Welcome back! A quick explainer of how these work:
Each team’s offensive and defensive performances in a game can be evaluated on the basis of expected goals for and against. These ratings adjust each performance compared to the opponent’s averages (if the Chicago Fire allow an average of 0.72 expected goals, and you rack up 1.97 xG when playing them, you’ve done a great job, New York Red Bulls!). The offensive and defensive performances are combined into a “game score” and a team’s overall rating home/away is the average of those game scores. Combine the home and away averages, and you have an overall rating. 0 is dead average, while good teams are positive and bad teams negative.
Since games are not won and lost on xG alone, but in combination with finishing, the same data transformation can be done on goals for/against. Those numbers are noted as well. If you’re a college basketball fan, think of them as being a résumé-oriented (backward-looking) metric, while the primary number is forward-looking.
Without further ado:
| Rank (change) | Team | POWER XG | POWER G (rank) |
| 1 (↑2) | Philadelphia Union | 1.20 | 0.82 (1) |
| 2 (-) | Nashville SC | 1.04 | 0.36 (6) |
| 3 (↑2) | Montreal Impact | 0.93 | 0.18 (10) |
| 4 (-) | New York Red Bulls | 0.85 | 0.50 (3) |
| 5 (↓4) | Los Angeles Football Club | 0.79 | 0.28 (8) |
| 6 (↑2) | New York City FC | 0.65 | 0.05 (12) |
| 7 (↓1) | Los Angeles Galaxy | 0.50 | 0.54 (2) |
| 8 (↓1) | Columbus Crew | 0.47 | 0.07 (11) |
| 9 (-) | Fußball Club Cincinnati | 0.40 | -0.30 (22) |
| 10 (-) | Portland Timbers FC | 0.13 | -0.28 (21) |
| 11 (↑1) | Colorado Rapids | 0.10 | 0.01 (14) |
| 12 (↑4) | Real Salt Lake | 0.06 | 0.25 (9) |
| 13 (↓2) | New England Revolution | 0.02 | -0.20 (18) |
| 14 (-) | Atlanta United FC | 0.00 | -0.43 (25) |
| 15 (↑3) | FC Dallas | -0.14 | 0.47 (5) |
| 16 (↓3) | Austin FC | -0.19 | 0.49 (4) |
| 17 (↑5) | Sporting Kansas City | -0.32 | -0.50 (26) |
| 18 (↓1) | DC United | -0.35 | -0.37 (23) |
| 19 (↑1) | Chicago Fire | -0.36 | -0.27 (20) |
| 20 (↓1) | Orlando City SC | -0.37 | 0.02 (13) |
| 21 (↑3) | San Jose Earthquakes | -0.39 | -0.39 (24) |
| 22 (↓7) | Toronto FC | -0.41 | 0.36 (7) |
| 23 (↓2) | Charlotte FC | -0.52 | -0.20 (19) |
| 24 (↑1) | Inter Miami CF | -0.63 | -0.79 (28) |
| 25 (↓2) | Vancouver Whitecaps FC | -0.64 | -0.71 (27) |
| 26 (-) | Minnesota United FC | -0.72 | -0.10 (16) |
| 27 (↑1) | Houston Dynamo | -0.72 | -0.18 (17) |
| 28 (↓1) | Seattle Sounders | -0.86 | -0.07 (15) |
The full chart with all the data can be seen here.
Typically, the difference between xG and G calculations would be expressed as some sort of “luck” metric, but the word comes with baggage so I’m not using it. Also will be exploring more interesting ways to present the data for future weeks.
Club and Country 