{"id":4533,"date":"2011-04-23T01:53:39","date_gmt":"2011-04-23T05:53:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=4533"},"modified":"2011-04-23T01:54:08","modified_gmt":"2011-04-23T05:54:08","slug":"mls-rankings-week-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=4533","title":{"rendered":"MLS Rankings: Week 5"},"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 Sean Donahue contributed rankings. <\/em><\/p>\n

1. Real Salt Lake <\/strong>(4-0-0, 12 points) \u2013 Still atop the league despite playing several less games due to the Champions League. Huge 2-2 draw at Monterrey gets RSL closer to proving they are the best team in North America.<\/p>\n

2. New York Red Bulls<\/strong> (3-1-2, 11 points) (+6) \u2013 Two crushing victories over San Jose and D.C. and New York\u2019s talented strikers finally appear to have taken off.<\/p>\n

3. Los Angeles Galaxy<\/strong> (3-1-3, 12 points) (+1) \u2013 Road victory over Chicago gets the Galaxy back on track.<\/p>\n

4. Philadelphia Union<\/strong> (3-1-1, 10 points) (-2) \u2013 Two points lost after giving up a late equalizer \u00a0at home to Seattle.<\/p>\n

5. Seattle Sounders FC <\/strong> (2-2-3, 9 points) \u2013 Impressive road point at Philadelphia and an even more impressive victory at Colorado, but the loss of Zakauni will hurt.<\/p>\n

6. Colorado Rapids <\/strong>(3-3-0, 9 points) (-4) \u2013 A red card after a vicious tackle by Mullan and a 1-0 home loss to Seattle moves the Rapids down a few spots.<\/p>\n

7. Portland Timbers <\/strong>(2-2-1, 7 points) (+9) \u2013 Completely rejuvenated since starting their home schedule, Portland actually looks like a playoff team.<\/p>\n

8. Houston Dynamo<\/strong> (2-1-2, 8 points) (-2) \u2013 Finishing left a bit to be desired, but Houston got a well deserved victory over New England. Houston is getting healthier and looking improved from last season.<\/p>\n

9. Columbus Crew<\/strong> (2-1-2, 8 point) (+7) \u2013 Showed well against Kansas City, handing Sporting their first shutout of the season. Still not convince this team has what it takes to make the playoffs.<\/p>\n

10. San Jose Earthquakes<\/strong> (1-2-2, 5 points) (-3) \u2013 Tough road loss against a resurgent New York. San Jose will need to bounce back this week.<\/p>\n

11. FC Dallas <\/strong>(1-2-1, 4 point) (-3) \u2013 Just when Dallas seems to be getting on the right track, they fall 3-2 to an expansion side.<\/p>\n

12. D.C. United<\/strong> (2-3-1, 7 points) (+2)\u2013 Huge road win at Toronto, but it\u2019s quickly forgetting after D.C. was destroyed by New York at home. Have to expect more in front of their home fans.<\/p>\n

13. Sporting Kansas City<\/strong> (1-2-1, 4 points) (-2) \u2013 A 1-0 road loss at a weakened Crew side is disappointing considering Kansas City\u2019s formerly strong offense.<\/p>\n

14. New England Revolution <\/strong>(1-2-3, 6 points) (-6) \u2013 Dreadful performance in Houston, but the Revs should be boosted by the addition of Benny Feilhaber.<\/p>\n

15. Chicago Fire<\/strong> (1-3-1, 4 points) (-3)\u2013 Home loss to a Donovan- and Beckham-less Galaxy is unacceptable.<\/p>\n

16. Vancouver Whitecaps<\/strong> (1-2-3, 6 points) (-2) \u2013 A scoreless home draw against Chivas won\u2019t be moving the Whitecaps up at all.<\/p>\n

17. Chivas USA<\/strong> (0-2-3, 3 points) (-1) \u2013 MLS\u2019 only winless team has shown next to nothing to move off the bottom, but a 0-0 draw in Vancouver combined with Toronto\u2019s poor result moves them up a spot.<\/p>\n

18. Toronto FC<\/strong> (1-2-3, 6 points) (-6) \u00a0\u2013 A 3-0 home loss to D.C. shows just how bad this Toronto squad currently is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Salt Lake reigns supreme, but there is plenty of movement throughout the rest of the rankings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"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&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4533"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4533"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4535,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4533\/revisions\/4535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}