See some notes from Matchdate Six ratings to explain what goes into the numbers.
- Yes, I’m aware that the ratings don’t match what the MLS Standings say. If you’re curious about those, visit major league soccer soccer dot com.
- Game data comes from American Soccer Analysis‘s outstanding web app. You can see the full table here.
| ∆ | MD12 | Team | POWER XG | POWER G | HFA xG | Offense xG | Defense xG | “Luck” |
| ↔︎ | 1 | Los Angeles Football Club | 1.84 | 1.06 | 0.52 | 1.16 | -0.68 | -0.78 |
| ↑5 | 2 | Seattle Sounders | 0.64 | 0.74 | 0.20 | 0.20 | -0.44 | 0.10 |
| ↔︎ | 3 | New York Red Bulls | 0.48 | -0.59 | -0.35 | -0.01 | -0.49 | -1.07 |
| ↑4 | 4 | Columbus Crew | 0.42 | 0.26 | 0.52 | 0.12 | -0.30 | -0.16 |
| ↓1 | 5 | San Jose Earthquakes | 0.40 | -0.12 | 1.82 | 0.29 | -0.11 | -0.52 |
| ↔︎ | 6 | Fußball Club Cincinnati | 0.37 | 0.45 | -0.60 | 0.38 | 0.01 | 0.09 |
| ↓2 | 7 | Minnesota United FC | 0.31 | -0.26 | -0.78 | 0.15 | -0.16 | -0.57 |
| ↓6 | 8 | Vancouver Whitecaps FC | 0.26 | -0.01 | 0.25 | 0.20 | -0.06 | -0.27 |
| ↑5 | 9 | New York City FC | 0.19 | 0.10 | 0.19 | -0.03 | -0.23 | -0.09 |
| ↓1 | 10 | Nashville SC | 0.18 | 0.44 | 0.06 | -0.27 | -0.46 | 0.25 |
| ↑1 | 11 | Colorado Rapids | 0.15 | -0.31 | 0.82 | -0.09 | -0.25 | -0.46 |
| ↑1 | 12 | Los Angeles Galaxy | 0.15 | -0.81 | 0.85 | 0.48 | 0.33 | -0.95 |
| ↓3 | 13 | Philadelphia Union | 0.10 | 0.06 | 0.90 | 0.25 | 0.15 | -0.03 |
| ↑2 | 14 | New England Revolution | 0.01 | 0.56 | -0.20 | 0.40 | 0.39 | 0.55 |
| ↔︎ | 15 | Toronto FC | -0.06 | 0.00 | 0.35 | -0.23 | -0.17 | 0.06 |
| ↑1 | 16 | Chicago Fire | -0.08 | -0.34 | -0.63 | 0.02 | 0.10 | -0.27 |
| ↓6 | 17 | Atlanta United FC | -0.08 | 0.03 | 0.40 | -0.04 | 0.05 | 0.12 |
| ↑1 | 18 | FC Dallas | -0.10 | 0.10 | -1.52 | -0.10 | 0.00 | 0.20 |
| ↑2 | 19 | Sporting Kansas City | -0.17 | -0.38 | -0.36 | -0.43 | -0.26 | -0.22 |
| ↑3 | 20 | Orlando City SC | -0.25 | -0.08 | 0.01 | 0.10 | 0.36 | 0.17 |
| ↑1 | 21 | St. Louis City SC | -0.27 | 0.42 | -0.55 | 0.01 | 0.28 | 0.70 |
| ↑2 | 22 | Portland Timbers FC | -0.35 | 0.23 | -0.34 | -0.29 | 0.06 | 0.59 |
| ↓3 | 23 | Austin FC | -0.36 | -0.63 | -0.94 | -0.29 | 0.07 | -0.26 |
| ↓6 | 24 | Houston Dynamo | -0.42 | 0.00 | -0.28 | 0.14 | 0.55 | 0.42 |
| ↔︎ | 25 | DC United | -0.46 | 0.09 | -0.57 | -0.27 | 0.19 | 0.55 |
| ↔︎ | 26 | Real Salt Lake | -0.55 | -0.44 | 0.05 | -0.26 | 0.30 | 0.11 |
| ↑1 | 27 | Montreal Impact | -0.69 | 0.00 | 1.15 | -0.56 | 0.13 | 0.69 |
| ↑1 | 28 | Charlotte FC | -0.70 | -0.51 | 0.95 | -0.30 | 0.40 | 0.19 |
| ↓2 | 29 | Inter Miami CF | -0.79 | -0.04 | -1.32 | -0.53 | 0.25 | 0.74 |
Some thoughts:
- Welcome to the bottom, Inter Miami. As you can see, the bottom of the xG-sorted (imo, more meaningful) table has a couple teams who don’t look particularly bad to the actual goals scored, namely IMCF and CF Montreal. All clubs de foot are lucky dogs. Meanwhile, Charlotte FC and RSL both suck in a predictive sense and an actual one.
- LAFC continues to lap the field at the top on the other hand. Numbers are much closer when it comes to actual goals, but being a team that is already the best and chooses to keep the pedal down even when leading will give you some exciting numbers.
- That brings me to the other key point – that I typically restate in this section each week – that the “luck” factor includes both luck in a traditional sense, and goalkeeping quality for and against… but game state remains a major piece of that. Teams that stake themselves out to leads and then successfully defend (other than this week, that’s been Nashville, for example) are going to be a little deflated in the xG numbers.
- Red Bulls have been so bad in the table that they fired a coach (also maybe because he was complicit in A Racism)… but the xG numbers haven’t been bad and the bounceback basically felt inevitable, and it’s going to make Struber look particularly bad and Troy Lesesne particularly good, when that’s really mostly statistical noise.
Club and Country 