Here is a table I made to rank the overall team performance of all MLS teams over the last five years. After some deliberation, I included Portland, Vancouver and Montreal. Even though they have not played all five years, at least all of them played more than 100 matches. Due to the inclusion of the three, I used points per game to evaluate the teams' performance.
| Team | Points 2010+11+12+13+14 | Points per game |
|---|---|---|
| LA Galaxy [1] | 59 + 67 + 54 + 53 + 61 = 294 | 1.77 |
| Seattle [2] | 48 + 63 + 56 + 52 + 64 = 283 | 1.70 |
| Real Salt Lake [3] | 56 + 53 + 57 + 56 + 56 = 278 | 1.67 |
| New York [4] | 51 + 46 + 57 + 59 + 50 = 263 | 1.58 |
| Sporting Kansas City [5] | 39 + 51 + 63 + 58 + 49 =260 | 1.57 |
| Columbus [6] | 50 + 47 + 52 + 41 + 52 = 242 | 1.46 |
| Dallas [7] | 50 + 52 + 39 + 44 + 54 = 239 | 1.44 |
| San Jose Earthquakes [8] | 46 + 38 + 66 + 51 + 30 = 231 | 1.39 |
| Houston [9] | 33 + 49 + 53 + 51 + 39 = 225 | 1.36 |
| Portland [10] | X + 42 + 34 + 57 + 49 = 182 | 1.34 |
| Chicago [11] | 36+ 43 + 57 + 49 + 36 = 221 | 1.33 |
| Colorado [12] | 46 + 49 + 37 + 51 + 32 = 215 | 1.29 |
| Vancouver [13] | X + 28 + 43 + 48 + 50 = 169 | 1.24 |
| Philadelphia [14] | 31 + 48 + 36 + 46 + 42 = 203 | 1.22 |
| New England [15] | 32 + 28 + 35 + 51 + 55 = 201 | 1.21 |
| DC United [16] | 22 + 38 + 59 + 16 + 59 = 194 | 1.17 |
| Montreal [17] | X + X + 42 + 49 + 28 = 119 | 1.17 |
| Toronto [18] | 35 + 33 + 23 + 29 + 54 = 174 | 1.05 |
| Chivas [19] | 28 + 36 + 30 + 26 + 33 = 153 | .92 |
A few observations:
- MLS is known for its parity and it shows. The top team has got about 1.7 times more points per game than the worst time. For the Premier League, it is about triple - the champion gets about 90 points where as the bottom team gets around 30
- The top two teams are no surprise - they each have 3 DPs, including superstars like Keane, Dempsey, Donovan etc... However, Toronto landed at the bottom of the table. Lesson: It is not the money that counts but the smart money.
- A relatively low budget team RSL has done surprisingly well to take the third spot. More over, they have shown remarkably well in terms of consistency: in their best year, they got 57 points, but their worst year they got 53 points, less than 10% down. Additionally, they got 56 points in each of the other three years.
- DC United and San Jose Earthquakes on the other hand are most inconsistent teams. Both had very good year as well as very bad years. In their bad years, they got less than half of their good year points totals.
- Most teams alternate between good and bad years
- However, there are two teams that show year-over-year improvement for last 4 years: New England and Vancouver.
