untung99.club: MLS Franchise Rankings Comparing the leagues bestever teams across eras

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By design, Major League Soccer is not supposed to have great teams endure over a sustained period of time.

It isn’t supposed to have perennial cellar-dwellers, either. The league was founded with parity at its heart, the premise that any given preseason, a team’s fanbase can reasonably hope to have a chance at seeing their captain lift a trophy. Mechanisms like the salary cap, fixed limits on international players and designated players and allocation money help keep a competitive balance — simultaneously a major selling point for the league as well as a detriment to its most ambitious members.

However, any given era of the league’s history sees a few teams excel above their peers, and a constantly evolving competitive format makes it difficult to compare two teams across eras. Who would win in a one-off: Bruce Arena’s D.C. United dynasty of the 1990s or his LA Galaxy revival in the early 2010s? Is Toronto FC’s treble-winning 2017 season still the greatest MLS has seen? Just how bad were those first three years of FC Cincinnati, anyway?

To that end, we’re providing another method to assess the league’s teams over time. Taking a cue from our NFL and MLB verticals, we’ve created The Athletic’s MLS Franchise Rankings by looking at what each club achieved in every single season from the league’s launch in 1996 to its most recent complete installment in 2022. 

The methodology

Possibly the most difficult part of this entire exercise was finalizing how teams would accumulate points in a season. How much more important is, say, making a conference final than finishing second in the regular season? Are MLS Cup and the Supporters’ Shield equally important? And how do the auxiliary competitions like the CONCACAF Champions League, the U.S. Open Cup and the Canadian Championship — which, in itself, has far fewer combatants and rounds than the U.S. equivalent?

Here’s what my editors and I landed on. You’re allowed to disagree — it’s sports, after all — but just know this is the rubric we’re using this year. 

Some disclaimers, in no particular order:

• Teams were awarded points based on the final/most prominent event they managed rather than every single box they tick. For example, since the Houston Dynamo won MLS Cup in 2006, they won’t get an additional point for qualifying for the postseason, nor will they be awarded for their series wins against the Colorado Rapids and Chivas USA. To keep things consistent with the league’s amorphic approach to the postseason each year, winning MLS Cup is simply a nine-point pursuit. 

• Essentially, teams have three categories to accumulate points: regular season performance, postseason performance (when relevant) and other competitions like domestic cups and the CCL.

• At first, the U.S. Open Cup and Canadian Championship were level on points: three for winning, one for finishing second. However, an editor rightfully pointed out that while the ongoing U.S. Open Cup involved 99 total teams, the Canadian Championship fields just 14, and in a country with a less-developed lower-tier system of clubs.
Since Montreal became MLS’s third Canadian franchise in 2012, the ensuing eleven Canadian Championship finals have involved just four clubs: Toronto FC (on 9 occasions), the Vancouver Whitecaps (6), Montreal (6) and Forge FC (1). In the same span, no MLS team has reached the U.S. Open Cup final more than three times (shared by Sporting Kansas City and the Philadelphia Union). It’s a lot easier to make a cup final when you’re one of three favorites, so we aren’t awarding a point to the runner-up.

• As for why the CONCACAF Champions League counts for as many points as the U.S. Open Cup, it’s tricky. On the one hand, it’s arguably the most esteemed trophy an MLS franchise can own as a team reigns supreme over Liga MX rivals and all other clubs in the region. However…not every team competes in the CCL each season. It isn’t a bad thing, of course — just imagining those mid-2010s Fire sides lining up against Club América is bleak.

Still, making the tournament requires a great prior season without regard for a club’s current level. Just ask last year’s Seattle Sounders, which became the first MLS side to win the CCL before missing the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. As a result, we’ll balance its bombast against its exclusivity and tardiness to highlight great teams by keeping the two cup competitions level on points. 

With all that said, here’s the overall leaderboard: 

And here’s how those totals developed over time:

Digging further into these numbers requires that we separate things out a bit to account for the many distinct eras of MLS, in addition to the relatively large number of teams. Initially, we had all 31 franchises which finished a season between 1996-2022 on one line graph race…which was a nightmare to load on desktop and mobile alike. So we’ve split them up by their 2023 conference alignment, with the trio of defunct clubs lingering like specters in their former homes. 

We’re also diving in on each team’s four-year rolling total rather than a year-by-year tally for a few reasons. First, the up-and-down nature of MLS’s parity made the animations way too headache-inducing. Second, we want to reward clubs for consistency, as most other sports or leagues would assume that recent seasons are pertinent to how a team is perceived and assessed. For example, Atlanta United was still riding the high of winning MLS Cup in 2018 all the way into 2021; at this stage, though, discussing that title-winning side requires a deeper pull into nostalgic long-term memory banks. 

Now then, onto the good stuff. You can click on individual years on the top y-axis to view the hierarchy of power at any point of the league’s existence. 

Eastern Conference

Thank Bruce Arena for the scale of the y-axis. If it weren’t for his two most prominent teams, the scale wouldn’t need to extend beyond 44 in either conference.

From 1996 to 1999, Arena’s D.C. United owned MLS. Sure, they were kind enough to let other teams win the Supporters’ Shield on two occasions and let Chicago win MLS Cup for a change in 1998. Still, the trio of MLS Cup titles, two Supporters’ Shield and 1998 CONCACAF Champions Cup title (scored equally with the modern CCL) set a standard for consistent greatness which few franchises have matched in the following decades. These four seasons have carried the club’s reputation since: while D.C. has the second-highest overall Franchise Rankings score with 71 points, only 17 of those have come since the dawn of the new millennium.

After 2000, the East became a two-team competition between Chicago and the Miami Fusion. For all of their off-field issues (and there were many), the South Florida club lost just one of its first 15 games in 2001 en route to a Supporters’ Shield win, a conference final defeat — and, ultimately, ownership folding the club in January. 

After the Miami and Tampa Bay subtractions, Columbus saw its first sustained stretch of contention in club history before ceding space to another emerging power. The mid-2000s New England Revolution is one of MLS’s great teams, advancing to six consecutive conference finals from 2002-2007 while losing four MLS Cups in that span. As they waned, the Crew finally broke through with a first MLS Cup title in 2008 to pair with a Supporters’ Shield. 

As the 2010s dawned, it was the recently rebranded Red Bulls’ time to become the conference power, winning Supporters’ Shields under Mike Petke and Jesse Marsch in 2013 and 2015, respectively. Soon after, the conference balance of power was flipped on its head as Toronto FC shot up the charts to win the league’s first treble in 2017 as Atlanta United made a buzzy first impression. Recent years have, of course, been led by the competitive trio of New England, Philadelphia (which has finally experienced consistent success under Jim Curtin’s reign) and New York City FC.

Compared to the West, the East has remained hyper-competitive. Aside from Arena’s United dynasty, no club has truly owned the conference for more than a few years.

Western Conference

To understand the balance of power in the Western Conference is to understand the rises and falls of the LA Galaxy.

For the league’s first decade, there was the Galaxy and there was everybody else. Led by league legends like Cobi Jones, Greg Vanney, Robin Fraser, Mauricio Cienfuegos and the late Sigi Schmid, LA never failed to make the postseason in their first ten years while winning two MLS Cups, three runner-up finishes, two Supporters’ Shields, two U.S. Open Cups and a CONCACAF Champions’ Cup in that decade. 

Still, some other teams snuck in some glory in under the Galaxy’s noses. The conference’s first playoff victor was actually the Kansas City Wizards, who won both MLS Cup and the Supporters’ Shield in 2000 on the backs of Tony Meola’s shot-stopping, Preki’s midfield majesty and “Danish Dynamite” Miklos Molnar’s goalscoring. The San Jose Earthquakes forged a fierce rivalry with LA, winning its first title in 2001 before the Galaxy’s breakthrough in 2002, setting the stage for an iconic Quakes postseason comeback in 2003 en route to their second title. 

That same organization again claimed the Western throne in 2006, though it was now based in Houston having left the Bay without its MLS club for two seasons. The Dynamo continued what the Quakes had started, winning MLS Cup in each of its first two seasons after the move. 

And here, once again, we run into Bruce Arena. After a short stint at the New York Red Bulls, Arena took over at the helm of the LA Galaxy, with Landon Donovan, David Beckham, and Robbie Keane stationed at the heart of the league’s second great dynasty. Around the same time, the Seattle Sounders launched to a level of success only matched by those initial Fire sides, while Real Salt Lake and Sporting Kansas City basked in shared underdog status while winning an MLS Cup each in 2009 and 2013, respectively. 

Seattle eventually emerged as the West’s power under Schmid and successor Brian Schmetzer, winning the 2014 Supporters’ Shield and two of three MLS Cup clashes with Toronto FC from 2016 to 2019, Most recently, Los Angeles FC gave the City of Angels another great team under Bob Bradley and Steve Cherundolo. 

While many teams have had brief flirtations with supremacy, let’s be clear: the West has been dominated by three teams through and through. Unless the record-setting debut which St. Louis City SC has managed sustains over multiple seasons, LAFC may continue to set the tone out West for the foreseeable future.

Your team’s golden years

Think of this like some sort of MLS is Back-meets-”Timecop” event, where every club can send its greatest squad into the fracas as we determine the greatest stretch any MLS side has ever enjoyed. Maybe they’ll opt for drunken karaoke on off days like it’s 2020. 

When were your team’s glory days? Omitting teams which have competed in three or fewer seasons (apologies to fans of Nashville, Miami, Austin, Charlotte and St. Louis), let’s stroll through memory lane with a ranking of each team’s best four-year stretch.  

Teams are ranked in reverse order of point total, with the more recent stretch being listed first in the event of a tie.

Listen, you’ve got to start somewhere. After three straight last-place finishes, Pat Noonan and Chris Albright swiftly righted the ship in 2022 and appear to have taken another step forward as Cincinnati has started strong this season.

Suffice it to say that we expect the team to set new high marks in each of the next three seasons as the Wooden Spoons are shed from their rolling ledger.

It’s been rough for the British Columbia side since the Whitecaps first kicked off in 2011. This four-year stretch includes the franchise’s only MLS Cup Playoff win (a 5-0 thrashing of a San Jose side which qualified with a -21 goal difference), one of two Voyagers Cup victories, and three of their five postseason berths to date. Carl Robinson kept things steady at the helm as he oversaw club greats like Pedro Morales, Kendall Waston, Matias Laba and the emergence of Alphonso Davies.

This one wasn’t particularly difficult to identify, as it’s the only four-year stretch which has seen the club accumulate a point total above -1. Óscar Pareja helped the club finally crash the postseason in 2020, winning an unforgettable shootout in the first round before returning to the playoffs in consecutive seasons. 2022 also brought the first trophy in the club’s MLS era (the U.S. Open Cup). Unless they miss the postseason, they’ll likely see an improved total in next year’s rundown.

T-23. Montreal Impact 2013-2016 (6 points)

Apologies for the deadname, but their halcyon days took place before their rebrand to C.F. Montreal. Even at their best, the Impact were turbulent: this four-year stretch saw three different coaches man the touchline. However, the mid 2010s saw the franchise enjoy the tail end of two strikers’ careers (Marco Di Vaio and Didier Drogba), a run to the 2014 CCL final, two Canadian Championship titles and an all-timer of a conference final against Toronto FC.

T-23. Chivas USA: 2006-2009 (6 points)

The franchise made the playoffs just four times in their ten seasons — these four years. And yet, they failed to win a postseason series in any of those trips despite entering the 2007 playoffs as the No. 1 seed in the West. Among the luminaries of this era were Brad Guzan before his move to England, Jonathan Bornstein, and Coach of the Year showings by Bob Bradley and Preki. It also kicked off what became the long death of the club, which folded after the 2014 season.

The Loons were accused of soft-launching in 2017, temporarily playing at the University of Minnesota’s football stadium and fielding low-wage designated players. The club upped its on-field investment ahead of Allianz Field’s opening in 2019, bringing in eventual Defender of the Year Ike Opara, Goalkeeper of the Year Vito Mannone and MLS All-Star Romain Métanire to finish fourth in the West and advance to the U.S. Open Cup final. They also would’ve made it to the MLS Cup Final in 2020 if it weren’t for a dramatic collapse from being 2-0 up in the 75th minute against Seattle. Despite waning results, Minnesota is the only Western team to make the playoffs in each of the last four years.

The Rapids are comfortably the lowest-performing founding club in terms of what they achieved at their best. The Rapids won their first MLS Cup in 2010 thanks to an 107th minute own goal by Dallas defender George John, won a playoff game in 2011, then missed and made postseasons to close the four-year span.

20. Tampa Bay Mutiny: 1996-1999 (13 points)

Tampa Bay was the only founding MLS club not to survive as the league navigated the turbulent 2000s, but not without some modest success to show for their effort. While D.C. United won the first MLS Cup, it was the Mutiny which won that year’s Supporters’ Shield, with Roy Lassiter’s 27 goals standing as the single-season record until 2018. Carlos Valderrama also won the league’s inaugural MVP award before switching to the other Florida club ahead of 1998.

Atlanta set the modern blueprint for ambitious expansion builds, signing young dynamic South Americans (Miguel Almirón and Josef Martínez, among others) and letting them wreak havoc on MLS defenses. It worked a dream in 2018 as the club won MLS Cup before selling Almirón to Newcastle for a league-record $26 million. Frank De Boer took over in 2019 and helmed them to a U.S. Open Cup title and a return to the conference final, before 2020 kicked off the club’s current state of miasma.

T-18. Miami Fusion: 1998-2001 (14 points)

In their only four seasons of operation, Miami showed year-over-year progress with two playoff berths in 1998 and 1999 leading to a U.S. Open Cup final defeat in 2000. It crescendoed in 2001, as the Fusion won the Supporters’ Shield and advanced to the conference final before falling to eventual champion San Jose. They would never kick a ball again, but their brief stay involves the league’s active single-year assist record (Valderrama’s near-unbreakable 26 dishes in 2000).

T-16. New York City FC: 2019-2022 (16 points)

After initially trying to build around retirement-age stars from yesteryear, City better embodied its parent Football Group’s ideology as Patrick Vieira passed the torch to Domènec Torrent midway through 2018. Under Torrent, Ronny Deila and Nick Cushing, the Pigeons won the East in 2019 regular season before lifting MLS Cup in 2021. Cushing will have to lead his revamped side to MLS Cup or win a Supporters’ Shield to extend the current golden era.

T-16. FC Dallas: 2015-2018 (16 points)

One of the league’s great “what could have been” sides in recent memory, Dallas is also one of three MLS originals to have not won MLS Cup. Dallas won the West’s regular season title in 2015 and 2016, earning the club’s only Supporters’ Shield to date in the latter year. Talented internationals like Mauro Díaz and Fabián Castillo opened the door for a host of young South American signings in ensuing years, while their storied academy produced Alejandro Zendejas, Paxton Pomykal, Reggie Cannon, Bryan Reynolds and Jesús Ferreira. They didn’t win as much as their collective talent suggests, but they were vital in the league’s ongoing transformation into a selling league.

While their noisy Northern neighbors were league darlings, the Timbers gave the Cascadian region its first MLS Cup title in 2015. Portland’s core during this period included modern greats like Diego Chara, Diego Valeri, Nat Borchers, Darlington Nagbe and Sebastian Blanco. While Caleb Porter left after falling in the 2017 playoffs’ first round as a No. 1 seed, Giovanni Savarese carried the momentum all the way to an MLS Cup final appearance in 2018.

After three underwhelming years upon arrival, RSL finally made the postseason in 2008, making a run to the conference final under Jason Kreis. Firmly set as the underdog to the waning powerhouse Dynamo and rising Beckham-era Galaxy, RSL won MLS Cup in 2009 and made the CCL final in 2011. Many of their starring players have etched their names in league lore, from goalkeeper Nick Rimando to defensive midfielder Kyle Beckerman to playmaking wizard Javier Morales and Costa Rican scoring ace Álvaro Saborio

13. Sporting KC: 2011-2014 (21 points)

Kansas City’s rebrand from the Wizards combined with Peter Vermes’ appointment to kick off the club’s most successful era. After winning the regular season conference title in 2011 and 2012 and pairing the second such feat with a U.S. Open Cup title, Kansas City beat RSL in the classic 2013 MLS Cup Final which went to penalties. While Sporting would remain competitive through its core’s best years, the club has struggled to repeat last decade’s strong start.

Nestled between the ballyhooed launches of Seattle and Portland, the Union kicked off a decade of relative mediocrity upon launching in 2010. Once Jim Curtin settled into the role while Ernst Tanner and Chris Albright changed the club’s approach to youth development and roster construction, Philadelphia took off. After winning the Supporters’ Shield in 2020 and falling to eventual champion NYCFC in the 2021 Eastern Conference final, the Union were minutes away from beating LAFC in last year’s electric MLS Cup. They’re positioned well to improve on this tally this year, as 2019 only yielded two points for one playoff win.

The Quakes had equal tallies for 2001-2004 and 2002-2005, a testament to their consistency at the start of the millennium. Landon Donovan’s emergence sent shockwaves through the league, ultimately leading San Jose to its only two MLS Cup titles in 2001 and 2003 under Frank Yallop. They also earned their first Supporters’ Shield in 2005, setting the stage for…

…Dom Kinnear and his charges to start strong after the franchise relocated to Texas and added a 20-year-old Stuart Holden after his time at Sunderland. The Dynamo won consecutive MLS Cups thanks to the attacking prowess of Brian Ching, Dwayne De Rosario and Brad Davis, while Pat Onstad was steady between the posts. In the 13 years since, the franchise has mustered a net total of just 6 points.

9. New England Revolution: 2004-2007 (26 points)

The Revs are one of three founding clubs which has yet to win MLS Cup, but they’ve arguably come the closest of the trio. This stretch encapsulates the final four of an incredible six consecutive trips to the conference final under Steve Nicol, with New England advancing to the title game from 2005-2007. Led by striker Taylor Twellman and flanked capably by Pat Noonan, Shalrie Joseph, Steve Ralson and a young Clint Dempsey, New England has yet to eclipse the achievements of this truly great squad.

Fans feared for the worst ahead of 2015 between Thierry Henry’s retirement and the decision to replace beloved head coach Mike Petke for the as-yet unproven Jesse Marsch. Instead of capsizing, Marsch began building his reputation with a selfless collective of league greats including Luis Robles, Dax McCarty, Sacha Kljestan and Bradley Wright-Phillips. They fell short of making an MLS Cup appearance, but two Supporters’ Shield, another Eastern Conference regular season crown and a U.S. Open Cup runner-up finish still makes for an impressive haul.

T-7. Columbus Crew: 2008-2011 (30 points)

After years of ups and downs, the Crew made its first MLS Cup appearance in 2008, winning the final against the New York Red Bulls to add another trophy alongside that year’s Supporters’ Shield. Guillermo Barros Schelotto became the first designated player to win MVP in 2008 (Luciano Emílio won in 2007, but didn’t become a D.C. United DP until a later season), while the core included Chad Marshall, Frankie Hejduk, Ezra Hendrickson, Brad Evans and Eddie Gaven. The team failed to win another playoff game until Gregg Berhalter led a run to the MLS Cup final in 2015.

While this may not have been the exact four-year span you expected, you can’t talk about the heights of the Sounders without mentioning their best year. While they didn’t win MLS Cup in 2014, Seattle won the Supporters’ Shield and U.S. Open Cup on the backs of the unstoppable strike partnership between Dempsey and Obafemi Martins. Longtime manager Schmid was replaced by Brian Schmetzer midway through a 2016 season which saw the club win its first MLS Cup title, with Jordan Morris, Uruguay ace Nicolas Lodeiro, captain and club corazón Osvaldo Alonso and the staunch goal-preventing trio of Chad Marshall, Roman Torres and Stefan Frei.

Two of the league’s best single-season performances bookend LAFC’s current stretch, starting with Bob Bradley and Carlos Vela’s record-setting 2019 Supporters Shield triumph. The club saw a bit of a dip in 2020 and 2021 before replacing Bradley with Steve Cherundolo, who brought pragmatism (and Gareth Bale) to help the club win its first MLS Cup title. While there’s every chance they’ll extend their golden age, they’ll need to earn more than 12 Franchise Ranking Points this year (to offset what they’ll shed from that 2019 side.

T-4. Chicago Fire: 2000-2003 (32 points)

This may shock newer fans of the league, as the Fire have made the playoffs just once in the last decade. To double your surprise: this ranking doesn’t even include the club’s only MLS Cup title, which they won upon debuting in 1998 under Bradley. Instead, this factors for the three conference titles, two U.S. Open Cup triumphs and one Supporters Shield. The club began its downward spiral in 2004, finishing last in MLS. Still, the heyday of strikers Hristo Stoitchkov and Ante Razov, a young DaMarcus Beasley, and dependable defenders Carlos Bocanegra and C.J. Brown should not be so easily forgotten.

3. Toronto FC: 2016-2019 (34 points)

The highest-placed stretch involving at least one missed postseason, Toronto flipped its reputation on its head after eight years of futility upon launching in 2007. Ownership spent big on designated players Michael Bradley, Sebastian Giovinco and Jozy Altidore, riding its big-ticket trio to three MLS Cup finals. They peaked in 2017, completing the league’s first treble by winning MLS Cup, the Supporters’ Shield and the Voyagers Cup. It’s by far the most that this franchise has achieved to date, too: removing these 34 points from their ledger would leave Toronto with a cumulative score of -9 — even lower than Cincinnati.

2. LA Galaxy: 2009-2012 (48 points)

While the club’s signing of David Beckham changed league rules and perception forever, it took some time to turn that landmark acquisition into hardware. This is where they started to put it together, making the 2009 MLS Cup final before winning the 2010 Supporters’ Shield en route back to the conference final. The breakthrough came in 2011, as Donovan, Beckham, Arena and midseason signing Robbie Keane won the club’s first MLS Cup in six years before repeating in 2012. If you’re wondering why the team’s 2014 title didn’t warrant inclusion, blame an unexpected one-and-done playoff showing in 2013. The Galaxy’s second-best stretch would also rank second, as the team netted 44 points from 1999-2002.

1. D.C. United: 1996-1999 (54 points)

You can say it’s easy to rack up trophies in a league that was a third of its current size…or you can call Arena’s D.C. dynasty the greatest side MLS has seen to date. The wizardry produced by the team’s “magic triangle” of Raul Diaz, Marco Etcheverry and Jaime Moreno blended well with the strong domestic core built around Jeff Agoos, John Harkes and Eddie Pope. Arena left after 1998 to lead the United States men, but the team didn’t miss a beat in Thomas Rongen’s first season as Roy Lassiter won his second Golden Boot in 1999.

It may be hard to equal this team’s feats given the league’s increased size and mechanisms which keep competitive balance year-over-year. Still, maybe someday we’ll look back on the current LAFC or Philadelphia sides and consider them among the very best MLS has ever counted among its ranks.

(Top graphic: Sam Richardson / Photos: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images, Stephen Dunn /Allsport)