Here come the Houston Dynamo and D.C. United.
The two teams favored to reach MLS Cup when the season began continued their turnarounds after bad starts to the 2008 season. The Dynamo improved to 4-1-1 in their past six with a comprehensive 3-1 win against Toronto FC while D.C. United halted the red-hot Chicago Fire, 2-1 at Toyota Park.
One team that continued a slide the other way in the rankings is the Columbus Crew, which dropped to 0-3-1 with a 2-0 loss to the San Jose Earthquakes at Crew Stadium. Columbus is looking litle like the team that jumped out to a 6-1 start this season.
Here is the rest of this week’s SBI MLS power rankings:
SBI MLS Power Rankings
1. (Last week- 1) Chicago Fire (6-3-1)
The Fire just can’t duplicate their strong road form at home.
2. (2) New England Revolution (7-3-2)
Matt Reis is playing the best soccer of his career these days. The Revs have a case for the no. 1 spot, but you can’t just ignore the two blowout losses to Chicago this year.
3. (6) Los Angeles Galaxy (5-4-2)
Even without Landon Donovan, the Galaxy attack can score in bunches. And was that really Abel Xavier with a good game?
4. (8) Houston Dynamo (4-3-5)
The champions are officially back. A 3-1 handling of a short-handed Toronto squad was impressive.
5. (3) Toronto FC (5-4-2)
TFC was missing Amado Guevara, but that’s no excuse for another bland road performance.
6. (10) New York Red Bulls (4-3-3)
Injuries have made this a rough season for the Red Bulls, but their win against Chivas USA was a display of courage. Jozy Altidore’s departure means they need even more transfer help, but the Red Bulls defense is keeping them afloat.
7. (4) Chivas USA (4-5-2)
Had the better of the play against the Red Bulls but forwards had their first disappointing game in a while.
8. (5) Columbus Crew (6-4-1)
No offense to San Jose but losing to the Earthquakes at Crew Stadium speaks volumes of just how far the Crew have fallen in recent weeks.
9. (12) D.C. United (4-7-1)
D.C. United is starting to wake up and will now have a stretch of home games that runs into August.
10. (7) Colorado Rapids (5-6)
How inconsistent are the Rapids? They have yet to win two straight all year. Talk about being a frustrating team to root for.
11. (11) Kansas City Wizards (3-4-3)
Winless streak reaches five games as the Wizards finally complete the road trip from hell. The tie at Real Salt Lake is a promising result though.
12. (9) FC Dallas (3-5-4)
Kenny Cooper is a joy to watch. The rest of his teammates, not so much.
13. (13) Real Salt Lake (3-5-3)
Didn’t like like their usual selves at home in tie vs. KC. Now they hit the
road, which has been a nightmare for RSL this year.
14. (14) San Jose Earthquakes (3-6-1)
Road win vs. Columbus is a great result, but the Earthquakes won’t be leapfrogging the team that just thrashed them a week ago.
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Share your own thought on the rankings below.
Unfortunately Crew is a one trick pony with Robbie Rogers and teams have figured it out. Keep knocking the kid down in Hack-A-Shaq style. Not very entertaining but effective and brutal. Does not help with the injuries in key places.
Once again, Red Bulls overrated.
Put McBride in Columbus, and look out!
I am not a Revs fan. But they belong in first.
Fire were not impressive at all against United. Maybe Fire fans will quit with the “we don’t need McBride” baloney now.
LA should really be ranked lower in light of the fact that 7 of their 11 games have been at home. No other team has had so unbalanced a schedule, but the unbalance had to be reflected somewhere else right? Well Houston has played a significant majority of their games on the road. A few other teams have had one more away game than home game, contributing to LA’s skewed season thus far.
Add to this the fact that LA have a mixed away record of only taking 4 points in 4 games and LA doesn’t look like it should be ranked #3 anymore.
My guess is that they should be #4 or #5, the top team in the West but with the Toronto and the Crew ahead of them. Yeah the last four games have been rough for the Crew, but they built up so many points thus far that they can afford to have a bad run. The Crew are really only lacking a dominating forward. Moreno was performing above his level for too long but now he’s come back down to earth. If the Crew got a real top notch forward, they’d start moving up the rankings and dominating again.
Even though RSL are ranked #13, they have actually been one of the toughest teams to play at home this season. The problem with them is that they haven’t taken a single point on the road.
KC has had a much worse run than anyone else in their last 5 games and yet they’ve stayed put at #11 — doesn’t make sense. In my mind, they should be below Dallas and potentially below RSL at this point.
And I definitely don’t understand how a miserable looking 1-0 win at home causes the Red Bulls to jump four spots. Sounds like a bit of favoritism to me…
Maple Leaf-
We did well for the first 20 and im not sure what happened after that (outside of the ridiculous subs). After that we just looked like we were playing down to Houston.
Agreed they are a great team but they havent had such good luck this season and i think we could have/should have used that to our advantage. Godwilling that is the last we see of that.
As much as people focus on the Galaxy defense, the key to the team is central midfield.
When those guys show up, the Galaxy win — see the game film at Toronto and at Colorado to see what happens when they don’t show up.
Wow, you have the Fire at first…
You really like us, you really really like us.
After the game against d.c. I think we should have fallen to the fifth spot. Our defense was terrible. Thankfully our next three games are away.
FORZA FIRE!!!
It is hard to see the Fire on top after that mess yesterday. They very well may be the top team but if you lose to DC, I think you have to fall a spot. 🙂
I don’t think the TFC game was that bad.
If Cunningham’s penalty is given or if Pat Onstad doesn’t make a great save on Smith then it’s a different ball game.
Poor defending (first – maybe offside?) was a major cause in all three goals which is disappointing considering how solid the team has been at the back during it’s home stand.
On the other hand, Houston is the class of the league so it’s good to see how TFC matches up.
I was prepared to argue with them at 3, but no one else makes too strong a case. Hou maybe, but they started so bad, this isn’t the week. LA has such a dangerous attack, I wouldn’t strongly back anyone below them.
Do have to say that although I didn’t watch the game, that sure was Xavier getting juked out of his jock on the Clark goal, and standing around useless as Gomez scored, so he didn’t look good in the highlights.
TFC was abysmal.
Ideally Carver was experimenting with the lineup and will not do that again. Dichio should have sat, Ricketts continued, Robert started and Marshall sat. All subs that looked like something Mo would have concocted. Terrible. Obviously Carver is good and not likely to see this happen.
Its unfortunate because i really think we could have won that game. A win we badly would need in both standings and in the sense that we need to win an away game.
Nice to see LA crack the top 3, without Donovan nonetheless.