{"id":4462,"date":"2011-04-15T08:30:04","date_gmt":"2011-04-15T12:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=4462"},"modified":"2011-04-15T11:55:14","modified_gmt":"2011-04-15T15:55:14","slug":"mls-rankings-week-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=4462","title":{"rendered":"MLS Rankings: Week 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every week, the New England Soccer Today crew will look beyond the standings to rank each of the 18 Major League Soccer (MLS) teams. This week Brian O\u2019Connell and Sean Donahue contributed rankings. Comments are followed by the ranker\u2019s name and the rank they gave that team.<\/em><\/p>\n

1. Real Salt Lake (4-0-0, 12 points)<\/strong> \u2013 This really isn\u2019t even a contest anymore. After beating the Rapids, Salt Lake is undeniably the league\u2019s top team (Sean -1). Second-choice starting XI dismantles first-place Revs. Nevermind best team ever- how about deepest team ever? Jason Kreis has a juggernaut on his hands (Brian -1 ).<\/p>\n

3. Philadelphia Union (3-1-0, 9 points<\/strong>) \u2013 A win over New York shows Philly\u2019s the real deal (Sean- 2). Class of the East thanks to a smothering defense. Shutting down a potent Red Bull lineup may shift the power to the Keystone State (Brian -3).<\/p>\n

3. Colorado Rapids (3-2-0, 9 points)<\/strong> \u2013 Played strong against RSL for long periods, but a loss at an underperforming Dallas knocks the Rapids down a bit. Need Mastroeni back (Sean – 3). Dropped a stunner to Dallas, but they\u00a0have the\u00a0talent to stay in the upper echelon of the table\u00a0(Brian – 2).<\/p>\n

4. Los Angeles Galaxy (2-1-3, 9 points)<\/strong> \u2013 Two unlucky draws for the Galaxy this past week with Landon Donovan absent. Their offense is too talented to be kept silent for long (Sean -4 ). Follow up a controversial draw to D.C by failing to score against Toronto. Gals have shown me little this season (Brian – 4).<\/p>\n

5. Seattle Sounders FC (1-2-2, 5 points)<\/strong> \u2013 Seattle finally tasted victory last week and I imagine they\u2019ll have plenty more in the near future (Sean \u2013 6). After a snail-like start, the Sounders seem to have awakened after a sold 2-1 win over Chicago (Brian-7).<\/p>\n

6. Houston Dynamo (1-1-2, 5 points)<\/strong> \u2013 Houston finally show some life with a big win over Vancouver (Sean \u2013 10).\u00a0 Started off slow against tough teams, but seem to be turning a corner with their 3-1 win over Vancouver. We’ll see if the attack is back for good (Brian \u2013 5).<\/p>\n

7. San Jose Earthquakes (1-1-2, 5 points)<\/strong> \u2013 A home draw against Toronto is nothing to be proud of. Games like that are ones the \u2018Quakes need 3 points from (Sean \u2013 7). Should’ve beaten the fledgling Reds. Need to start finding some more goals (Brian – 9)<\/p>\n

8. New England Revolution (1-1-3, 6 points)<\/strong> \u2013 Completely overrun at home by a Salt Lake side largely made up of reserves. Inexcusable. The Revs are without Shalrie Joseph this weekend (Sean – 12). Tough defeat against Salt Lake, but with Ousmane Dabo and Rajko Lekic ready to contribute, the picture looks promising (Brian – 6).<\/p>\n

8. FC Dallas (1-2-1, 4 points) <\/strong>\u2013 Huge win for Dallas over the defending champs could be just what the team needs to get their season back on track (Sean – 8). Triumphant win over Colorado. Did the Rapids awaken a sleeping giant? (Brian \u2013 10)<\/p>\n

8. New York Red Bulls (1-1-2, 5 points)<\/strong> \u2013 Had their chances in Philly, but the Red Bulls are capable of better (Sean \u2013 5 ). Uber-talented team that have underperformed badly. They are the MLS version of the Red Sox (Brian -13).<\/p>\n

11. Sporting Kansas City (1-1-1, 4 points)<\/strong> \u2013 Hopefully some time off and an Open Cup shutout will have helped Kansas City solve their earlier defensive issues (Sean \u2013 9). Got a hard-earned win against Dynamo in USOC competition, travel to Columbus to see if they can bounce back from their Vancouver 3-3 debacle (Brian \u2013 11).<\/p>\n

12. Toronto FC (1-1-3, 6 points)<\/strong> \u2013 Luck has been on their side, but a weak Toronto squad has managed two straight draws against tough competition (Sean \u2013 15). Draw to San Jose on the road signals the reports of the Reds’ demise may be a bit premature (Brian \u2013 8).<\/p>\n

12. Chicago Fire (1-1-1, 4 points)<\/strong> \u2013 Tough loss at Seattle for the Fire. Finishing let them down (Sean -11). Fell to a rising Sounder squad and hope a quick return to action Thursday night gets them back on track (Brian \u2013 12).<\/p>\n

14. Vancouver Whitecaps (1-2-2, 5 points)<\/strong> \u2013 Destroyed by a struggling Houston side. Vancouver has struggled to find consistency (Sean \u2013 14). Porous defense continues to watch goals fly into their net. Also didn’t help that their offense was a no-show against Houston (Brian -14).<\/p>\n

14. D.C. United (1-2-1, 4 points)<\/strong> \u2013 Lucky draw at home against Los Angeles. D.C. still have yet to show the offensive punch they had in their season opener (Sean \u2013 13). Miraculously squeezed a point against the Gals thanks to a dubious penalty. How long before Charlie Davies gets the starting nod for good? (Brian \u2013 15).<\/p>\n

16. Columbus Crew (1-1-2, 5 points)<\/strong> \u2013 Played to a scoreless draw at Chivas in what was a pretty dreadful match (Sean \u2013 16). Listless attack is saved by their backline again. They need more from Eddie Gaven and Emmanuel Ekpo (Brian \u2013 18).<\/p>\n

16. Portland Timbers (0-2-1, 1 point)<\/strong> \u2013 Some time off and a new DP playmaker heading into the team\u2019s home opener could spark this expansion side to life (Sean \u2013 17). Idle last week, but the signing of Diego Chara should give the Timbers some added stability in the middle (Brian -17).<\/p>\n

16. Chivas USA (0-2-2, 2 points)<\/strong> \u2013 Chivas will need to do better than a dire home draw with Columbus if they want to move up these rankings (Sean \u2013 18). Caution: broadcast of scoreless draw to Columbus may cause drowsiness (Brian -16).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Salt Lake is king again, but we’ve got a bottleneck at the bottom this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/rslfeature.jpg?fit=490%2C225","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4462"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4462"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4464,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4462\/revisions\/4464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}