2024 MLS Western Conference Contenders And Pretenders
Separating the good, the bad, and the UGLY … at least on paper!
The 2024 MLS season is here!
After a few months off, and a couple of Champions League games, MLS teams are returning to the field … so it’s prediction time.
Who should have hope for glory in 2024 … and who should be rushing through to 2025? A team of almost 20 MLS experts submitted their predictions.
Please feel free to review the Eastern Conference here:
Who Are The Contenders Heading Into 2024?
Six teams separated themselves from the rest as potential preseason-Western-Conference-Champions, these six are the true contenders. There is separation among these six, one stands significantly higher than the rest according to the experts:
· Seattle.
When all of the predictions were aggregated Seattle had the best ranking and lowest standard deviation among any team in the MLS, meaning … Seattle is by far the biggest favorite to become a conference champion as we head into the season.
But who is left to threaten Seattle’s return to the top of the Western Conference? According to the pundits, there is only one team that can compete: LAFC. While LAFC are definitely behind Seattle, they are significantly ahead of any other Western Conference opponent.
We shall see if LAFC’s late offseason additions can gel in time for the start of 2024, but otherwise, the Western Conference is Seattle’s race to lose.
Conference Contenders … With A Twist
With only two favorites, there is a significant amount of playoff contenders chomping at the bit to compete with the big boys. The experts have narrowed this group down to eight teams who should have hope to compete for the playoffs … and maybe even pull the rug out from under Seattle.
But there are two groups of four within this stacked list of contenders, the first of which are teams that have the ceiling to compete with Seattle and LAFC … but also the potential for disaster, including missing the MLS playoffs all together:
· Kansas City,
· FC Dallas,
· St. Louis, and
· Houston.
Kansas City and Houston both received a prediction that they will win the rest, and every other team in this collection has a top-three prediction.
But what separates this group from the top two is the level of disagreement among the experts. Shockingly, each of these teams received a prediction that saw them OUTSIDE of this year’s MLS Cup playoffs.
The Playoff Contenders … aka The Forgotten Middle
The remaining four playoff contending teams include:
· LA Galaxy,
· Real Salt Lake,
· Vancouver, and
· Portland.
These are the four teams that the experts believe will compete for the final three playoff spots. What is interesting is that Real Salt Lake earned the most agreement among the experts, but they apparently do not have the potential ceiling that an LA or Vancouver has.
Better Luck Next Year
The final four Western Conference teams will sadly have to wait until next year for a taste of success:
· Colorado,
· Minnesota,
· San Jose, and
· Austin.
Let’s be honest, these teams are a mix of hoping that their new big signings gel in time, that they can get a permanent coach employed sometime soon, or that their old signings can be offloaded to make room for new hopeful additions.
But each of these teams is currently tied with the 10 above them. So, they have all the hope in the world that they can make a surprise run to the playoffs.
In fact, three of these teams received a prediction that included them in the playoffs (unsurprisingly Austin was the team to receive no votes).
The Games Are Not Played On Paper!
While predictions are inaccurate, there is wisdom amongst these MLS pundits. Everyone has hope at this point in the season, who would have thought that an expansion team in St. Louis would have won the West? Luckily these games are not played on paper, so who do you could surprise in 2024?
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