First a tip of the cap to the great Zach Lowe, who coined this column format with his "Annual Tiers of the NBA" tome. I've blatantly copied that approach for my own preseason Tiers of MLS, and since you all liked it so much and since about 30 percent of the season is in the books, now's a good time to revisit.
What follows are not hard-and-fast Power Rankings, per se, but rather something a little more loose in terms of talent level, cohesion, chemistry and all the et ceteras that make teams tick (or make them awful).
These teams are mostly in the order I think they'll finish, but what really matters is the tier designation.
TIER I: THE ALPHAS
Atlanta United
They're leading the Supporters' Shield race and they just took six out of a possible nine points during what was a very, very tough week (Tata Martino says it should've been nine, given what happened on Wednesday against SKC). They have the league's MVP (Miguel Almiron) and co-Golden Boot leader (Josef Martinez), and have proved to possess enough depth to weather a formation shift, a couple of underperforming attackers, and a bunch of injuries.
They have Michael Parkhurst, who is aging backward. They have Darlington Nagbe playing the best soccer of his career. They have Ezequiel Barco, who's starting to look like a $15 million man:
They also, remember, still have a bunch of allocation cash after this winter's Carlos Carmona sale, and I'm not about to doubt their ability to go into the transfer market this summer and find a difference-maker.
Atlanta have all of the above going for them and are, at this point, playing what I'd consider to be a B+ version of their best game. I think they have another gear they'll find as the season goes on, provided Tata learns from last year's mistakes and doesn't run his troops into the ground.
My Worry: I don't always love the body language from Martinez, which seems to have drifted from "aggressive" to "hostile" when he doesn't get a pass he thinks a teammate should've hit. It's probably nothing, but it's maybe something.
New York Red Bulls
They weathered the CCL hangover infinitely better than any of their peers despite having the most reason to curl up into a shell and die after the disappointment of that home leg against Chivas. They've shown they're probably this year's deepest squad – nobody is better at finding contributors via the academy and USL – and at the top end, they now have Kaku (the league's best newcomer) to join MVP candidate Bradley Wright-Phillips.
RBNY also have formational flexibility in a way they really didn't over the last few years. They're a more mobile team all over the field, which has allowed Jesse Marsch to toggle pretty seamlessly between the 4-2-3-1 and the 3-3-3-1. No matter how they line up, though, they understand exactly how they want to play:
New York's going to win a trophy this year. It might not be the one they want most, but silverware's silverware.
My Worry: The history of coming up short in front of goal in the biggest games is just impossible to ignore. It happened in last year's U.S. Open Cup, and it happened in last year's playoffs, and it happened in this spring's CCL. Maybe Kaku changes that. Maybe he doesn't.
Also, you can still bunker against this team.
LAFC
So my official take is that this week's salary release from the MLS Players Association should terrify folks specifically with regard to LAFC. Most teams have at least one (many have many, many more than one) contract that is just inexplicable, but the Black-and-Gold are clean as a whistle.
That means they have both money and cap flexibility, and can use both to address whatever needs they feel have cropped up/will be cropping up.
They'll also be adding a DP mid-season, and have just added a TAM striker in Adama Diomande. For some coaches and some teams there's such a thing as too much talent, but Bob Bradley's a veteran at this job and will know how to hold a locker room together while keeping everybody's egos in check. We've already seen some of that following the back-to-back losses against the Galaxy and then Atlanta.
LAFC bounced back from those two games, in which they allowed nine unanswered goals, by going on a still extant six-game unbeaten streak in which they've outscored opponents 13-6. Carlos Vela is an MVP candidate and Diego Rossi is a young player of the year candidate. This team's still only about 75 percent complete and look at where they are, smashing the bad teams they play and going toe-to-toe with the good ones.
My Worry: There's not a lot of depth at center back and my god do they take risks, both tactical and physical. That 5-0 loss to Atlanta isn't who they are, but it's who they can be if and when things go pear-shaped.
New York City FC
They've actually played the toughest schedule in the league thus far with road games at the four other teams in this tier (1-1-2 record, which is pretty good!) and have done so while managing an injury to David Villa, some churn along the backline and a bunch of new faces in attack. Seven of their 11 games overall have been away from Yankee Stadium.
And here they are on 1.91 ppg, good for third in the East. Red Bulls fans have justifiably spent most of the past week dunking on the Cityzens, but come on – this team's legit. You don't win 2-0 at Sporting, you don't draw at both Atlanta and LAFC if you're not.
The most important development for this group, one that we've seen slowly evolving since Patrick Vieira took over in 2016, is a commitment toward playing a true high-pressing system. NYCFC are as front-foot as almost anybody in MLS, and for the most part it's been working, and that in turn has taken some of the larger burden off of Villa. They can actually generate goals now when he's not on the field, just by turning defense into offense.
My Worry: Vieira is suicidally stubborn about playing from the back:
I've never seen anyone play into RBNY's hands as much as NYCFC did last weekend. It was brutal.
Sporting KC
They've mostly figured out the defensive issues that looked like they were going to sink SKC's season before it even began. March was ugly for this team as they gave up uncharacteristically soft goals again and again and again, and couldn't seem to figure out how to send numbers forward without getting punished. It felt like the polar opposite of Sporting's teams this decade.
But they slowly improved while the attack didn't slow down much at all. It was probably stupid of me to doubt Peter Vermes's ability to diagnose what was plaguing his defense and then fix it.
It's still not as good as it was last year, mind you. But SKC are comfortably the West's best defensive team over the past six weeks, and punctuated that with Wednesday's significant 2-0 win at Atlanta. They've managed it while Felipe Gutierrez, who was a goalscoring wonder in March, slowly works his way back toward health.
I didn't think they'd make it up to this level, but here they are.
My Worry:Khiry Shelton has been wonderful at doing all the grunt work you could want out of a center forward. He makes unselfish runs off the ball to open space, contests every header, is as diligent as they come on the defensive side, and is a much better passer than the average fan seems to realize.
And yet:
They need to start getting goals from that spot.
Also, this is SKC. Nobody will *really* believe they're for real until they manage not to collapse down the stretch. Vermes has been a little more willing to rotate his squad this year than in years past, so perhaps they'll be able to avoid their usual October malaise in 2018.
TIER II: STOP IT, THEY'RE FINE
Toronto FC
This is the dumbest sentiment that people keep tweeting at me:
Toronto, fluctuating between about 60 and 85 percent health, were good enough to beat Tigres and America in the CCL before falling to Chivas in penalties. We don't have to reach into ancient history to know this team is elite on both sides of the ball once reasonably healthy; we just have to flip the calendar back a couple of weeks.
Taking 0 of 6 points over the last seven days was a very, very bad stretch for the Reds, but Chris Mavinga and Victor Vazquez both got healthy. Justin Morrow, Eriq Zavaleta and Nick Hagglund are almost there. Gregory van der Wiel will be back next weekend as well. I count three Best XI-caliber players and three solid, starting-caliber players there.
It's been an ugly two months of regular-season play, but TFC's going to be fine.
My Worry: If they drop home points next week against Orlando City, then maybe they won't be fine. But the truth is the Lions, Crew SC and Revs have all played home-heavy schedules at this point, and all three are vulnerable to extended runs of bad form/any type of slippage.
Honestly though if anybody out there offers you a bet that the Reds will finish out of the playoffs then take the odds and enjoy your winnings.
TIER III: GETTING THERE
Columbus Crew SC
One of the big questions we all asked before the season started was "how can Columbus account for all the goals they shipped out in the form of Justin Meram and Ola Kamara?" The Meram goals are still an open question, but it turns out "play to the strengths of the system" is the answer for Kamara's output:
Maybe Gyasi Zardes eventually goes ice cold in front of goal again, but I don't think that's going to happen as long as he's playing for Gregg Berhalter. It's mid-May and Zardes is tied for the Golden Boot lead for a reason: he understands how to get himself into position to finish off the good work of the guys around him, and makes no muss, no fuss runs for both the team and himself.
Nobody should be surprised by this since it's exactly what he did in 2014 when he scored 16 goals for the Galaxy. Everyone somewhat justifiably chalked that up to Landon Donovan and Robbie Keane being so great, and fair enough. But now he's doing the same thing in Ohio as well as/better than the guys who came before him, and the team's winning because of it.
They're also winning because of their defense, as Crew SC are now unbeaten
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