Week 7: Power Rankings & Standings

As usual, last week’s ranking appears in parentheses immediately after this week’s ranking. So as to not misrepresent my judgment as entirely first-hand, the following key shows the distance of my observations: “@” means I watched a given team’s most recent performance in its entirety; “$” means I caught it through Quick Kicks, which provides extended highlights; “&” means I watched only the rump highlights available through MLSnet.com. Later today, I’ll compare what I’ve got below with everyone else’s rankings by combining them in a formula that, 1) may or may not be totally bogus, and, 2) could very well be nothing more than a rehash of ESPN’s results and methodology. Still, I won’t even peek anyone else’s picks till after I’ve written and posted mine.

A current shot of the standings appear at the bottom and, having reviewed Week 6’s rankings, I can honestly say I don’t know what the hell I was thinking on a few of them. With regard to this week’s rankings, I’ll be honest: after the first two, 3-5 felt basically interchangeable and I have no freakin’ clue what to order the bottom half of the table - very plausible reasons exist for dumping the lot of them below the #11 spot; for the record, however, I’m pretty comfortable with my #6.

Here goes...and after the rankings, you’ll find a current listing of the standings for the permanent record.

1. (3) Red Bull New York ($)
Though far from perfect lately, scoring four goals against the typically tough Crew - not to mention scoring them steadily throughout the game - speaks well of a team. People tell me Angel is online; I’ll have to keep my eyes peeled there.

2. (1) New England Revolution (@)
Call this the echo to the raspberry Steve Nicol spat out when asked to judge his team’s performance against the Dynamo. Here’s the deal: the Revs have played badly more often than well; a handy symbol for the extent to which they’re riding their luck came in the win over LA, when Taylor Twellman’s header pinged off the crossbar directly into his run; that happens once in every 100 instances.

3. (7) FC Dallas (@)
If it were possible to convince myself Dallas was better than New England, the latter would have slipped further. They climb high as they did because two wins are two wins - even if they came against one team miles-off form (the Fire) and another outright bad one (RSL).

4. (4) Colorado Rapids (&)
Uninspiring as a home draw may be, I read good things about Colorado’s performance. And KC is tough enough to make a draw sound good.

5. (6) Kansas City Wizards (&)
Um, what I said above, but switch the “home” to “away.” Also, it’s good to see Eddie Johnson’s name in the mix.

6. (9) DC United ($)
Slowly, it’s starting to happen...even if they rely on the ref’s generosity to seal the deal. Say what you will, but DC did what neither Houston nor Chicago could - they beat Toronto at home.

7. (10) Chicago Fire (@ - 1/2 hour anyway)
I won’t pretend that three straight losses don’t matter, but at least they’re scoring. But they also had Dallas on their heels for the final thirty; moreover, if Thiago bangs that header a couple inches to the right, that changes the conversation about both Chicago and FC Dallas.

8. (5) Los Angeles Galaxy (&)
If it weren’t for the incredible crap turned in by the rest of the field, I’d ding the Galaxy harder for drawing the lowly Goats. As everyone noted, Landon scored - so what do these guys do when there is no Landon?

9. (2) Houston Dynamo ($ + @)
It took the undistilled bitterness at the Dynamo’s part in their awful, awful game against the Revs to justify this 7-place drop. As with Dallas, albeit staring into a cracked mirror, two losses are two losses. And I don’t know if these guys are ever going to score again. It wasn’t till I actually sat down to think about it that I realized Houston has scored in ONLY two of their seven games this season. To be clear, that really, really sucks.

10. (11) Toronto FC ($)
The loss to DC should drag these guys back down to earth. But TFC is also becoming worth a look - and not just for a laugh. This weekend’s game on the road against the Crew positively screams “statement.”

11. (13) Chivas USA (&)
If it weren’t for Maykel Galindo, these cats would be RSL-bad. Recent acquisitions (Paolo Nagamura; Shavar Thomas) should make them more solid, so I expect them to climb a bit. Not a minute too soon, though.

12. (8) Columbus Crew ($)
The offense sucks bad enough; add in the already proved capacity for defensive collapses (Red Bull and the draw against New England) and you’re looking at a top-to-bottom bad team.

13. (12) Real Salt Lake (@)
They suck. It’s not much more complicated than that.

Moving on to the standings (official ones here):

Eastern Conference:
1. New England Revs: 17 pts. (5-1-2: 15 GF, 7 GA, +8; home, 2-0-0; away, 3-1-2)
2. Red Bull New York: 14 pts. (4-1-2: 8 GF, 4 GA, +8; home, 3-1-0; away, 1-0-2)
3. Kansas City Wiz: 13 pts. (4-2-1: 12 GF, 7 GA, +5; home, 2-1-0; away, 2-1-1)
4. Chicago Fire: 10 pts. (3-3-1: 8 GF, 10 GA, -2; home, 2-1-0; away, 1-1-1)
5. DC United: 7 pts. (2-3-1: 8 GF, 10 GA, -2; home, 1-1-1; away, 1-2-0)
6. Columbus Crew: 7 pts. (1-2-4: 4 GF, 8 GA, -4; home, 1-0-3; away, 0-2-1)
7. Toronto FC: 6 pts. (2-5-0: 5 GF, 13 GA, -8; home, 2-2-0; away, 0-3-0)

Western Conference
1. FC Dallas: 16 pts. (5-3-1: 13 GF, 12 GA, +1; home, 2-2-0; away, 3-1-1)
2. Colorado Rapids: 12 pts. (3-2-3: 10 GF, 10 GA, 0; home 1-1-3; away, 2-1-0)
3. Chivas USA: 8 pts. (2-3-2: 10 GF, 8 GA; +2; home, 2-0-1; away, 0-3-1)
4. Houston Dynamo: 7 pts. (2-4-1: 4 GF, 5 GA, -1; home, 1-2-1; away, 1-2-0)
5. Los Angeles Galaxy: 5 pts. (1-2-2: 7 GF, 7 GA, 0; home, 1-2-0; away, 0-0-2)
6. Real Salt Lake: 4 pts. (0-3-4: 7 GF, 14 GA, -7; home, 0-1-3; away, 0-2-1)