Backpass: Massive Parity
It feels like this season in the Western Conference is completely up for grabs.
In the Eastern Conference, it was pretty widely speculated that the top teams would be Inter Miami and Columbus, followed by Charlotte and Atlanta, then a thousand pounds of horse manure, and then the rest of the conference. And so far, with the exception of Atlanta being a little off, that all tracks. Philadelphia has been surprisingly good, but otherwise, it’s gone according to plan.
The Western Conference, to my mind, is a different story. Over the past couple of seasons it’s been pretty common to just make the blanket statement that MLS West teams play 17 matches at home, 17 matches away, and in the end, LAFC or Seattle win the West. LA Galaxy finally returned to their glory days of the Landon Donovan-Robbie Keane Era last season as Gabriel Pec, Josef Paintsil, and Riqui Puig became the most unstoppable offense force in the league; BETTER than Messi-Suarez-Busquets, in the opinion of this reporter. But through the first seven games of the season, the West has demonstrated that it’s all up for grabs.
There’s my preseason predictions side-by-side* with the results. The big outliers, of course, are
FC Dallas, who are 6 spots higher than I expected,
Vancouver, who are 9 spots higher than I expected,
San Diego, who are 12 spots higher than I expected,
LAFC, who are 8 spots lower than I expected,
Seattle, who are 10 spots lower than I expected, and
LA Galaxy, who are 12 spots lower than I expected.
I do not think we are watching a New World Order1 emerging in the conference.
The two LA teams did not turn into pumpkins overnight. Both are just currently focused on winning Concacaf Champions Cup; as of this writing, Galaxy need an away win tonight against Monterrey’s Tigres while LAFC are up 1-0 on aggregate over Inter Miami.2 The Galaxy will also be missing Riqui Puig all year due to an ACL tear, so it’s reasonable that my picking them 3rd was optimistic. Still, they’re not finishing last. LAFC are also almost certain to reload on DP talent at the season’s midpoint.
Seattle ain’t a pumpkin, either. The Sounders will not be going from 4th in 2024 with 57 points to finish the 2025 season in their current abysmal spot at 12th place; which, in 2024, required 37 points. They subtracted a fading Raul Ruidiaz and added a (so far) underperforming Jesus Ferriera. That’s not a massive qualitative change. Additionally, if you scroll down to a chart I placed in the next section, you’ll see Seattle have just 6 points, but 10.54 xPTs, meaning they haven’t scored timely goals, and they’ve conceded untimely goals.
I think we’re going to see those surprise conference leaders come back to earth midsummer, and the West’s perennial big three start to put together result once they past CCC, which ends June 1. FC Dallas looked incredible on the road at Mercedes Benz Arena against Atlanta, creating danger from Lucho Acosta and getting a devastating roofed goal against Brad Guzan to earn the draw. Vancouver, as mentioned in the footnotes, is probably no joke. And Backheeled/Total Soccer Show’s Joe Lowery has been converted to a San Diego FC believer.
I’m not gonna break down every team in the division and why I think they’re capable of a 48 to 52 point season – at the very least because SKC exists, and I think they’re gonna finish in the high 20s for points.
But the rest of the conference is competitive, and has a deep enough team of quality players, and has the top-line talent to be a problem for their opponents on any given day. I expect the final three weeks in the Western Conference could be the most exciting in a while: where any one of three or even four teams can take top honors, while fully six teams will be fighting for the back end of the playoffs. This could be the best Decision Day in a long while.
Early Weather Report for the Rapids: Fair, but Clouds on the Horizon Look Ominous
Colorado’s early results have been pretty much in line with what I expected. It’s a solid but unspectacular team that didn’t make a big offseason move to realign the stars, and thus, a 3-2-2 record, 11 points, and 7th place.
We’ve discussed it on the HTHL podcast, but there are three players who have been crazy good, and two who leave a lot to be desired.
Djordje Mihailovic was electric in the teams 2-0 win at home to Charlotte FC, scoring a brace and just generally being incredible. He was name MLS Player of the Week, and was quoted as saying “If every game was a day game, I would be Messi.” In the other games this season, he’s been damn good too. Ian Murphy, who I didn’t expect to start, has been excellent both at CB and LB filling in for Sam Vines. But the most surprising performance has been put on by goalkeeper Zack Steffen. Other than a tremendous stretch during Leagues Cup, Steffen was mostly meh in 2024. But he’s been amazing to start 2025. Steffen has conceded 6 goals in league play against an xGa of 10.97. That -4.97 G-xG rate is the best in Major League soccer.
Moreover, if you look at this chart below of teams in the Western Conference, you’ll see the Rapids xGa of 14.18 results in an xGD of -5.06 and an xPts of 6.71. In other words, Colorado hasn’t been that good, and they’ve wildly over-performed expectation. Almost all of that difference is due to Zack Steffen’s goalkeeping. This bonkerballs save on Patrick Agyemang is a good example of the kind of ‘that should have been a goal’ moment that Steffen has been producing every game.
On the other side, there’s Josh Atencio, who is a defensive stalwart in the 98th percentile for Blocks and the 97th percentile of MLS midfielders and Tackles and Interceptions. It’s his passing, though, that kills us. He’s 46th pct in Shot Creating Actions, 36th pct in xAG, and an abysmal 27th pct in Pass Completion. Teamed with Ollie Larraz – 44th in Shot Creating Actions, 49th in xAG, 42nd in Progressive Passes. Put those two together and Colorado doesn’t advance the ball dangerously, and they also turn it over too much in the midfield. I think both players give you something valuable on defense, but I’m not sure the team can make the playoffs with both on the field in terms of what they surrender in passing.
And then there’s *sigh* Kevin Cabrál.
That was regarding the 2-0 loss to Vancouver.
Below is his FBref.com Stats Radar chart. It is NSFW; and you might want to send your children out of the room before you scroll downward.
I mean, 6th pct on Passes Attempted? 14th in Successful Take-Ons? 34th in Assists? He’s not even good at Progressive Passes Received: those long bombs he’s supposed to get on the end of to stretch the field that is, to my mind, his only redeeming quality. He’s in the 51st percentile for that: half the wingers in the league do his one cool trick as well as he does. And he’s worse than 92 percent of the rest of leagues wingers at everything else he does. He does generate a lot of xG – 88th pct is pretty good. It does not, by a long shot, offset all the things he does poorly, which includes passing, receiving passes, dribbling, and defending. Cabrál had just 5 goals in 2024, and 2 in 2023.
I owe Matt Pollard an apology: I’ve been saying ‘yeah, but he stretches the field!’ for the past month, in a nod to the fact that the Rapids attack plan depends on having a long-bomb option like Cabrál in order to allow the central midfielders the space to work. I take it back. I was wrong. Almost any other player you put out there will offer you more in offense. Honestly, it’s possible that the Rapids down to ten men without Cabrál on the pitch might be better than eleven with Cabrál.
The larger problem is a Rapids team with 8 GF, 8 GA, but 9.12 xGF and 14.18 xGA for a total of -5.06 xGD over just 7 games. That’s a -0.723 Expected Goal Differential per game. Zack Steffen has helped them beat the odds through the first fifth of the season, but this rate of defying the odds is unsustainable. If you want to ask how bad things could turn if Zack Steffen becomes merely ‘above average’ instead of ‘insanely good’, look at LA Galaxy’s points total alongside their -5.17 xGD. It’s two. Two points.
Other fans I’ve messaged with have noticed things look a little wonky. The team is disjointed and lacking chemistry. There’s not a good sense of flow. The team has led in overall possession stat only once in 7 league matches. The next four games are vs a dominating San Diego at home, the Dynamo away, a Seattle Sounders team with a lot to prove at Dick’s, and then a trip back east to visit Christian Benteke and DC United.
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I still think the Rapids will weather this storm and finish seventh. They’re a solid but unspectacular overall team in a conference that is loaded with solid but unspectacular teams. It’s probably mathematically improbable that the whole conference (except SKC) could fall between 41 and 53 points at season’s end. But that’s where I see things heading.
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*- Here are those charts again, larger, in case you are reading this on a phone.
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This excuse works really well if you conveniently ignore the fact that Vancouver Whitecaps are also in Concacaf Champions Cup. They’ve been fantastic, with just 2 losses in 12 matches. They went to Monterrey and got a 2-2 draw to ram themselves through the quarters. They’ve beat LA Galaxy and Saprissa. All that, and their team MVP Ryan Gauld’s been out for much of the start of the year. Vancouver are probably for real.