MLS power rankings: Inter Miami’s ambitious plans are paying off
Welcome back to the Guardian’s MLS Power Rankings, where I have a problem with your specific team and your specific team alone. Take your complaints to the desk of Garth Lagerwey, who literally has nothing else on his plate. I’m sure he has time to address every complaint because he definitely doesn’t have a roster to retool, a manager to hire, and a brand new front office vacancy to fill.
As a reminder, these aren’t your typical, run-of-the-mill power rankings. We’re still ranking teams from worst to first. But in addition to the rankings, we’re also taking a deep dive into a handful of teams from the league that are doing particularly interesting things.
What to do when you have nothing left to win
29. Earthquakes in San Jose
28. CF Montreal
27. New English Revolution
26. Sports in Kansas City
25. Fire in Chicago
24. Nashville SC
Forgive me for being blunt, San Jose, but you have nothing to play for. You’re at the bottom of the league in points in both conferences. One public post season probability model gives you less than a 1% chance of making the playoffs, which is about as close to flashing a big neon sign that says “ELIMINATED” as you can get with a single number and a single percent sign. When hopelessness strikes, where do you go? In MLS, a league with no real consequences for being bad enough that you start to feel hopeless, you move on to next year.
San Jose will have to figure out how to use club-record signing Hernán López in their final seven games before heading into 2025.
The earthquakes splashed a reported $6 million fee for the Argentine No. 10 earlier this season. The problem? He doesn’t create many chances. He moves the ball through midfield at a high level, but the man doesn’t produce in the final third. One way to adjust Lopez’s usage would be to feed him more often. He takes 15.1% of his team’s touches in the final third, according to American Soccer Analysis, well below the league’s best attacking midfielders. Lucho Acosta averages 23.7%. Carles Gil averages 21.7%. Evander averages 18.7%.
Encouraging Lopez to stay higher – and encouraging the players around him to find the Argentine more often – could be the first step towards a brighter future for the Quakes.
The best bubble team in the West
23.Toronto FC
22. DC United
21. Austin FC
20. FC Dallas
19. St. Louis City
18.Minnesota United
There are a few teams that I watch every week just because they… pleasureI didn’t expect Minnesota United to be one of those teams when Emanuel Reynoso left the club earlier this year, but here we are.
Under the guidance of first-year chief soccer officer Khaled El-Ahmad and first-year manager Eric Ramsay, the Loons have become more tactically complex than they ever were under former boss Adrian Heath. And after adding several key players in the summer transfer window, they are also building a reasonably deep and balanced squad.
Ramsay has opted for a 3-5-2 formation. In this formation, Minnesota United want to move the ball forward quickly when they have possession. According to Opta, they have the seventh fastest direct attack speed in MLS.
Ramsay wants his team to play forward quickly, but it’s not just about spamming hopeful long balls into the other half. No, Minnesota almost always seems to have a sense of control when in possession. With several players comfortable breaking lines on the ball and attackers happy to break down the back, including new Designated Player Kelvin Yeboah, Minnesota United can slice through an opposition block at any time:
They’re ninth in the West and a long way from a playoff berth. But make no mistake: Minnesota United are dangerous. They’re noticeably stronger now than they were before the transfer window opened, and that’s before new DP midfielder Joaquin Pereyra even made his debut.
The Loons are the most entertaining (and best) bubble playoff team in the West.
Change, change and more change
17. Philadelphia Union
16. Seattle Sounders
15. Orlando City
14. Charlotte FC
13. Atlanta United
12. New York City FC
Atlanta United has cleaned house this year. The last person to leave the club is vice president and technical director Carlos Bocanegra. Bocanegra joined Atlanta United in 2015 as their technical director and helped build their roster for the 2017 expansion season and beyond.
While the Five Stripes enjoyed great success in their early years under the leadership of then-president Darren Eales, vice president of soccer operations Paul McDonough, manager Tata Martino and Bocanegra, success became elusive after winning the MLS Cup in 2018 and finishing second in the East in 2019. Since 2019, Atlanta United have finished 23rd, 9th, 23rd and 10th in the Supporters’ Shield standings. This year, they are ranked 20th.
Of that foundational leadership group, Bocanegra was the lone throughline into 2024. He certainly deserves some credit for the initial roster build. But things have soured since then.
Atlanta’s big spending on flops like Ezequiel Barco, Pity Martínez and Luiz Araújo didn’t pay off. The same goes for more expensive players in the squad like Jurgen Damm and Matheus Rossetto. They blew the U22 Initiative signings. Their managerial appointments didn’t work. Bocanegra didn’t even call Marcelo Bielsa is back, please.
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With club president and CEO Garth Lagerwey in his second season, it’s no surprise he wanted to wipe the slate clean and start over. Lagerwey inherited a poor roster last year, one with Bocanegra’s fingerprints all over it.
Bocanegra seems to have helped hold Atlanta United back in recent years, so his departure should help them move forward. Knowing Atlanta, they’ll be making some big moves in an attempt to climb back up the table as quickly as possible – Inter Miami’s sporting director, who worked with Lagerwey in Seattle, could end up replacing Bocanegra. But there is mounting pressure and a growing to-do list around Lagerwey as he gains more control.
A technical director needs to be hired. A manager needs to be hired. Two DPs need to be contracted. Several U22 Initiative players need to be brought in.
Atlanta United aren’t back yet. But they’re going to be busy.
Love and pain in Houston
11. New York Red Bulls
10.Houston Dynamo
9. Portland wood
8. Vancouver Whiteheads
7. Colorado Rapids
6. Real salt lake
Ben Olsen’s Dynamo ignites teams. Not far removed from their promising Leagues Cup performances, Houston utterly dominated LAFC in Los Angeles last week. Of course, there’s some important context around LAFC’s performance: it was their sixth match in three weeks and came after they had expended real emotional energy in the Leagues Cup final and US Open Cup semi-finals.
But when I watch this sequence from the 24th minute on, all that context just seems to melt away. This. Is. Beautiful.
The Dynamo do a better job with possession than anyone in this league not coached by Wilfried Nancy. They’re second in MLS in possession, behind only the Crew. So far this year, all that possession has functioned primarily as a defensive mechanism. Houston is eighth in MLS in non-penalty xG allowed per 90 minutes, according to FBref.
But now? After adding a few key players and getting some rest after the Leagues Cup? Now they are starting to convert their possession into chances. They dropped three goals against Real Salt Lake last month, scored two against Toluca and beat LAFC by a large margin.
Things are looking good for Houston. Or at least they were before recently signed 22-year-old winger Lawrence Ennali suffered a torn ACL last weekend. Along with striker Ezequiel Ponce, Ennali was a crucial summer signing for the Dynamo. He scored the game-winning goal against LAFC. His injury is a major blow to both the player and the club.
Houston and LAFC meet again on Saturday. How the Dynamo responds to a rollercoaster of a week will tell us a lot about their status as a potential contender.
More than a one-hit wonder
5. LA Galaxy
4. FC Cincinnati
3. LAFC
2. Columbus crew
1.Inter-Miami
Whatever you think, dear MLS fan, about Inter Miami, you cannot deny one simple truth: they are never boring.
Inter Miami weren’t good when they joined MLS as an expansion team in 2020, but they did break a handful of roster rules by playing with five DPs, two more than the team is allowed to play. They got caught and punished, which doesn’t sound boring to me. They certainly weren’t boring when Lionel Messi and his friends arrived last summer. And with Messi still not fully recovered from injury, they still aren’t boring. They’ve won an insane amount of games without him and have three fingers on the Supporters’ Shield.
The latest example of the constant stream of intrigue surrounding Inter Miami is the longest-lasting of them all: Miami Freedom Park.
The Herons leaving their temporary home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and moving to Miami has been in the works for a while. But rumor has it that together with new renderingsannounced earlier this week that the new 25,000-seat football stadium will house the club from 2026.
With Inter Miami opening a soccer stadium in Miami and New York City FC doing the same in Queens in 2027, MLS is headed toward an era of sustainability that seemed impossible when the league first started in 1996.
There are plenty of other MLS teams in big markets with less-than-ideal stadium situations—New England Revolution, Chicago Fire, I’m looking at you. But getting one of the league’s most ambitious clubs to sprint closer to playing in one of the league’s best venues? That’s progress.
Even when Messi and his mates (and maybe even the man who made room for all of them) are gone, Inter Miami is positioning itself to be an attractive destination in the long term. They won’t be out of the headlines anytime soon.