post-season now and again, but they’re not seeing, say, rearranged conferences or the local team evaporating.”
Welcome to this monster review/index/First Draft History of Major League Soccer. I created this post for a couple reasons, first among them, to cap off the series and to get all the links and cumulative info in one place. The series included entries for every season from 1996 to 2015 and covered all the stuff that popped into my head on reading about different names and events. I have links to and summaries for all of those posts in the second half of this one. Due to several things, including the information available, I didn’t follow any singular template or format, and there was no small amount of figuring out where to look and what to share from post to post. Some are better than others (e.g., I started with 1996 trying to go from memory alone), but they all give a sampling of events and the flavor of each season, with a healthy sprinkling of name-dropping, no matter how idiosyncratic. Related, I can’t remember where I lifted the above quote out of, but it was a posts in the series. It struck me as a good, general statement…
I also wanted to…y’know, add something to the record, and that’s where this post starts. I reviewed the final standings for every season in MLS history – and those I continued beyond the series to 2019 – to track every team’s record of success, failure, near-misses and mediocrity from (their) beginning to (their) end. Next, I dumped several pieces of raw data into a hairy, horned monster of an Excel spreadsheet, added still more data*, then tortured information out of it by assigning numerical values to certain regular events in every season. [*Ed. – I tracked how where each team finished relative to the average number of goals scored/allowed in a given season – e.g., “O” was over, “U” under, “VO” very over, and VVU “very, very under, etc. - and that shows up in the blurbs on each, but not elsewhere.] That, dear, unlucky reader, is how I calculated each team’s “Joy Points” – i.e., a measure of how successful they’ve all been at winning hardware or just playing well. I calculated “Joy Points” using these values:
Winning Supporters’ Shield: +3 points
Winning MLS Cup: +2 points
MLS Cup runner-up: +1 point
Missing the playoffs: -1 point
Missing the playoffs in “low-bar”* seasons: -2 points
Worst Record for the season: -2 points
“Entertainment Bonus”: +1 point for every season with a positive goal differential
(* “Low-bar season means any season where 2/3 of all competing teams qualified for the playoffs. Those included only 1996, 1997, and 2002-2004.)
From there, I added up the total points for each team (making many, many mistakes) and then ordered most of the teams in MLS below, going from most Joy Points to fewest. The goal was to organize the teams from the greatest historical success to the least historical success. Here’s where that “most” caveat kicks in: I decided that any team with five seasons or fewer hasn’t had enough time to establish a “real” MLS history. I still did the math on each of those teams and provided similar comments on them all, I just rated them separately, as “non/applicable.”
The same goes for the three teams in MLS history that folded without either being replaced or relocated – e.g., the Tampa Bay Mutiny, Miami Fusion FC, and Chivas USA. Going the other way, I didn’t do anything for either Nashville SC or Inter Miami CF, because those teams have no history in MLS at this point.
Right, that’s it for the preamble, and I hope that’s enough context for what’s below. Now, let’s get to it!
The All-Time MLS Joy Points Power Ranking
Los Angeles Galaxy
Seasons: 24
Joy Points: 33(!), aka, league-best and almost by a multiple of two.
Trophies/Near Misses: Supporters’ Shield in 1998 (and by a run-away), again in 2002, and again in 2010 and 2011. As for MLS Cups, let me count the ways: 2002, 2005, 2011, 2012 and 2014. Oh, and runners-up in 1996, 1999, 2001, and 2009. LA is the best team in MLS history and it’s not even close.
Results History: They hit a bad patch in mid-2000s when they missed the playoffs three times running, and recent history hasn’t been gentle (with 2017 being particularly unkind)…and I’ve just covered all the times the Galaxy have missed the playoffs. Seriously. They’ve arguably ridden their defense to more titles – especially in the glory seasons from 2010-2014 – but they’ve also posted some of the best all-time attacking seasons and topped the goals average in 16 of 24 seasons.
Notable Names: Cobi Jones was better than you think, and Carlos Ruiz shows what Central America meant to this league; everyone knows Beckham, Donovan and Keane, but Omar, DeLaGarza and Franklin mattered every bit as much. Look, even when they’re awful, you worry.
Future Prospects: Cristian Pavon aside, it still looks like more of the same, aka, the next in the Zlatan-and era, only it’s Chicharito this time. LA has a messy addiction to massive stars surrounded by randos. It takes defenses of a certain (or no uncertain) qualities to pull that off.
Seattle Sounders
Seasons: 11
Joy Points: 18. 2nd? Seriously? God fucking dammit…
Trophies/Near Misses: MLS Cups in 2016 (the worst one ever) and 2019, and runners-up in 2017, but who else remembered they won the Shield in 2014? Fun, related fact: they’ve never had a negative goal differential. See above note (e.g., “God fucking dammit…”).
Results History: Charmed puts it nicely. Seattle has never missed a post-season, they’ve never finished lower than 7th, see note on goal differential above (the nadir was a lowly 0 in 2013), and, yeah, trophies. How’d they do it? They’ve been under the league average for goals allowed in every season but 2014 – when, you’ll recall, they won the (fucking) Shield – and they were very under the average in five of them.
Notable Names: Dempsey, Martins, Alonso, Marshalls (Tyrone and Chad), then there’s Mauro Rosales, followed by Nicolas Lodeiro and Raul Ruidiaz. Credit all those guys, but Seattle has always relied on players like Brad Evans, Tyson Wahl, Andy Rose and Brian Mullan.
Future Prospects: They’ve got savvy (Garth Lagerway, et al.) and resources (i.e., an ownership group with an open wallet). I don’t know when this dries up.
D.C. United
Seasons: 24
Joy Points: 17, though this should be, like 14, maybe even 13 for the 2013 season alone.
Trophies/Near Misses: More than you think, honestly: Supporters’ Shield 1997, 1999, 2006 and 2007; MLS Cup 1996, 1997, 1999 and again in 2004, plus runners-up to Chicago in 1998.
Results History: The thing about DC is that, when they are bad, they plumb the depths of pain with almost literary imagination and vigor: they missed the playoffs nine times, three of them by something considerably wider than miles. They’ve had the odd showing since 2007 (curiously, 2012 and 2014), but they haven’t placed over 8th overall outside of that and that sucked out a lot of their “Joy Points.”
Notable Names: Because I cover them below, they had the league’s first great playmaker in Marco Etcheverry, the first best poacher in Raul Diaz Arce, and the league’s first, best player in Jaime Moreno. For all the decline between Olympus and today, they’ve had some great players (e.g., Christian Gomez, Bobby Boswell, and Luciano Emilio had his moments) since.
Future Prospects: Sticking with Olsen as head coach for as long as they have smacks of the worst kind of complacency – especially when they’ve struggled like they have. Against the rest of MLS, even the current roster falls short in terms of ambition. It’s a real theme…
Red Bulls New York
Seasons: 24
Joy Points: 16, many of them from the same source…
Trophies/Near Misses: MLS Cup runners-up in 2008, but they lifted the Supporters’ Shield in 2013, 2015, and 2018, and damn were those fun teams to watch.
Results History: After starting as a team that’s bad here and there, the Red Bulls became a team that hasn’t missed the playoffs since 2009, and they only missed it once more since 2000. They have a history of being out their best when they force the opposition to keep up with them; New York has overshot the average in half their season, nine of them by a wide margin.
Notable Names: They’ve always had fun players – e.g, Amado Guevara and Juan Pablo Angel (or even Matt Miazga, Jeff Parke or Mike Petke (who shines a little less bright) – but I’m still partial to the Kljestan, McCarty, Thierry Henry, Bradley Wright-Phillips, Luis Robles teams. I don’t care what anyone says: I rate that one among the best all-time.
Future Prospects: After six or so seasons of looking like they could replace any player they sold, the Red Bulls appeared shaky in 2019. Is it possible they found the bottom of the Red Bulls barrel and/or plug-‘n’-play concept?
Sporting Kansas City
Seasons: 24
Joy Points: 16, which feels very fair to a team that I’ve only recently stopped hating…
Trophies/Near Misses: They ground out a double in 2000, winning Cup, Shield, Spear and Magic Helmet (fine, not the last two), and they won MLS Cup again in 2013 after a long fight with RSL. They picked up runners-up honors for MLS Cup in 2004 against DC.
Results History: A ruthlessly consistent team that suffers only the odd implosion of a season (e.g., 1999, 2001 (-20 differential, and they still made the playoffs), and again in…shit, 2019. For all that consistency, they hug the goals average from both sides more than most teams in MLS, something that makes them an odd mix of consistently competitive and erratic.
Notable Names: From the 2000 team, you’ve got Tony Meola and Miklos Molnar, from the later teams you’ve got Matt Besler, Graham Zusi, Roger Espinoza, Aurelien Collin, and maybe even Dom Dwyer. Go even further back and you get to league legends like Preki and (c’mon, lemme stretch) Davy Arnaud, Jimmy Conrad, (low-key) Brandon Prideaux and…though it pains me, I believe it, Peter Vermes. And I even like him as a coach now, which is nuts.
Future Prospects: They followed that rare recent poor season by signing Mexican forward, Alan Pulido, and that feels like a strong statement of intent. They still strike me as the most ambitious of MLS’s “small-market” teams. They’ve been good, generally, and good at keeping up.
Columbus Crew SC
Seasons: 24
Joy Points: 11
Trophies/Near Misses: Supporters’ Shield, 2004, 2008, and 2009. They did the double in 2008, when they won MLS Cup, and they ended as runners-up against Portland.
Results History: It took the Crew a while to get going and that 2004 Shield has “fluke” written all over it. They enjoyed some champagne seasons between 2008 and 2012, and not every MLS team gets those. They’re impressively erratic on either side of that and, when they struggle in the standings, the problem tends to lie on the attacking side.
Notable Names: Guillermo Barros Schelotto, obviously, but there’s Chad Marshall shows up here just as much as Seattle, then you’ve got Stern John, Brian McBride, Jeff Cunningham (again) and, later players like Wil Trapp (who…um), Federico Higuain. When I think of “Mr. Crew (SC),” I tend to think of Frankie Hejduk, but Columbus really does have this “big tent” feel where I can see guys like Eddie Gaven or Kyle Martino playing for them…and I guess that just underlines this next bit…
Future Prospects: Caleb Porter took over in 2019 and he started putting his stamp on the team by reuniting with Darlington Nagbe. They signed one of their bolder signings in Lucas Zelarayan – and they have some star-power besides with Gyasi Zardes, maybe Pedro Santos – but it still looks like roughly the same model; a playmaker with a support system.
FC Dallas
Seasons: 24
Joy Points: 11
Trophies/Near Misses: Surprisingly few: the 2016 Supporters’ Shield and runners-up to Colorado in 2010
Results History: Remarkable stable, hence the high “Joy Points” (also, they reliably post positive goal differentials). Dallas has missed the playoffs just six times in 24 seasons – and they come in pairs – and their last truly shit season happened way back in 2003.
Notable Names: David Ferreira, Mauro Diaz, Fabian Castillo and, yes, goddammit, Michael Barrios, Blas Perez, Jeff Cunningham (again), Jason Kreis, Oscar Pareja (both as player and coach), Ariel Graziani, Matt Hedges, Walker Zimmerman, hell, even Steve Morrow. And now there’s this….
Future Prospects: Dallas’ academy is among the most reliable in the country and/or MLS and that gives them a reliable pipeline to better-than-average young starters than any team in the league. And they trade those players for value all over the league – e.g., Kellyn Acosta, Victor Ulloa, Brek Shea, etc. Paxton Pomykal is just the latest in a long line of hot prospects, and Reggie Cannon could go abroad any day, but, Dallas is sort of the seller’s team in what’s becoming a seller’s league. They’ll always have a spine to compete; the real question is whether gambles like Zdenek Ondrasek or Franco Jara can finally win them the only trophy anyone cares about…
Houston Dynamo
Seasons: 14
Joy Points: 7, but they inherited their good years/personnel/coaching staff from the early 2000s San Jose. So, less an expansion team that the economy from Obama to Trump…
Trophies/Near Misses: Two MLS Cups in 2006 and 2007, two times as runners-up in 2011 and 2012. Curiously, they played the same teams in each set – New England in the first, and the Galaxy in the second.
Results History: They had three good-to-great seasons (2006, but with 2007-08 being the great seasons), and it runs from middling-to-poor thereafter – and very poor lately (10th in 2017, out of the playoffs every other season after 2014). Defense has generally been the key to their success…or at least their over-achieving when it happens.
Notable Names: Brad Davis will top this list for me every damn time, but there’s also Boswell, Cameron, Ricardo Clark, Richard Mulrooney, Wade Barrett, Dwayne DeRosario…basically, the incredible team they borrowed from the early 2000s ‘Quakes. Brian Ching feels like a good late addition, and he played a big role in Houston’s fate (both negative and positive), and Mullan pops up here (again).
Future Prospects: Things don’t look good in Texas’ other half. Just when you think they’ve signed players to get them rolling – whether Eric “Cubo” Torres or Alberth Elis – they keep under-performing. They never really arrived in the DP era…
Real Salt Lake
Seasons: 15
Joy Points: 6
Trophies/Near Misses: MLS Cup 2009, then runners-up in 2013. They also took a powerful run at the CONCACAF Champions’ League. It was one hell of a thing…
Results History: Even if they somehow avoided ever finishing dead last (that’s with a -35 goal differential in 2005), the first three years in Sandy, UT sucked something terrible. They sorted the defense the next season, won MLS Cup the year after, and spent the next five years as one of the most reliably stubborn and entertaining teams of that era. They’ve fallen on more…complicated times since, but they’ve stayed in the mix.
Notable Names: Until a next generation arrives, it’ll always be players like Nick Rimando, Nat Borchers, Jamison Olave, Kyle Beckerman, Alvaro Saborio, Fabian Espindola and…the rest of them, even Nick Grabavoy. They had one good team, and it was a great one.
Future Prospects: One of several teams whose longer history makes me anxious about the Timbers’ fate. Near as I can tell, they’ve been attempting a combination of Dallas (lean into the academy youth) and shopping for (comparative) bargains. It’s a small-market model; the question is whether it can come good in a bigger-spending era.
Portland Timbers
Seasons: 9
Joy Points: 5
Trophies/Near Misses: MLS Cup 2015, then runners-up in 2018. And they had their best season, by the numbers at least, in 2013. To editorialize a little, neither of those finalist teams looked like they’d make it as far they did.
Results History: It took digging into this project for me to remember all the short(er) seasons Portland (generally) had over their first five season (again, 2014). They improved in terms of reliability since then, but without necessarily looking like an improving team. While they’ve always had good attacking pieces, they’ve done best with strong defenses.
Notable Names: Diego Valeri, Diego Chara, Jack Jewsbury, Liam Ridgewell, Nat Borchers…and, as it turns out, Will Johnson and Rodney Wallace for a bit…look, I’m just waiting for the next set of players who feel like they’ve got a date with destiny…
Future Prospects: At the risk of pissing off my core audience, I am nervous. This league has seen more “hot 5 year runs” than long-term competitive viability, so what happens after Valeri, Chara and Sebastian Blanco move on? Related, keep an eye on that “strong defenses” note above, because that’s a real wild card so far.
New England Revolution
Seasons: 24, several filled with hope.
Joy Points: 0, a really nice conceptual summation of works versus accomplishment.
Trophies/Near Misses: The Buffalo Always the Bridesmaids Bills of MLS, as shown by finishing runners-up in 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, and…wow, 2014.
Results History: While they’ve rarely been the worst team in MLS (I see you, 1998), it took them until 2003 to manage a positive goal-differential. I had a theory that defense always hurt them (not to mention proved fatal in MLS Cups), and the record confirmed it. They allowed goals above the average in 14 seasons, and only managed the average in another five.
Notable Names: The Taylor Twellman, Shalrie Joseph, Matt Reis, Pat Noonan, and (especially) the Steve Ralston, Chris Tierney years gave them 5-6 solid seasons, and they got another bump from 2013 to 2015 with the Lee Nguyen/Jermaine Jones…/Andrew Farrell(?) freak-out (sure as hell wasn’t A. J. Soares; that guy drove me nuts).
Future Prospects: Players like Gustavo Bou, Carles Gil and Adam Buksa show they can find a decent form of talent (though the jury’s still out on Buksa); landing Bruce Arena for head coach shows ambition. They just need to get over the proverbial Buffalo hump…
Chicago Fire FC
Seasons: 22
Joy Points: 0
Trophies/Near Misses: MLS Cup 1998; runners-up 2000 & 2003
Results History: Roared out of the gate – they joined a league of expansion teams as an expansion team – and they stayed decent competitive until 2010…when they fell off a fucking cliff. The original Chicago teams scored often and defended well, only to watch complacency (thy name is Logan Pause) set in, and become rot. The Fire has made the playoffs just twice since then, they finished dead last in 2015 and 2016 – and 2015 was an expansion season. Orlando joined the league for FFS. Finally, they have a famously dysfunctional relationship with their fan-base. One of the tensest in MLS.
Notable Names: Kaka, who hasn’t done much. Or at least not enough. And that’s kind of a theme
Future Prospects: You want to be gentle, but no talent, no matter how intriguing, or formerly valuable to another team they’ve been, they either quietly come and go (e.g., Nico Gaitan) or get swallowed up by the Fire’s bad luck (e.g., Bastian Schweinsteiger and Nemanja Nikolic) when they do come good.
San Jose Earthqaukes
Seasons: 22
Joy Points: -3, which is a truly incredible number. Check this out…
Trophies/Near Misses: Supporters’ Shield in 2005 and 2012, MLS Cups in 2001 and 2003. That puts them 10 points to the positive on my in-house scale and that tells you something…
Results History: They started as arguably the league’s worst franchise, to the extent of finishing dead-last twice over the first five seasons. They transformed into the most-lethal team in MLS over the following five seasons – see three of their four trophies above – and then MLS relocated that team and all its talent to Houston. They reclaimed that “worst-team” crown when the league (re-)expanded back to San Jose, a trick they repeated in 2018. The ‘Quakes second life hasn’t been kind: their second Shield aside, they’ve missed the post-season 9 times out of 12.
Notable Names: Landon (freakin’) Donovan early on, plus DeRo and all the players noted above for Houston. The Bash Brothers era – e.g., walking/playing MLS Legend Chris Wondolowski, plus Steven Lenhart and Alan Gordon – was also good, wholesome, pro-wrestling fun. They have their moments, San Jose…
Future Prospects: Trouble is, it’s been a while. They’ve been weirdly chintzy, and relatedly, irrelevant, since 2012, so it was good to see them sign a strong coach (Matias Almeyda). And…honestly, they’ve got some intriguing players in 2020…if they get to use them. At the same time, the logic of “Wondo” looms over them somehow. If they stood pat on that too long, how long will it take to recover?
Toronto FC
Seasons: 13
Joy Points: -3. So…how’d they do it?
Trophies/Near Misses: They won both Cup and Shield in 2017, and twice played second fiddle (i.e., MLS Cup runners-up) in 2016 and 2019. Six points in nine years. Pretty good, right?
Results History: The first eight (8) years of Toronto’s existence was a straight-up horror-show, annual exercises in failure with multiple sharp kicks at an already prostrate body: they finished dead-last twice, went -15 or worse for goal differential in half of them, and couldn’t so much as dream of kicking a competitive ball in November for that entire time. Then their ownership got ambitious, and it’s been…more or less good since, and great once (2017)
Notable Names: Giovinco, Bradley, Altidore, obviously, but they’ve had some interesting pieces down the years. And they have some now…
Future Prospects: First and foremost, I’m glad I pulled up their current roster, because I do see a team clinging to relevance, and in a fairly believable way. All the same…put it this way: I have no idea what’s on the other side of the current spending splurge. The stars that gave them their golden seasons are aging out, one of the chief architects behind it decamped to Columbus, and it’s their early history plus watching what looks like some familiar misfiring that gives me pause.
Philadelphia Union
Seasons: 10
Joy Points: -3
Trophies/Near Misses: Yeah, no.
Results History: They made the playoffs just four times, two of them as make-weights, but they’ve also made it three times in the past four seasons – and they flirted with real quality in 2019’s crowded field. If anything hurts them, it’s a habit of playing too close to the mean.
Notable Names: Sebastian LeToux was a big one early, and they drafted a good crop of MLS regulars (e.g., Conor Casey and Brian Carroll), but their most recent team is undoubtedly their best, what with Ilsinho, Ale Bedoya and Andrew Blake and Medunjanin…who has since decamped to Cincinnati.
Future Prospects: Tough call, this one. The general trends are positive and Jim Curtin does present as a competent and wise coach. They’ve got some useful pieces – e.g., Brendan Aaronsen and Blake – but they’ve also got several guys on the edge of aging out – e.g., Bedoya, Ilsinho, and Collin. I do like Kacper Przybylko, but…call it another wait-and-see – and with a lot of clutter above.
Vancouver Whitecaps
Seasons: 9
Joy Points: -3, and it feels generous somehow…
Trophies/Near Misses: Think they got a Canadian Cup, maybe even two, but I’m pretty sure it’s just the one.
Results History: The Timbers ruined their best season – they finished 3rd in 2015 – and they’ve never finished better than 8th outside of that. They had a string of decent defensive seasons early, but reliable scoring has been a reliable limitation for the ‘Caps. There’s not much to add…sadly.
Notable Names: Alphonso Davies before he moved on, obviously, but Kendall Waston held up (especially after I looked into him again), and they had Camilo Sanvezzo that first season, Russell Teibert keeps looking like a good two-way player, there was Jordan Harvey and Steven Beitashour, then they moved on…oh…
Future Prospects: As I understand it, they’re presently rebuilding 2019’s rebuild, something that rarely screams “success.” Also, I read they just sacked someone who was rebuilding relations with their disgruntled fan-base. Expect them to stay at or near the bottom of the Cascadia heap for a while…
Colorado Rapids
Seasons: 24
Joy Points: -4
Trophies/Near Misses: MLS Cup 2010, surprisingly, but also runners-up in 1997
Results History: The Rapids have been…let’s call it “Chicago Bad” since 2012 – in fact, the only thing keeping them out of last place in 2015 was Chicago – but they fielded generally competitive teams from 1996 until…oh, 2006. They’ve also fielded some very, very boring attacks; they fell on the wrong side of the goals average on offense in half their seasons and only managed to make the average in another seven. To their credit, they won MLS Cup during their best season in MLS…and somehow managed to reach MLS Cup in 1997 after posting a -10 goal differential in that regular season.
Notable Names: It starts with Balboa, continues through Pablo Mastroeni, moves on to Drew Moor, then Matt Pickens to Tim Howard, but the biggest names have to be the players who won them their one and only trophy, Conor Casey and Omar Cummings.
Future Prospects: On the plus side, they keep turning up intriguing youth talent. It doesn’t always pan out (see Dillon Powers and (still holding out hope) Marlon Hairston), but there’s always the next Dillon Serna, or Jonathan Lewis, or Andre Shinyashiki.
Montreal Impact
Seasons: 8
Joy Points: -4, which is nuts for a team that reached a CONCACAF Champions’ League Final.
Trophies/Near Misses: Empty cupboard.
Results History: They’ve never finished higher than 7th, and they’ve finish well above 10th more often than not.
Future Prospects: MLS’s only Francophone team has a history of finding some of the league’s most exciting players – e.g., Ignacio Piatti – but throttle out the benefits by not getting enough quality around them. Their history speaks for itself, and poorly.
The All-Time MLS Joy Points Power Ranking, Pending and/or Terminated Files
Chivas USA
Seasons: 10, 12 if you want to get technical about it (Chivas pulled the plug on the “American Chivas Junior Experiment” (“ACJE”) in 2014 to make way for a certain, second LA franchise…also, nah, totally different team/ownership/concept.)
Joy Points: -5
Results History: Somewhere after a dire, league-bottom first season, ACJE had a decent run of seasons – they even made…whatever the hell they called the LA derby back then, one of the best in MLS. They took a collective hard left into hell after that, posting a succession of seasons with historically bad goal differentials until the Chivas organization tapped out.
Notable Names: Sacha Kljestan, Brad Guzan, Jonathan Bornstein, Bob Bradley’s second solid outing, so not bad.
Future Prospects: They laid down in the front of a bulldozer for LAFC. Guess that’s a legacy.
Atlanta United FC
Seasons: 3
Joy Points: 5
Trophies/Near Misses: MLS Cup 2018
Results History: Overall, though, they have too little history to discuss, but they’ve been fun/free-wheeling to this point, they’ve had exciting and, at times, globally marketable players – e.g., Miguel Almiron, Josef Martinez, even Leonardo Gonzalez Pirez - and have never known anything but success.
Notable Names: See either side; this post has gone through a couple edits, it’s late and I’m tired.
Future Prospects: High-profile signings like Pity Martinez and Ezequiel Barco haven’t come good yet, but they (along with landing Frank de Boer as a head coach, and after Tata Martinez), shows Atlanta can draw top-tier talent and they’re willing to buy it. Bright, in other words...
Los Angeles FC
Seasons: 2
Joy Points: 4, not bad for a new team, even a notably spoiled one…
Trophies/Near Misses: Supporters’ Shield in 2019 (again, by a runaway). The season before wasn’t bad either.
Results History: A lot like Atlanta, really: they’ve found talent and can afford to pay it.
Notable Names: How about Carlos “Fucking” Vela, Diego Rossi, and Walker Zimmerman (now departed), but also Mark-Anthony Kaye, Eduardo Atuesta, and Bob Bradley…again. Whoa. I just caught that…
Future Prospects: A hot team in a city with a big budget and a global foot-print; fucking up something that good will take effort and imagination.
Welcome to this monster review/index/First Draft History of Major League Soccer. I created this post for a couple reasons, first among them, to cap off the series and to get all the links and cumulative info in one place. The series included entries for every season from 1996 to 2015 and covered all the stuff that popped into my head on reading about different names and events. I have links to and summaries for all of those posts in the second half of this one. Due to several things, including the information available, I didn’t follow any singular template or format, and there was no small amount of figuring out where to look and what to share from post to post. Some are better than others (e.g., I started with 1996 trying to go from memory alone), but they all give a sampling of events and the flavor of each season, with a healthy sprinkling of name-dropping, no matter how idiosyncratic. Related, I can’t remember where I lifted the above quote out of, but it was a posts in the series. It struck me as a good, general statement…
I also wanted to…y’know, add something to the record, and that’s where this post starts. I reviewed the final standings for every season in MLS history – and those I continued beyond the series to 2019 – to track every team’s record of success, failure, near-misses and mediocrity from (their) beginning to (their) end. Next, I dumped several pieces of raw data into a hairy, horned monster of an Excel spreadsheet, added still more data*, then tortured information out of it by assigning numerical values to certain regular events in every season. [*Ed. – I tracked how where each team finished relative to the average number of goals scored/allowed in a given season – e.g., “O” was over, “U” under, “VO” very over, and VVU “very, very under, etc. - and that shows up in the blurbs on each, but not elsewhere.] That, dear, unlucky reader, is how I calculated each team’s “Joy Points” – i.e., a measure of how successful they’ve all been at winning hardware or just playing well. I calculated “Joy Points” using these values:
Winning Supporters’ Shield: +3 points
Winning MLS Cup: +2 points
MLS Cup runner-up: +1 point
Missing the playoffs: -1 point
Missing the playoffs in “low-bar”* seasons: -2 points
Worst Record for the season: -2 points
“Entertainment Bonus”: +1 point for every season with a positive goal differential
(* “Low-bar season means any season where 2/3 of all competing teams qualified for the playoffs. Those included only 1996, 1997, and 2002-2004.)
From there, I added up the total points for each team (making many, many mistakes) and then ordered most of the teams in MLS below, going from most Joy Points to fewest. The goal was to organize the teams from the greatest historical success to the least historical success. Here’s where that “most” caveat kicks in: I decided that any team with five seasons or fewer hasn’t had enough time to establish a “real” MLS history. I still did the math on each of those teams and provided similar comments on them all, I just rated them separately, as “non/applicable.”
The same goes for the three teams in MLS history that folded without either being replaced or relocated – e.g., the Tampa Bay Mutiny, Miami Fusion FC, and Chivas USA. Going the other way, I didn’t do anything for either Nashville SC or Inter Miami CF, because those teams have no history in MLS at this point.
Right, that’s it for the preamble, and I hope that’s enough context for what’s below. Now, let’s get to it!
The All-Time MLS Joy Points Power Ranking
Los Angeles Galaxy
Seasons: 24
Joy Points: 33(!), aka, league-best and almost by a multiple of two.
Trophies/Near Misses: Supporters’ Shield in 1998 (and by a run-away), again in 2002, and again in 2010 and 2011. As for MLS Cups, let me count the ways: 2002, 2005, 2011, 2012 and 2014. Oh, and runners-up in 1996, 1999, 2001, and 2009. LA is the best team in MLS history and it’s not even close.
Results History: They hit a bad patch in mid-2000s when they missed the playoffs three times running, and recent history hasn’t been gentle (with 2017 being particularly unkind)…and I’ve just covered all the times the Galaxy have missed the playoffs. Seriously. They’ve arguably ridden their defense to more titles – especially in the glory seasons from 2010-2014 – but they’ve also posted some of the best all-time attacking seasons and topped the goals average in 16 of 24 seasons.
Notable Names: Cobi Jones was better than you think, and Carlos Ruiz shows what Central America meant to this league; everyone knows Beckham, Donovan and Keane, but Omar, DeLaGarza and Franklin mattered every bit as much. Look, even when they’re awful, you worry.
Future Prospects: Cristian Pavon aside, it still looks like more of the same, aka, the next in the Zlatan-and era, only it’s Chicharito this time. LA has a messy addiction to massive stars surrounded by randos. It takes defenses of a certain (or no uncertain) qualities to pull that off.
Seattle Sounders
Seasons: 11
Joy Points: 18. 2nd? Seriously? God fucking dammit…
Trophies/Near Misses: MLS Cups in 2016 (the worst one ever) and 2019, and runners-up in 2017, but who else remembered they won the Shield in 2014? Fun, related fact: they’ve never had a negative goal differential. See above note (e.g., “God fucking dammit…”).
Results History: Charmed puts it nicely. Seattle has never missed a post-season, they’ve never finished lower than 7th, see note on goal differential above (the nadir was a lowly 0 in 2013), and, yeah, trophies. How’d they do it? They’ve been under the league average for goals allowed in every season but 2014 – when, you’ll recall, they won the (fucking) Shield – and they were very under the average in five of them.
Notable Names: Dempsey, Martins, Alonso, Marshalls (Tyrone and Chad), then there’s Mauro Rosales, followed by Nicolas Lodeiro and Raul Ruidiaz. Credit all those guys, but Seattle has always relied on players like Brad Evans, Tyson Wahl, Andy Rose and Brian Mullan.
Future Prospects: They’ve got savvy (Garth Lagerway, et al.) and resources (i.e., an ownership group with an open wallet). I don’t know when this dries up.
D.C. United
Seasons: 24
Joy Points: 17, though this should be, like 14, maybe even 13 for the 2013 season alone.
Trophies/Near Misses: More than you think, honestly: Supporters’ Shield 1997, 1999, 2006 and 2007; MLS Cup 1996, 1997, 1999 and again in 2004, plus runners-up to Chicago in 1998.
Results History: The thing about DC is that, when they are bad, they plumb the depths of pain with almost literary imagination and vigor: they missed the playoffs nine times, three of them by something considerably wider than miles. They’ve had the odd showing since 2007 (curiously, 2012 and 2014), but they haven’t placed over 8th overall outside of that and that sucked out a lot of their “Joy Points.”
Notable Names: Because I cover them below, they had the league’s first great playmaker in Marco Etcheverry, the first best poacher in Raul Diaz Arce, and the league’s first, best player in Jaime Moreno. For all the decline between Olympus and today, they’ve had some great players (e.g., Christian Gomez, Bobby Boswell, and Luciano Emilio had his moments) since.
Future Prospects: Sticking with Olsen as head coach for as long as they have smacks of the worst kind of complacency – especially when they’ve struggled like they have. Against the rest of MLS, even the current roster falls short in terms of ambition. It’s a real theme…
Red Bulls New York
Seasons: 24
Joy Points: 16, many of them from the same source…
Trophies/Near Misses: MLS Cup runners-up in 2008, but they lifted the Supporters’ Shield in 2013, 2015, and 2018, and damn were those fun teams to watch.
Results History: After starting as a team that’s bad here and there, the Red Bulls became a team that hasn’t missed the playoffs since 2009, and they only missed it once more since 2000. They have a history of being out their best when they force the opposition to keep up with them; New York has overshot the average in half their season, nine of them by a wide margin.
Notable Names: They’ve always had fun players – e.g, Amado Guevara and Juan Pablo Angel (or even Matt Miazga, Jeff Parke or Mike Petke (who shines a little less bright) – but I’m still partial to the Kljestan, McCarty, Thierry Henry, Bradley Wright-Phillips, Luis Robles teams. I don’t care what anyone says: I rate that one among the best all-time.
Future Prospects: After six or so seasons of looking like they could replace any player they sold, the Red Bulls appeared shaky in 2019. Is it possible they found the bottom of the Red Bulls barrel and/or plug-‘n’-play concept?
Sporting Kansas City
Seasons: 24
Joy Points: 16, which feels very fair to a team that I’ve only recently stopped hating…
Trophies/Near Misses: They ground out a double in 2000, winning Cup, Shield, Spear and Magic Helmet (fine, not the last two), and they won MLS Cup again in 2013 after a long fight with RSL. They picked up runners-up honors for MLS Cup in 2004 against DC.
Results History: A ruthlessly consistent team that suffers only the odd implosion of a season (e.g., 1999, 2001 (-20 differential, and they still made the playoffs), and again in…shit, 2019. For all that consistency, they hug the goals average from both sides more than most teams in MLS, something that makes them an odd mix of consistently competitive and erratic.
Notable Names: From the 2000 team, you’ve got Tony Meola and Miklos Molnar, from the later teams you’ve got Matt Besler, Graham Zusi, Roger Espinoza, Aurelien Collin, and maybe even Dom Dwyer. Go even further back and you get to league legends like Preki and (c’mon, lemme stretch) Davy Arnaud, Jimmy Conrad, (low-key) Brandon Prideaux and…though it pains me, I believe it, Peter Vermes. And I even like him as a coach now, which is nuts.
Future Prospects: They followed that rare recent poor season by signing Mexican forward, Alan Pulido, and that feels like a strong statement of intent. They still strike me as the most ambitious of MLS’s “small-market” teams. They’ve been good, generally, and good at keeping up.
Columbus Crew SC
Seasons: 24
Joy Points: 11
Trophies/Near Misses: Supporters’ Shield, 2004, 2008, and 2009. They did the double in 2008, when they won MLS Cup, and they ended as runners-up against Portland.
Results History: It took the Crew a while to get going and that 2004 Shield has “fluke” written all over it. They enjoyed some champagne seasons between 2008 and 2012, and not every MLS team gets those. They’re impressively erratic on either side of that and, when they struggle in the standings, the problem tends to lie on the attacking side.
Notable Names: Guillermo Barros Schelotto, obviously, but there’s Chad Marshall shows up here just as much as Seattle, then you’ve got Stern John, Brian McBride, Jeff Cunningham (again) and, later players like Wil Trapp (who…um), Federico Higuain. When I think of “Mr. Crew (SC),” I tend to think of Frankie Hejduk, but Columbus really does have this “big tent” feel where I can see guys like Eddie Gaven or Kyle Martino playing for them…and I guess that just underlines this next bit…
Future Prospects: Caleb Porter took over in 2019 and he started putting his stamp on the team by reuniting with Darlington Nagbe. They signed one of their bolder signings in Lucas Zelarayan – and they have some star-power besides with Gyasi Zardes, maybe Pedro Santos – but it still looks like roughly the same model; a playmaker with a support system.
FC Dallas
Seasons: 24
Joy Points: 11
Trophies/Near Misses: Surprisingly few: the 2016 Supporters’ Shield and runners-up to Colorado in 2010
Results History: Remarkable stable, hence the high “Joy Points” (also, they reliably post positive goal differentials). Dallas has missed the playoffs just six times in 24 seasons – and they come in pairs – and their last truly shit season happened way back in 2003.
Notable Names: David Ferreira, Mauro Diaz, Fabian Castillo and, yes, goddammit, Michael Barrios, Blas Perez, Jeff Cunningham (again), Jason Kreis, Oscar Pareja (both as player and coach), Ariel Graziani, Matt Hedges, Walker Zimmerman, hell, even Steve Morrow. And now there’s this….
Future Prospects: Dallas’ academy is among the most reliable in the country and/or MLS and that gives them a reliable pipeline to better-than-average young starters than any team in the league. And they trade those players for value all over the league – e.g., Kellyn Acosta, Victor Ulloa, Brek Shea, etc. Paxton Pomykal is just the latest in a long line of hot prospects, and Reggie Cannon could go abroad any day, but, Dallas is sort of the seller’s team in what’s becoming a seller’s league. They’ll always have a spine to compete; the real question is whether gambles like Zdenek Ondrasek or Franco Jara can finally win them the only trophy anyone cares about…
Houston Dynamo
Seasons: 14
Joy Points: 7, but they inherited their good years/personnel/coaching staff from the early 2000s San Jose. So, less an expansion team that the economy from Obama to Trump…
Trophies/Near Misses: Two MLS Cups in 2006 and 2007, two times as runners-up in 2011 and 2012. Curiously, they played the same teams in each set – New England in the first, and the Galaxy in the second.
Results History: They had three good-to-great seasons (2006, but with 2007-08 being the great seasons), and it runs from middling-to-poor thereafter – and very poor lately (10th in 2017, out of the playoffs every other season after 2014). Defense has generally been the key to their success…or at least their over-achieving when it happens.
Notable Names: Brad Davis will top this list for me every damn time, but there’s also Boswell, Cameron, Ricardo Clark, Richard Mulrooney, Wade Barrett, Dwayne DeRosario…basically, the incredible team they borrowed from the early 2000s ‘Quakes. Brian Ching feels like a good late addition, and he played a big role in Houston’s fate (both negative and positive), and Mullan pops up here (again).
Future Prospects: Things don’t look good in Texas’ other half. Just when you think they’ve signed players to get them rolling – whether Eric “Cubo” Torres or Alberth Elis – they keep under-performing. They never really arrived in the DP era…
Real Salt Lake
Seasons: 15
Joy Points: 6
Trophies/Near Misses: MLS Cup 2009, then runners-up in 2013. They also took a powerful run at the CONCACAF Champions’ League. It was one hell of a thing…
Results History: Even if they somehow avoided ever finishing dead last (that’s with a -35 goal differential in 2005), the first three years in Sandy, UT sucked something terrible. They sorted the defense the next season, won MLS Cup the year after, and spent the next five years as one of the most reliably stubborn and entertaining teams of that era. They’ve fallen on more…complicated times since, but they’ve stayed in the mix.
Notable Names: Until a next generation arrives, it’ll always be players like Nick Rimando, Nat Borchers, Jamison Olave, Kyle Beckerman, Alvaro Saborio, Fabian Espindola and…the rest of them, even Nick Grabavoy. They had one good team, and it was a great one.
Future Prospects: One of several teams whose longer history makes me anxious about the Timbers’ fate. Near as I can tell, they’ve been attempting a combination of Dallas (lean into the academy youth) and shopping for (comparative) bargains. It’s a small-market model; the question is whether it can come good in a bigger-spending era.
Portland Timbers
Seasons: 9
Joy Points: 5
Trophies/Near Misses: MLS Cup 2015, then runners-up in 2018. And they had their best season, by the numbers at least, in 2013. To editorialize a little, neither of those finalist teams looked like they’d make it as far they did.
Results History: It took digging into this project for me to remember all the short(er) seasons Portland (generally) had over their first five season (again, 2014). They improved in terms of reliability since then, but without necessarily looking like an improving team. While they’ve always had good attacking pieces, they’ve done best with strong defenses.
Notable Names: Diego Valeri, Diego Chara, Jack Jewsbury, Liam Ridgewell, Nat Borchers…and, as it turns out, Will Johnson and Rodney Wallace for a bit…look, I’m just waiting for the next set of players who feel like they’ve got a date with destiny…
Future Prospects: At the risk of pissing off my core audience, I am nervous. This league has seen more “hot 5 year runs” than long-term competitive viability, so what happens after Valeri, Chara and Sebastian Blanco move on? Related, keep an eye on that “strong defenses” note above, because that’s a real wild card so far.
New England Revolution
Seasons: 24, several filled with hope.
Joy Points: 0, a really nice conceptual summation of works versus accomplishment.
Trophies/Near Misses: The Buffalo Always the Bridesmaids Bills of MLS, as shown by finishing runners-up in 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, and…wow, 2014.
Results History: While they’ve rarely been the worst team in MLS (I see you, 1998), it took them until 2003 to manage a positive goal-differential. I had a theory that defense always hurt them (not to mention proved fatal in MLS Cups), and the record confirmed it. They allowed goals above the average in 14 seasons, and only managed the average in another five.
Notable Names: The Taylor Twellman, Shalrie Joseph, Matt Reis, Pat Noonan, and (especially) the Steve Ralston, Chris Tierney years gave them 5-6 solid seasons, and they got another bump from 2013 to 2015 with the Lee Nguyen/Jermaine Jones…/Andrew Farrell(?) freak-out (sure as hell wasn’t A. J. Soares; that guy drove me nuts).
Future Prospects: Players like Gustavo Bou, Carles Gil and Adam Buksa show they can find a decent form of talent (though the jury’s still out on Buksa); landing Bruce Arena for head coach shows ambition. They just need to get over the proverbial Buffalo hump…
Chicago Fire FC
Seasons: 22
Joy Points: 0
Trophies/Near Misses: MLS Cup 1998; runners-up 2000 & 2003
Results History: Roared out of the gate – they joined a league of expansion teams as an expansion team – and they stayed decent competitive until 2010…when they fell off a fucking cliff. The original Chicago teams scored often and defended well, only to watch complacency (thy name is Logan Pause) set in, and become rot. The Fire has made the playoffs just twice since then, they finished dead last in 2015 and 2016 – and 2015 was an expansion season. Orlando joined the league for FFS. Finally, they have a famously dysfunctional relationship with their fan-base. One of the tensest in MLS.
Notable Names: Kaka, who hasn’t done much. Or at least not enough. And that’s kind of a theme
Future Prospects: You want to be gentle, but no talent, no matter how intriguing, or formerly valuable to another team they’ve been, they either quietly come and go (e.g., Nico Gaitan) or get swallowed up by the Fire’s bad luck (e.g., Bastian Schweinsteiger and Nemanja Nikolic) when they do come good.
San Jose Earthqaukes
Seasons: 22
Joy Points: -3, which is a truly incredible number. Check this out…
Trophies/Near Misses: Supporters’ Shield in 2005 and 2012, MLS Cups in 2001 and 2003. That puts them 10 points to the positive on my in-house scale and that tells you something…
Results History: They started as arguably the league’s worst franchise, to the extent of finishing dead-last twice over the first five seasons. They transformed into the most-lethal team in MLS over the following five seasons – see three of their four trophies above – and then MLS relocated that team and all its talent to Houston. They reclaimed that “worst-team” crown when the league (re-)expanded back to San Jose, a trick they repeated in 2018. The ‘Quakes second life hasn’t been kind: their second Shield aside, they’ve missed the post-season 9 times out of 12.
Notable Names: Landon (freakin’) Donovan early on, plus DeRo and all the players noted above for Houston. The Bash Brothers era – e.g., walking/playing MLS Legend Chris Wondolowski, plus Steven Lenhart and Alan Gordon – was also good, wholesome, pro-wrestling fun. They have their moments, San Jose…
Future Prospects: Trouble is, it’s been a while. They’ve been weirdly chintzy, and relatedly, irrelevant, since 2012, so it was good to see them sign a strong coach (Matias Almeyda). And…honestly, they’ve got some intriguing players in 2020…if they get to use them. At the same time, the logic of “Wondo” looms over them somehow. If they stood pat on that too long, how long will it take to recover?
Toronto FC
Seasons: 13
Joy Points: -3. So…how’d they do it?
Trophies/Near Misses: They won both Cup and Shield in 2017, and twice played second fiddle (i.e., MLS Cup runners-up) in 2016 and 2019. Six points in nine years. Pretty good, right?
Results History: The first eight (8) years of Toronto’s existence was a straight-up horror-show, annual exercises in failure with multiple sharp kicks at an already prostrate body: they finished dead-last twice, went -15 or worse for goal differential in half of them, and couldn’t so much as dream of kicking a competitive ball in November for that entire time. Then their ownership got ambitious, and it’s been…more or less good since, and great once (2017)
Notable Names: Giovinco, Bradley, Altidore, obviously, but they’ve had some interesting pieces down the years. And they have some now…
Future Prospects: First and foremost, I’m glad I pulled up their current roster, because I do see a team clinging to relevance, and in a fairly believable way. All the same…put it this way: I have no idea what’s on the other side of the current spending splurge. The stars that gave them their golden seasons are aging out, one of the chief architects behind it decamped to Columbus, and it’s their early history plus watching what looks like some familiar misfiring that gives me pause.
Philadelphia Union
Seasons: 10
Joy Points: -3
Trophies/Near Misses: Yeah, no.
Results History: They made the playoffs just four times, two of them as make-weights, but they’ve also made it three times in the past four seasons – and they flirted with real quality in 2019’s crowded field. If anything hurts them, it’s a habit of playing too close to the mean.
Notable Names: Sebastian LeToux was a big one early, and they drafted a good crop of MLS regulars (e.g., Conor Casey and Brian Carroll), but their most recent team is undoubtedly their best, what with Ilsinho, Ale Bedoya and Andrew Blake and Medunjanin…who has since decamped to Cincinnati.
Future Prospects: Tough call, this one. The general trends are positive and Jim Curtin does present as a competent and wise coach. They’ve got some useful pieces – e.g., Brendan Aaronsen and Blake – but they’ve also got several guys on the edge of aging out – e.g., Bedoya, Ilsinho, and Collin. I do like Kacper Przybylko, but…call it another wait-and-see – and with a lot of clutter above.
Vancouver Whitecaps
Seasons: 9
Joy Points: -3, and it feels generous somehow…
Trophies/Near Misses: Think they got a Canadian Cup, maybe even two, but I’m pretty sure it’s just the one.
Results History: The Timbers ruined their best season – they finished 3rd in 2015 – and they’ve never finished better than 8th outside of that. They had a string of decent defensive seasons early, but reliable scoring has been a reliable limitation for the ‘Caps. There’s not much to add…sadly.
Notable Names: Alphonso Davies before he moved on, obviously, but Kendall Waston held up (especially after I looked into him again), and they had Camilo Sanvezzo that first season, Russell Teibert keeps looking like a good two-way player, there was Jordan Harvey and Steven Beitashour, then they moved on…oh…
Future Prospects: As I understand it, they’re presently rebuilding 2019’s rebuild, something that rarely screams “success.” Also, I read they just sacked someone who was rebuilding relations with their disgruntled fan-base. Expect them to stay at or near the bottom of the Cascadia heap for a while…
Colorado Rapids
Seasons: 24
Joy Points: -4
Trophies/Near Misses: MLS Cup 2010, surprisingly, but also runners-up in 1997
Results History: The Rapids have been…let’s call it “Chicago Bad” since 2012 – in fact, the only thing keeping them out of last place in 2015 was Chicago – but they fielded generally competitive teams from 1996 until…oh, 2006. They’ve also fielded some very, very boring attacks; they fell on the wrong side of the goals average on offense in half their seasons and only managed to make the average in another seven. To their credit, they won MLS Cup during their best season in MLS…and somehow managed to reach MLS Cup in 1997 after posting a -10 goal differential in that regular season.
Notable Names: It starts with Balboa, continues through Pablo Mastroeni, moves on to Drew Moor, then Matt Pickens to Tim Howard, but the biggest names have to be the players who won them their one and only trophy, Conor Casey and Omar Cummings.
Future Prospects: On the plus side, they keep turning up intriguing youth talent. It doesn’t always pan out (see Dillon Powers and (still holding out hope) Marlon Hairston), but there’s always the next Dillon Serna, or Jonathan Lewis, or Andre Shinyashiki.
Montreal Impact
Seasons: 8
Joy Points: -4, which is nuts for a team that reached a CONCACAF Champions’ League Final.
Trophies/Near Misses: Empty cupboard.
Results History: They’ve never finished higher than 7th, and they’ve finish well above 10th more often than not.
Future Prospects: MLS’s only Francophone team has a history of finding some of the league’s most exciting players – e.g., Ignacio Piatti – but throttle out the benefits by not getting enough quality around them. Their history speaks for itself, and poorly.
The All-Time MLS Joy Points Power Ranking, Pending and/or Terminated Files
Chivas USA
Seasons: 10, 12 if you want to get technical about it (Chivas pulled the plug on the “American Chivas Junior Experiment” (“ACJE”) in 2014 to make way for a certain, second LA franchise…also, nah, totally different team/ownership/concept.)
Joy Points: -5
Results History: Somewhere after a dire, league-bottom first season, ACJE had a decent run of seasons – they even made…whatever the hell they called the LA derby back then, one of the best in MLS. They took a collective hard left into hell after that, posting a succession of seasons with historically bad goal differentials until the Chivas organization tapped out.
Notable Names: Sacha Kljestan, Brad Guzan, Jonathan Bornstein, Bob Bradley’s second solid outing, so not bad.
Future Prospects: They laid down in the front of a bulldozer for LAFC. Guess that’s a legacy.
Atlanta United FC
Seasons: 3
Joy Points: 5
Trophies/Near Misses: MLS Cup 2018
Results History: Overall, though, they have too little history to discuss, but they’ve been fun/free-wheeling to this point, they’ve had exciting and, at times, globally marketable players – e.g., Miguel Almiron, Josef Martinez, even Leonardo Gonzalez Pirez - and have never known anything but success.
Notable Names: See either side; this post has gone through a couple edits, it’s late and I’m tired.
Future Prospects: High-profile signings like Pity Martinez and Ezequiel Barco haven’t come good yet, but they (along with landing Frank de Boer as a head coach, and after Tata Martinez), shows Atlanta can draw top-tier talent and they’re willing to buy it. Bright, in other words...
Los Angeles FC
Seasons: 2
Joy Points: 4, not bad for a new team, even a notably spoiled one…
Trophies/Near Misses: Supporters’ Shield in 2019 (again, by a runaway). The season before wasn’t bad either.
Results History: A lot like Atlanta, really: they’ve found talent and can afford to pay it.
Notable Names: How about Carlos “Fucking” Vela, Diego Rossi, and Walker Zimmerman (now departed), but also Mark-Anthony Kaye, Eduardo Atuesta, and Bob Bradley…again. Whoa. I just caught that…
Future Prospects: A hot team in a city with a big budget and a global foot-print; fucking up something that good will take effort and imagination.
Tampa Bay Mutiny
Seasons: 6, and that’s all she’ll ever write.
Joy Points: 3, the 1996 Supporters’ Shield and a lot of middling to pitiful seasons after…
Joy Points: 3, the 1996 Supporters’ Shield and a lot of middling to pitiful seasons after…
Trophies/Near Misses: Um, as noted, the 1996 Shield
Results History: Hmm…also covered above.
Notable Names: Some of the biggest in league history, actually: Roy Lassiter, who held the Golden Boot record till Josef Martinez knocked it off, but this was also Carlos Valderrama’s first team, as well as Ralston’s.
Future Prospects: Going from “they had an MLS team” to complete oblivion feels like a safe bet…
Results History: Hmm…also covered above.
Notable Names: Some of the biggest in league history, actually: Roy Lassiter, who held the Golden Boot record till Josef Martinez knocked it off, but this was also Carlos Valderrama’s first team, as well as Ralston’s.
Future Prospects: Going from “they had an MLS team” to complete oblivion feels like a safe bet…
Miami Fusion FC
Seasons: 4, and done.
Joy Points: 3, all from winning the 2001 Supporters’ Shield
Trophies/Near Misses: See above. It wasn’t great besides.
Results History: They weren’t exactly great head of 2001. I mean, sure, they made the playoffs in ’98 and ’99, but with -17 and -16 goal differentials, respectively.
Notable Names: Diego Serna, Diego Pineda Chacon, Leo Cullen…I think everyone except Mastroeni died of heart-break…
Future Prospects: Wistful interviews with Ray Hudson. That’s about it.
New York City FC
Seasons: 5
Joy Points: 3, all from positive goal differential. Which feels apt.
Trophies/Near Misses: Seems inevitable, probably.
Results History: They followed up their average ordinary expansion season (a bad one, in other words), by building increasingly-better seasons on the back of ever-stingier defensive teams. They’ve managed two second place finishes already, but have yet to make that translate to a Cup run.
Notable Names: David Villa, obviously, and I rate Alexander Ring very highly, and they’ve got good players all over (e.g., Anton Tinnerholm), and I think that’s the issue.
Future Prospects: On the one hand, you’ve got the strong and steady finishes they’ve made since their inaugural and generally improving numbers. On the other, they don’t have Villa anymore and their ceiling hasn’t looked like it’s going anywhere for some time.
Minnesota United FC
Seasons: 3
Joy Points: -1, for getting their first positive goal differential in 2019
Trophies/Near Misses: Nada.
Results History: Anyone who likes Minnesota would do best to not look too closely at 2017 and 2018. In this league, goal differentials the wrong side of greater than -20 is like finding a bloody sheet and looking under it…
Notable Names: Darwin Quintero was probably the Loons first big name player, but there was the whole Superman (Christian Ramirez, I think) and Batman (Miguel Ibarra) thing before that, plus a long tradition in USL. Then they made some moves
Future Prospects: Hard to say. The Loons followed two terrible seasons with an impressive rebuilt that added a spine (Ike Opara, Osvaldo Alonso) and some midfield range (Jan Gregus), and they started 2020 very strong. Most expansion teams take a while to get going…and some relapse after they do.
FC Cincinnati
Seasons: 1, and it hurt like a branding. Related they got the only “VVU/VVO” rating.
Joy Points: -3, technically, but I’m lowering it to -7 on principle, because they hold two terrible records – most goals allowed in a single season and the worst goal differential in MLS history – then they hired a promising coach and lost him for saying some dumb, racist shit.
Trophies/Near Misses: HA! (Seriously, though, they get to make their history from here.)
Future Prospects: I…don’t think it can get worse. Said to say, I don’t see anyone getting under the awful records they posted in 2019 for some time…
Orlando City SC
Seasons: 5, all of ‘em bad.
Joy Points: -5, one for each season.
Trophies/Near Misses: Something about getting crawling, walking, and running in the right order before there’s any talk of flying.
Results History: They finished highest in their inaugural season (14th, baby!), but they might have had their best season in 2016. It’s hard to tell, really, and it has generally been very, very bad.
Future Prospects: The way I see it, you gotta start by lifting the curse, right?
OK, welcome to the half-way mark. Seriously, if you want to stop here and take a breather, I totally fucking get it! I'm formatting this shit in real time and it is fucking breaking me. At any rate, bookmark this, take some time out, y'know, do what you gotta do, then circle back when you're ready..............and, now that you're back, enjoy all these other links to 20 posts on the (or, rather a) history of Major League Soccer. I included blurbs for each to see if I couldn't entice anyone to kill more time and/or some brain cells.
1996: So Goddamn Thirsty
“Seeing regular Americans win a game – and this was playing against guys from countries you recognize, e.g., Valderrama, Etcheverry, Donadoni – it was…transformational is the only thing I can call it.”
This one’s mostly about MLS’s weird, original rules (e.g., shoot-outs, no ties, time counting up), the “marquee player” concept (the original DPs, basically), the first MLS game (which I equated to a bad elevator pitch), and, per the quote above, the fact that guys like Shawn Medved, Tony Sanneh and Eddie Pope scored the goals in the first MLS Cup. Call it the rise of the random American.
1997: The First Great Roster Build
“I’ve seen plenty (which, here, means some) acknowledgement of the DC United dynasty that dominated the first four seasons of Major League Soccer’s history; what I’ve never seen is anyone call it what it is: the first, great roster-build in league history."
A celebration of the original, unstoppable DC team – which featured early league legends like Marco Etcheverry, John Harkes, Jeff Agoos, Pope, Sanneh, and the genuinely timeless, OG-MLS great “real” player, Jaime Moreno. There’s also chatter about some unearthed flawed gems - e.g., Dante Washington and Wolde Harris – that American fans would have never seen without a domestic soccer league (or paying very, very careful attention).
1998: An Expansion Team Among Expansion Teams
“…the simple fact that I’m looking backwards at all these teams and/or players through a bunch of history and context creates all kinds of distortions, projections and, probably, some mythologizing. Why does that caveat seem so specific? Because I’m about to argue that the Chicago Fire’s inaugural team might have been an MLS 4.0 (or thereabouts) team in the MLS 2.0 era.”
This touches on the great Galaxy team that held the record for most goals scored until 2017 (I think), but, per the title, it focuses on Chicago’s original, former-Soviet-bloc-heavy expansion team. Names like Piotr Nowak and Lubos Kubik are famous, but where would they have gone without young Americans like Ante Razov and Josh Wolff? (And what would LA have been without, say, Robin Fraser, Dan Calichman, or even Mauricio Cienfuegos (there’s also a section about Central America’s…central role in the league’s early seasons). Also, Carlos Hermosillo puts to rest rumors that no high-profile players came to MLS after the first season.
1999: Late Bloomers and Shrinking Margins
“I think that small, obvious decision bought ‘The Soccer Don’ a well of sympathy that he has yet to burn through, if with the older generation. I don’t like him a lot, but he seems to get the big things…look, a lifetime of voting for Democrats prepares you for certain things.”
The worst gimmicks took their final bow during the ’99 playoffs and Garber deserves credit for seeking to appeal to soccer fans, as opposed to the generic American “sport fan” (who couldn’t give less of a shit about soccer). Also noted, the fact that the Galaxy was the first close-but-so-far team in MLS history (3 times a runner-up), a peak at two of MLS’s first in-house success stories – Jason Kreis (for Dallas) and Jeff Cunningham (for Columbus) – and I close with a roll-call of MLS first, worst teams (e.g., San Jose, New England, and SKC).
2000: It Was the Best of Times It Was the Least Watchable of Times
“…the Wizards got killed by their defense two seasons in the 1998-1999 seasons. They definitely adjusted to that, and in the most soul-sucking way possible: they dropped a five-player brickwall built around Brandon Prideaux, Peter Vermes and rookie/future anchor, Nick Garcia in the backline, with Matt McKeon and Kerry Zavagnin in front of then-former (right?) UMSNT ‘keeper, Tony Meola.”
How the Kansas City “Wizards” (an alleged improvement on the original “Wiz”) won a title by killing joy. Also, the first season with three conferences, the beginning of big careers for America’s first class of “stars” (e.g., Steve Ralston (then at Tampa), Danny Califf, legit legend Carlos Bocanegra, and MLS original hot-burning meteor, Clint Mathis), and the way MLS just couldn’t quit bad ideas (i.e., getting rid of the shoot-out, keeping the “golden goal.”).
2001: One Hell of a Missed Opportunity
“Crew Stadium opened May 15, 1999, and that sucker was modest. It cost a pittance, it never looked like much (no offense!), but, it never looked like anything more or less than the biggest, ballsiest bet laid down to that point that domestic top flight soccer had a future in this country.”
Sure, it looks like a replaceable dump today, but Crew Stadium marked the arrival of soccer-specific stadiums, aka, the first real indicator I took to mean MLS wouldn’t fold at any given moment (related, the Home Depot Center and Chicago’s Toyota Park both started construction the same season). The bold, brassy last hurrah for the Miami Fusion takes up a lot of the post, but the “rising star” concept continues with Landon Donovan and Dwayne DeRosario starring on the San Jose team that won MLS Cup 2001 and dominated the 2000s (even if it continued as the Houston Dynamo).
2002: Coming Back from the Dead to Become the Buffalo Bills
“It was no surprise at all to see him score the winner; Ruiz had already scored over half the Galaxy’s goals during the regular season (seriously, 24 goals of 44 goals). To hang an analogy on it, the Galaxy was only able to win an MLS Cup by going from Scandal to Patty Smyth and Scandal.”
LA finally wins a title! (And against a revived, Steve-Nicol-led New England team that relied on a very similar formula, but also a worse defense). Related, this was the Revolution’s first step to swiping the unfortunate, painful “Buffalo Bills of MLS” crown from LA’s head.
2003: The Ballad of Chris Roner (& The End of Puberty)
“First came his own-goal – one of those accidental headers where the ball clears your mark’s head and finds yours - which cut Mulrooney’s insurance in half. Then came a tackle from behind in the penalty area on Damani Ralph – which lead to the first penalty kick in MLS final history, by the way. Razov, one of the league’s better forwards that season, stepped to the spot with a chance to equalize.”
How a player you never heard of (Chris Roner) nearly handed Chicago its second MLS Cup, plus an MLS Cup that featured a slew of firsts when such things were possible – e.g., the first penalty kick in MLS Cup history (awarded to Damani Ralph, significantly, after being hauled down by Roner), the first missed penalty kick (by Ante Razov), and the first brace in an MLS Cup (Donovan, natch). Also, defenses have always mattered as much, if not more, than anything else.
2004: Parity Used to Mean Something, Dammit!
“Adu did better than well for a 15-year-old kid playing on the biggest stage (5g, 3a) – he scored a penalty in DC’s shoot-out winner over New England in the conference final, so he had nerves o’ steel, if just in that moment – but he also fizzled out with an abruptness that mirrored the hype of his arrival. He became a cautionary tale, fer crissakes. The 2004 MLS Cup Season/Cup was a high point for all three of these people…and that feels like a deeper story of the 2004 season.”
DC United would follow the Seattle Sounders formula for success – i.e., figure it out late, land an impact summer signing (Christian Gomez) – I still call this season the end of MLS 1.0, but 2004 happened in the middle of an era when coaches ruled and teams improved at the margins. Gomez flamed out, see above on Adu, and Nowak flamed out in a season or two.
2005: Expansion 1.0 (& Reliable Players)
“KC tied both the Colorado Rapids and the Los Angeles Galaxy on points (45), and beat both on goal differential (+8 for KC, +3 for Colorado, and a wtf -1 for LA), out-performed both on goals scored (LA, by a lot), and, in LA’s case, goals allowed (barely). Going the other way, both Colorado and LA won more games than KC – 13 games to 11, in both cases – and that’s a valid tie-breaker, so the conference shift feels like the bigger buzzsaw against KC’s playoff fortunes.”
That dog pile of team names and stats highlights a concept MLS struggled with through the 2000s – i.e., how many teams would qualify “regardless of conference.” Personally, I like the idea – and not just from what happened to SKC (which, as indicated above, was messy). Elsewhere, RSL and Chivas USA joined the league, the goals average spiked, and I tried to build a case that expansion made that happen (and I was wrong). Also, the Galaxy won (but shouldn’t have), and I took a dive into RSL and Chivas USA’s roster builds.
2006: My First Heartbreak (& New England’s Third)
“A team still had to have good enough players, obviously – this is what killed, say, the Columbus Crew, the Kansas City Wizards, and the Fire – but, in Dominic Kinnear and Steve Nicol, Houston and the Revs (respectively) had two of the savviest operators of their era – e.g., the 2000s.”
I went deeper on “coach theory” in this one (but not much), the San Jose Earthquakes became the Houston Dynamo, and without missing a beat, and I tried to replicate how a good team – e.g., New England, and this is from the Ralston, Taylor Twellman, Pat Noonan, Matt Reis, Shalrie Joseph Revs – tried to find a path to a trophy by adding a single player who would give them what they lacked. That was Khano Smith in this case…and the trophy cabinet speaks for itself.
2007: A Grand Re-Re-Re-Opening
“…after making the playoffs in 2006, they finished just two points behind DC United in the Supporters’ Shield race in 2007. Once they got over the “Chivas Junior” mind-set, and brought in players who made their reputations playing for Chivas USA – e.g., Sacha Kljestan, Brad Guzan, Jonathan Bornstein, Jason Hernandez (and useful Mexican veterans like Claudio Suarez) – and when they hired Bob Bradley as head coach, they became one of the most entertaining teams in MLS.”
That’s mostly about giving Chivas USA its due before the memory hole swallows it, but this season saw the Houston/New England deepen, first in the Superliga (aka, the contemporary iteration of the attempt to combine MLS and Liga MX) where the Revs won, and, again, in MLS Cup, when a depleted team broke the spirit of the team that pulled together the best line-up announcement in sporting history, yes, fuck all the other ones…
Oh, and MLS established the designated player rule. Which took at least one season to come good.
2008: A Coach, His Guys, a DP & A Clean Sweep
“Some of those seasons were absolute muddles, the top of the table not even 20 points above the bottom, and that had a lot less to do with great competition than it did with most of the teams battling tooth, nail and battle axes at the margins; in far too many ways, it was seven or eight different versions of the same team. MLS teams could and did sign impact players, even from Argentina – see, Christian Gomez, DC United – but leveling up relied more on winning a lottery or two (e.g., landing Taylor Twellman via allocation or drafting Shalrie Joseph or Clint Dempsey).”
I liked this one, and for a bold argument: the 2008 Columbus team might have been the first to “buy success” – e.g., they brought in a functioning ringer (as opposed to a “butts-in-seats” guy) in Guillermo Barros Schelotto and, with a good team around him, and a good coach at the helm, Columbus did the double in 2008. Related, if you clock the names on Columbus’ 2008 roster, you see pieces of the diaspora that spread around MLS and seeded future, great teams. Also, the Red Bulls had a strong 2008 season – and, Dane Richards, one of MLS under-compensated greats, lead the way (not least by dismantling Houston, a team who had lost 5 games all damn season).
2009: A Lot of Treading Water and Playing Hurt
“In another fun bit of symmetry, they mirrored what the New York Red Bulls’ did in 2008 by running the table against the entire Eastern Conference, starting with the strongest team in the conference – e.g., Supporters’ Shield-winning Columbus.”
This was an unremarkable season in many ways. Sure, RSL completed its redemption arc by winning MLS Cup (wait for it, Orlando), but they just repeated same trick as the Red Bulls from the season before, only in a different conference. Related thereto, they shouldn’t have made that final twice over – first on “Decision Day” (or the weekend that would inspire it; don’t recall), then by beating Shield-winning Columbus. Fwiw, the final paid them back in injuries and violence.
2010: The Final Fabulous Freak Season
“I want to kill one of MLS’s most famous myths before it gets rolling: nothing in the record indicates that Colorado ‘peaked at the right time.’ Moreover, several teams with better records went into the playoffs hotter.”
OK, yes, some part of this project turned into re-litigating old beefs. The concept of “peaking at the right time” gets attacked more than once, but 2010 saw one big change – e.g., the league expanded the DP rule to three players (even as half the teams in MLS didn’t have even one DP) – and one totally freaky outcome. The Rapids never had a better team than 2010’s. It started with the Omar Cummings/Conor Casey forward tandem, but extended to the backline through Pablo Mastroeni to Drew Moor and Matt Pickens. It was an old-school MLS roster facing a Dallas team that tracked the new model – i.e., David Ferreira, plus Heath Pearce, George John and, there he is again, Jeff Cunningham.
2011: A Coronation and Other Beautiful Things
“Because both team salary budgets and salary adjustment mechanisms proliferated as the league grew, MLS doesn’t really have a one-cut template for what expansion looks like.”
Portland and Vancouver joined MLS in 2011 and, as teams can choose to do, as they never have before, they took drastically different approaches to their rebuilds: the ‘Caps went big on DPs (e.g., Eric Hassli…Camilo Sanvezzo, and some guy named Jarju), while the Timbers leaned into known quantities…plus Chara. Both teams’ futures tell the tale better than I can. The “coronation” in the title referred to one of the best-ever LA teams – the Keane/Donovan/Omar/DeLaGarza era – plowing through a stubborn (via Cameron and Boswell) and determined (via Brad “Fucking” Davis, one of MLS’s all-time under-rated players) Houston team.
2012: A Real Change Up of a Season
“Worse, DC opened the scoring at home, Saragosa could have put them up two goals and it was Hainault who scored Houston’s equalizer (highlights). I mean, sure, Houston won the second leg, but this sucker was tainted. But also one for the history books. Look, I love a good story and this is why I love refereeing errors and hate VAR.”
Because this was sort of a god-awful season – LA played Houston again, and the margin looked even less in doubt than you’d get from seeing a promotion for a “battle” between Calen Carr and David Beckham. There’s also a deep deconstruction of the Timbers 2nd season roster – which, to give myself far too much credit for writing – could be expanded into a discussion about the sunk costs of buying a bad DP – but the posts got really consumed by reading events through the Form Guide. Also, this was San Jose’s last great season (and it was pro-wrestling good), and Montreal joined the league.
2013: The First MLS 2.0 Final?
“And that’s really how MLS’s 2013 season worked: a tight-fisted season, which ended with a tight-fisted, balls-shriveling MLS Cup (cold AF) hosted by Sporting Kansas City, and won by Sporting Kansas City, after a fascinatingly interminable penalty-kick shoot-out, because Nick Rimando and Jimmy Nielsen, and a fiver (I’ll venmo) if you can tell me his nickname (no googling!).”
I think it was “White Panther,” but I still haven’t googled it. Look, I’ll be the first to admit that I got sidetracked a bit once Portland joined the league – hence, why this post became a “how was the 2013 Portland team so good, when I had such a low opinion of all those players” thing. The league-wide chit-chat I got to mostly kicked around how competitive the league was going into the playoffs. This was arguably the peak of the Vermes-SKC team, and that’s a real testament to the savvy of the RSL team that came together in 2009.
2014: Of DPs and an Indifferent, Yet Angry Universe
“To wrap this up where I started, DPs both are and are not magical creatures. When they fall flat, you can all but write-off your season; you go in with them at the center of your plans and that means re-writing the script during the season, maybe even more than once. The ones that find their feet, meanwhile, they’ll legitimately win games and seasons for you.”
The 2014 season featured what was arguably the greatest DP battle of all-time: Obafemi Martins and Dempsey versus Donovan and Keane. That happened in the Western Conference Finals (or the Semifinals, doesn’t matter), but another DP arrived in late summer to carry a talented and struggling New England team to the final: Jermaine Jones was the DP, New England the team. It went deeper than the DPs, obviously, but the Revs’ Chris Tierney was one of the biggest clutch players of the 2014 playoffs. Sometimes magical creatures don’t make as much as they should…
2015: Symmetry Tragedy & Triumph
“Teams out of Dallas have had their share of shit years, but they’ve also put together their share of tough teams, entertaining teams, and teams that supplied both. In recent years, they created one of the most reliable pipelines for talent in the country and, against their attendance numbers, Dallas has deserved better attendance since Day 1.”
Fine, yes, even if I talked about all (was it?) 24 teams in MLS that season, this post was a whole lot of reliving the Timbers’ 2015 Cup run…if with an honorable sidebar for a Dallas team that, at the end of the day, deserves a goddamn trophy.
If you made it to the end of this monster, bless you. Trust me, I expect skimming. I skim when I edit these things. On a more personal note, I’ve enjoyed having a sports league to follow and, following it for as long as I have, I have a keen sense of ownership when it comes to MLS. I really do feel like it is my league – I mean that in the sense of something I participated in and built, at least on the cultural level. It wasn’t much – just a bunch of chatter, most of it my own – but I’ve touched base with people all over the country over the last 25 years, and feel fortunate to have had the time to do it. Sure, it’s mostly done through a keyboard, but that’s the world we live in.
For what it’s worth, I do expect a major break in league activity until there’s a vaccine for COVID, and I’m fine with that. Soccer is something I do like to have in my life, and that’s because I enjoy it. This won’t sound right to people who have met me, but I miss the ritual/community part of the soccer experience most of all. Missing that rhythm accounts for a lot of the sense of isolation I’ve felt in 2020. Still, I can wait till the world gets right. When MLS does come back, I want it to look the way it did in 2015, back before a whole lotta bullshit. That said, I'm not saint: I will watch what they put on a TV and I'll comment on it to, whether it's praise or ridicule (and, holy shit, does the latter have a leg-up right now), but I’m more than content to wait for a better normal than this before I go to a game.
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