For an explainer, hit up the first edition of the 2021 ratings, and if you have additional queries, don’t hesitate to drop me a line on social media. The full table with all the details you could possibly want lives here.
Standard caveat about how this is a measure of team strength, not team results. Revs fans won’t (can’t? beginning to think “can’t”) read anyway, so I’ll shorten up the preamble this week:
- (↔︎) New York City FC 0.95
- NYCFC has gone from “extremely good team with moderately bad luck” to “barely any worse than before, but with god-awful luck” in the past several weeks.
- (↑1) DC United 0.82
- DCU basically played Nashville SC off the field Saturday evening, but got a bit of bad luck (a post!) and a couple crucial saves from the opposing keeper (a mustache!) to end up with a scoreless draw. The move back up is more about LAFC dropping down with a mediocre performance that was very lucky in result(!) than anything special DCU did.
- (↓1) Los Angeles Football Club 0.77
- (↔︎) Nashville SC 0.52
- (↔︎) New England Revolution 0.50
- Can’t/won’t read anyway, so instead here is the opening exchange of “Rikki Tikki Tavi” from Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book instead:
This is the story of the great war that Rikki-tikki-tavi fought single-handed, through the bath-rooms of the big bungalow in Segowlee cantonment. Darzee, the tailor-bird, helped him, and Chuchundra, the musk-rat, who never comes out into the middle of the floor, but always creeps round by the wall, gave him advice; but Rikki-tikki did the real fighting.
He was a mongoose, rather like a little cat in his fur and his tail, but quite like a weasel in his head and his habits. His eyes and the end of his restless nose were pink; he could scratch himself anywhere he pleased, with any leg, front or back, that he chose to use; he could fluff up his tail till it looked like a bottle-brush, and his war-cry, as he scuttled through the long grass, was: “Rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk!”
- Can’t/won’t read anyway, so instead here is the opening exchange of “Rikki Tikki Tavi” from Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book instead:
- (↑1) Sporting Kansas City 0.40
- (↓1) Minnesota United FC 0.34
- A fairly even game against a bad Austin FC team moves United down a couple spots.
- (↔︎) Seattle Sounders 0.26
- (↑1) New York Red Bulls 0.17
- Slowly-but-surely – and after a few consecutive weeks of accusing it of being fool’s gold – Red Bull… climbs.
- (↓1) Colorado Rapids 0.17
- (↔︎) Montreal Impact 0.11
- (↔︎) Philadelphia Union 0.01
- Scoring two goals (well, having the opponent score one on itself) was quite the coup out of a game where Philly generated less than a quarter-goal’s worth of xG.
- (↑3) Los Angeles Galaxy -0.05
- (↓1) Orlando City SC -0.10
- (↓1) Atlanta United FC -0.11
- (↓1) Chicago Fire -0.11
- (↑2) Houston Dynamo -0.25
- (↓1) Austin FC -0.26
- (↓1) FC Dallas -0.30
- (↔︎) Real Salt Lake -0.33
- (↑1) Columbus Crew -0.35
- (↑2) Vancouver Whitecaps FC -0.41
- (↔︎) Toronto FC -0.46
- (↑3) San Jose Earthquakes -0.50
- (↓4) Portland Timbers FC -0.50
- I’m torn on whether the Timbers are actually bad, or if they’re a Revs-like (durrrrrrr we r 5th u r dummm) anomaly where the numbers don’t capture the reality. When Portland loses, the xG battle is ugly (and often the score as well), and most of the wins are close. This week’s xG shellacking at the hands of LA – the worst performance by any team this season – looks charitable as just a 2-1 loss.
- (↓1) Fußball Club Cincinnati -0.57
- I’m sure the attendance is great th72(↓3) Inter Miami CF -0.60
Club and Country 