Western Conference Preview 2026: Pt 2
All the remaining previews, INCLUDING the Colorado Rapids!
This is part 2 of the WC preview. For part 1, click here.
It’s prediction season! All the pundits - and I really mean all of them - have opinions about who finishes where.
Backheeled did theirs: that’s Joe Lowery and Matt Doyle (friends of HTHL) and Ben Wright, Andrew Claussen and Brian McKay. Give ‘em a read. Here’s the chart of their Western Conference predictions.
And the MLSsoccer.com tv personalities did theirs too. They did the whole league as an aggregate compilation, but I included their specific prediction for the Rapids below, too.
That’s 20 pundits. Two pundits have the Rapids dead last in the WC. Three pundits have the Rapids in the playoffs. The other 15 soccer experts think this team will finish between 11th and 15th. Pretty grim! In fact, it was so infuriating, Matt Wells mentioned in the opening press conference that he showed the rankings to the players as motivation. Here’s Wells:
I actually showed something to the players this morning in the meeting. Something’s come out from, I think, various journalists, pundits, analysts in the MLS, their predictions of where we’re going to finish this season. So I showed the players that and said this is going to be a hell of a story, because we’re not going to finish there.
This is a classic coaching move. “EVERYBODY DOUBTS US.” I mean, sometimes coaches tell that story even when it’s literally only one pundit that hates on them and the rest of soccer illuminati pick their team to win the league. “THEY ALL HATE US WE’LL SHOW THEM!” Amidst the Rapids hate1 there are some other interesting takeaways. To wit:
Everyone agrees on what I said in the Western Conference Preview, Pt 1; which is that the top 4 are definitely LAFC, San Diego, Vancouver, and Seattle. Also interesting that nobody thinks San Diego can repeat as the WC champions.
Folks are really high on the LA Galaxy bouncing back from a terrible 2025 where they finished 14th; most pundits have them around 5th. That seems a little insane to me, and smacks of ‘name bias’, a term I just made up, where folks are just assuming that the Galaxy are good because they’re the Galaxy.
The Backheeled guys are pretty high on San Jose, even though they unloaded Christian Espinoza, Cristian Arango, and Josef Martinez, because they got Timo Werner. Interesting.
The punditocracy is not high on RSL, which I strongly disagree with.
With regard to the Rapids being doubted, I mean, yeah. It’s a team with a spotty track record for well nigh a decade. And the specifics of ‘not in the playoffs but not terrible’ vs ‘not in the playoffs AND terrible’ are pretty irrelevant. So as much as the team brass is probably angry … I’m not. At all.
On to the last eight previews. Because before I can tell you who finishes where - we have to prove that I, you know, actually know what the fuck I’m talking about.2
Portland Timbers
Finish in 2025: 8th place, 44 points, 11-11-12 (WTL); Beat RSL in the Wild Card round, then in round 1 POR took San Diego to a Game 3, then shat the bed and lost 4-0 in Snapdragon3 Stadium.
Goals For in 2025: 41
Goals Against in 2025: 47
Key Additions: D Brandon Bye, M Cole Bassett, D Alex Bonetig
Key Subtractions: M David Ayala, GK Maxim Crépeau, M Cristhian Paredes, D Dario Zuparic
Got better? Or got worse?: About the same, but it’ll look a little different. ↔️
Portland had been a little clunky and weird in 2023 and 2024, but really made some changes in 2025 that seem to be moving in the right direction. Overall, with the notable and dramatic exception of Diego Chara, the team is pretty young. The teams leaders in minutes were 22-year-old mid David Ayala, 21-year-old CB Finn Surman, 24-year-old winger David Costa, 22-year-old defender Juan David Mosquera, and 23-year-old attacking mid Antony. They sold Ayala off to Miami, and brought in Rapids homegrown Cole Bassett, which should be a fairly like-for-like move.
I’m not sure what look coach Phil Neville is going to go with - they kind of did a little of everything in 2025. I think they’d look best as a fairly straightforward 4-3-3. Both Antony and Felipe Mora are dangerous enough, but one could be concerned that this team doesn’t pack a lot of firepower – their 41 goals for in 2025 was second-worst in the Western Conference. All that taken into account, I think Portland will be battling again for those final two spots in the playoffs again this year, but based on the Rapids and RSL’s moves offseason, I think that’ll be enough to push Portland down to 10th or 11th this season.
Minnesota United
Finish in 2025: 4th place, 16-10-8 (WTL) 58 points; Lost to SD in Western Conference Semis.
Goals For in 2025: 52
Goals Against in 2025: 36
Key Additions: M James Rodriguez, GK Drake Callendar, W Mauricio Gonzalez,
Key Subtractions: M Robin Lod, GK Dayne St. Clair, LB Joseph Rosales
Got better? Or got worse?: About the same ↔️
Minnesota starting 2025 well, going 4-4-2 in their first 10 games thorough May 10. Sure, it included beat downs of some of the weakest teams in the league like Montreal and San Jose, but it also included a 4-1 shellacking of Inter Miami on May 10 in which emerging star Tani Oluwaseyi, Bongi Hlongwane, and Robin Lod got the best of Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba, and Lionel Messi.
But Minnesota were more of a middlin’ team towards the end of the season at the start - going 4-2-4 after Leagues Cup to finish 4th in the Conference. That slump came right at the time Minnesota sold winger Tani Oluwaseyi to Villareal.
It might be that Minnesota simply were a little more statistically lucky in 2025 than they had the right to be. Minnesota held opponents to 36 Goals Against in 2025, but their Expected Goals Against was a much higher 51.32, according to American Soccer Analysis. Overall, they had 58 points, but their Expected Points, which is a mathematical regression linked closely to Expect Goal Differential (xGD) was just 48.71. That’s a pretty big split.4
This is why, despite Minnesota signing exciting5 midfielder James Rodriguez, and despite finishing 4th in 2025, the pundits all thing Minnesota will be worse this year. The guys at Backheeled all think they’re finish between 6th and 10th. I do think Drake Callendar is a better keeper than Dayne St. Clair6, or maybe ‘as good’. And I think it was time to move on from Robin Lod. It’s possible that the defense really did have an unnatural ability to keep out goals that the math models think should have gone in. But my guess is that Minnesota are MLS’ best candidates in 2026 for regression to the mean - and I do literally mean ‘mean’ - this team is likely gonna finish 7th or 8th.
LA Galaxy
Finish in 2025: 14th, 7-9-18 (WTL), 30 points
Goals For in 2025: 46
Goals Against in 2025: 66
Key Additions: CF João Klauss, CB Jakob Glesnes, CB Justin Haak
Key Subtractions: M Diego Fagundez;
[AM Riqui Puig is out for the season with a knee injury, too]
Got better? Or got worse?: Better 📈
On May 24, 2025, LA Galaxy, mired in the midst of a 15-game winless streak, went to San Diego in search of a win. They played good soccer, took a lead, immediately gave it back, and were holding a 1-1 draw after 90’. Then Chucky Lozano scored in Added Time to send the Gals home with zero points, again. As I watched that I thought, ‘Yeah, pretty much.’ In 2025, the Galaxy were often a good team for 80 minutes. But the backline was quite porous; and when Gabriel Pec or Joseph Paintsil either came off or were out of gas, this team sputtered offensively. And so they lost a lot - perhaps more than statistically would have been indicated. It was MLS’ bad luck team of the year. Their Expected points was 41.23, but they only actual registered 30 points. Portand had a worse xPts - and they made the playoffs.
Two other notable defeats that summed up this team’s woes a 7-0 drubbing against an NYRB team that finished 10th,
and a 1-0 loss to SKC in which Sporting DID NOT TAKE ANY SHOTS. That’s never happened before in MLS history - a team taking zero shots and winning the match. I watched that game. It was just horrific.
LA made some good offseason moves: João Klauss is a really talented striker, and should combine nicely with Pec and Paintsil. Glesnes and Haak aren’t top-tier talent at CB, but they’ll be much better than Maya Yoshida or Carlos Garcés or Mathias Jørgenson. For 2026, the Gals have moved from ‘woeful’ to ‘decent’; maybe 10th? Maybe as high as 7th? But until Paintsil and Puig’s DP contracts expire at the end of 2027, I don’t LA have any shot at winning MLS Cup any time soon.
LAFC
Finish in 2025: 3rd place, 60 points, 17-9-8 (WTL); Lost to VAN in WC Final
Goals For in 2025: 65
Goals Against in 2025: 40
Key Additions: M Stephen Eustaquio, AM Amin Boudri, W Jacob Shaffelburg
Key Subtractions: Yaw Yeboah, Frankie Amaya
Got better? Or got worse?: A tiny bit better, but they were already on paper the best in the West. ⬆️
…
LAFC were once Chivas USA - AKA terrible, and organizationally aimless. But since the expansion/rebrand7, they’ve been unstoppable. This teaches a few lessons.
Forget the stupids gimmick like being ‘Barcelona America’ or having a clever mascot or cute colors. Spend real money on good players, and hire smart coaches.
Don’t share a stadium. Build your own stadium.
Supporter culture matters.
You have 3 DP spots. Use them. Use them on world class players that could be starters on any team in any league.
LAFC have gone from Carlos Vela and Harry Kane to Dennis Bouanga and Son Heung-Min without missing a beat. And they always build around those DPs with the highest quality TAM players like Eddie Segura and Aaron Long and, this year, Stephen Eustáquio.
Marc Dos Santos is an accomplished coach who, I thought, Vancouver should have never fired. But they did, and now he’s with LAFC, and that’s a good coaching pickup that will likely continue the success they’ve had.
You’ve also paired Bouanga, the Golden Boot runner-up on 24 goals, with Son, who scored 9 goals in 10 games. I think Son will go for 20 goals and 10 assists this year, and Bouanga has a chance to join MLS’ 30 goals club, which is occupied by only three guys: Carlos Vela, Josef Martinez, and Zlatan Ibrahimović.
All the pundits are picking them to win the WC - and you can put me down, too. I think they might win the conference by 10 points.
Houston Dynamo
Finish in 2025: 12th, 37 points, 9-10-15 WTL
Goals For in 2025: 43
Goals Against in 2025: 56
Key Additions: M Mateusz Bogusz, M Hector Herrera, W Guilherme, CB Lucas Halter
Key Subtractions: RB Griffin Dorsey, AM Amine Bassi, GK Andrew Tarbell, CB Daniel Steres, M Brooklyn Raines, M Sebastian Kowalczyk
Got better? Or got worse?: Better ⬆️
According to transfermarkt, fully 24 players listed on the Dynamo roster at the end of 2025 have been shipped out to start the season, and 16 have joined, which is bonkers. They went full send on a rebuild, although bringing back Hector Herrera, who spent 2025 with Toluca in Liga MX, isn’t exactly the normal way to do that. Bogusz is a huge get - he was a fantastic mid for LAFC in 2024, with 15 goals 6 assists. And then Cruz Azul bought him for $9 million, and then they only played him 1,258 minutes over two seasons, getting 2 goals and 3 assists from him, and now he’s been sold to Houston for $6 million plus up to $4 million in incentive fees.
Along with Jack McGlynn and Ezequiel Ponce, this should be a solid team for the season. It ain’t perfect, though: the roster’s average age is 29.1 yrs old, compared to an average age of the players they faced in 2025 of 26.8. There’s a lot of players on this roster that seem a little anonymous. Who is 31-year-old Argentinian journeyman Augustin Bouzat? How about Hannover 96 castoff Lawrence Ennali? Is Czech winger Ondřej Lingr any good?
I think Houston need a pure goalscorer and an upgrade at GK over Jonathan Bond, but they should show improvement over being kinda meh in 2025. We are, however, putting a lot of stock in Mateusz Bogusz being exceptional, and the cast around him being good. That’s not necessarily how it works out. So they got better, but so did a lot of teams in the WC, so it won’t matter enough to get them into the playoffs.
FC Dallas
Finish in 2025: 7th place, 44 points, 11-11-12 WTL
Goals For in 2025: 52
Goals Against in 2025: 55
Key Additions: M Herman Johanssen, M Ran Binyamin
Key Subtractions: GK Maarten Paes, M Sebastian Lletget, F Pedrinho, M Paxton Pomykal
Got better? Or got worse?: About the same, minus some respected veterans ↔️
Playing mostly in a 3-4-3 with wingbacks for the second half of the season, FC Dallas Head Coach Eric Quills made opponents run with the Toros, and most of them struggled. Bernard Kamungo and Logan Farrington and Shaq Moore would move fast and stretch the field, and as long as they could get into the final third, Petr Musa would score goals. Boy did he score goals.
This team was solid. Luciano Acosta was sold to Fluminese on August 8, and Dallas didn’t care and went 5-4-1 the rest of the way anyhow.
FC Dallas are probably the Western Conference’s most ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ team. Pencil them in for 7th again.
Colorado Rapids
Finish in 2025: 11th, 41 points, 11-8-15 WTL
Goals For in 2025: 44
Goals Against in 2025: 56
Key Additions: RW Dante Sealy, M Hamzat Ojediran, CB Lucas Herrington, LB Miguel Navarro
Key Subtractions: M Cole Bassett, LB Sam Vines, M Oliver Larraz, F Calvin Harris, CB Andreas Maxsø
Got better? Or got worse?: Who in the hell even knows, man?
Compare the season’s opener lineup from 2025 to the opening lineup in 2026:
Out of 11 players, four are the same: Josh Atencio, Reggie Cannon, Rafael Navarro, and Zack Steffen. The Rapids, under Matt Wells and Pádraig Smith, have embarked on a radical teardown and rebuild. There were some known quantities to start 2025: we knew what Cole Bassett could do, which was outwork and out run every player in the league. We knew Ollie Larraz put in tackles, but wasn’t the cleanest passer. We knew Cabral was fast but ineffective. We knew Mihailovic could pass and finish and was exceedingly economical with his touches. We knew Maxsø was kinda meh, but still a dependably league average centerback.
The Rapids made changes because 2025 wasn’t good. But nobody knows whether these are the right moves. Are Noah Cobb and Lucas Herrington ready to be starting centerbacks? Is Hamzat Ojediran the real-deal destroyer he says he is? Is Paxton Aaronson ready to put the team on his shoulders, offensively? Is Dante Sealy good? Who will play LW: an out-of-position Darren Yapi, or an out-of-position Ted Ku-DiPietro?
Sunday against Seattle looked bad, but we always knew it was going to be, because the Rapids are generally bad in road openers, and generally bad against the Sounders (9-7-27) (WTL), and REALLY bad against the Sounders and CLink/Lumen Field (2-3-17). We kind of excuse it?
But there were also very ominous signs. Particularly that Matt Wells had spent pre-season talking up the Rapids high press/possession offense, and then for the first 45 minutes, the Rapids could barely get out of their end. They were out-possessed, out-passed, outplayed on 50-50 balls, and pressed into oblivion. The only possession in offense – was some dull passing along the backline after the 20th minute when Seattle took their foot off the high pressing gas pedal.
There’s 33 more games. There will be tactical adjustments, and roster adjustments. But overall, the Colorado Rapids haven’t paid for the caliber of players that other teams have paid for. There are 45 Designated Players earning more than the Rapids highest paid player - Paxton Aaronson ($2.23 million). Now, salary doesn’t have a one-to-one correlation to quality. But overwhelmingly, you get what you pay for. And so for the Rapids, we’re looking at wringing ever drop of value out of the players they have just to be mid-table.
Clearly, I’m pessimistic about this team, but trying to figure how pessimistic is tough to calibrate. I’m basically where I was on this team last year: if it goes well, the Rapids squeak into the playoffs in one of the last spots. If it doesn’t, they finish 11th or lower.
Regardless, because its the Rapids, I’ll derive as much joy as I can from it. I’m worried, though, that this season, the moments of joy will be few and far between.
Austin FC
Finish in 2025: 6th, 47 points, 13-8-13 WTL
Goals For in 2025: 37
Goals Against in 2025: 45
Key Additions: F Facundo Torres, LB Joseph Rosales, LW Jayden Nelson
Key Subtractions: M Osman Bukari, F Diego Rubio, Jader Obrian
Got better? Or got worse?: Better ⬆️
I’ll keep this one short. Owen Wolff had 7 goals and 7 assists, and Brad Stuver is great, and Facundo Torres is back in MLS after a stint in Brazil – in his two years with Orlando, he scored 14 goals each year. John Gallagher is great. This is a very solid team, and they play an upbeat, fun brand of football. A top-five finish plus a run to the Western Conference Final seems totally in the realm of the possible.
…
Rabbi’s Prediction for the Western Conference Table
1/ LAFC
2/ San Diego
3/ Seattle
4/ Vancouver
5/ Salt Lake
6/ Austin
7/ Dallas
8/ Minnesota
9/ LA Galaxy
10/ Portland
11/ Colorado Rapids
12/ San Jose
13/ Houston
14/ St. Louis
15/ Kansas City
Which, when we get to the Rapids preview, we will note is entirely valid.
Intrepid_Spinach_339 on reddit thinks I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about. He also thinks I’m cosplaying as a journalist, when in fact, I’m just a guy that writes about soccer as my fourth job/side-hustle: the same as literally every soccer journalist left in America except maybe five or six guys. Spinach can snort baking soda out of the ass of a dead llama for all I care. He’s a meany face and he’s not invited to my birthday party. The rest of you are cool, though.
Snapdragon is a kind of computer chip made by Qualcomm? So some marketing genius thought that was a good stadium name? Like, they went full send on the modern equivalent of ‘65C816 Stadium’? Why not just literally have the stadium be a barcode or a 47 numeral binary number? Actually ‘Welcome to Zeros and Ones Stadium!’ would be kinda rad.
There were three other teams that out-performed their xPts by 10+: Cincinnati, San Diego, Charlotte. There were five teams that under-performed their xPts by 10+: DC, Atlanta, Montreal, LA Galaxy, and St Louis.
Is ‘exciting’ the right adjective for a 34-year-old Colombian who hasn’t done much in soccer since 2020? Probably not. Maybe ‘notable?’ ‘Famous?’ ‘Overpriced?’ ‘Likely disappointing?’ The guys on Total Soccer Show assumed this move was a short-term deal to get him onto the Colombian national team in advance of the World Cup. Which means, perhaps, Colombia just want to see him play 800 or 1,000 minutes to justify putting him on the bench as salty veteran leadership, but they don’t give a shit if he actually plays well. That bodes ill for Minnesota, as does James’ unremarkable run since 2020 with Everton, Al-Rayyan, Olympiacos, Sao Paolo, Rayo Vallecano, and Club León. He has 22 goals in the past 6 years.
I am more or less a lone voice on this: The Athletic’s MLS GM article is out, and the soccerati think St. Clair is literally the best keeper in MLS. St. Clair had the best G-xG numbers in MLS in 2025, but in 2024 he was 8th-best.
It’s an expansion because Chivas were contracted. It’s a rebrand because anytime you change owners but not cities for a franchise, it’s effectively a rebrand.
Hi! I love your work on the MLS. If your interested about soccer on the other side of the globe, check out my latest piece on the Chinese national team. Thanks!
https://fgpsports.substack.com/p/why-chinese-soccer-keeps-failing?r=7naprt&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web