Welcome back to the Guardian’s MLS Power Rankings, where I have a beef with your specific team and your specific team alone. I’ve hired Drake Callender to save me from any dangerous objects that will be hurled my way by readers angered by these rankings. Hey, he’s good enough for Inter Miami, he’s good enough for me.

Now, as a reminder, these aren’t your standard, run-of-the-mill power rankings. We’re still ranking teams from worst to first. But along with the rankings, we’re diving deep into a handful of teams from around the league who are doing particularly interesting things.

Austin, we have a problem

29) San Jose Earthquakes

28) Chicago Fire

27) Sporting Kansas City

26) New England Revolution

25) Nashville SC

24) Austin FC

Want to know who the worst team in the Western Conference has been in 2024, according to FBref’s expected goal differential metric? Hint: it’s not the San Jose Earthquakes, who have the Wooden Spoon all wrapped up. It’s not Sporting Kansas City, either. It’s Austin FC. Look, I know you didn’t need the hints because this section is clearly about Austin based on “Austin FC” being written in bold up above, but just let me have this, OK?

Austin are rocking a -0.54 xGD per 90 minutes, which means they’re allowing over half an expected goal more than they’re creating. Every. Single. Game.

One of the only reasons they’re still technically alive in the playoff race – and one of the only reasons they’re in a better spot in these rankings than the Quakes and SKC is because of Brad Stuver’s shot-stopping. Outside Stuver, who’s saving nearly a quarter of a goal more than expected per 90 based on FBref’s data, this year has been brutal for Austin. Just ask star Sebastián Driussi.

With sporting director Rodolfo Borrell about to enter his second full offseason, there are no shortage of big decisions to be made. Austin FC need a capable striker, they need a midfield playmaker, and their spine is one of the weakest in MLS. Then there’s the matter of Josh Wolff’s job, one that fans continue to call for. The to-do list is long. The time is short. Few front office members have as many high-profile calls to make this summer as Borrell.

Too little, too late

23) FC Dallas

22) St Louis City

21) Toronto FC

20) Atlanta United

19) DC United

18) CF Montreal

St Louis City’s fall from grace was speedy, if not actually all that graceful. They went from the top team in the West last year to one of the first teams eliminated from postseason contention this year.

What caused the drop?

St Louis were on the receiving end of some very, very fortunate bounces in their expansion season that, unsurprisingly, haven’t repeated themselves in 2024. Roman Bürki was elite in goal in 2023, whereas this year he’s resigned himself to being merely excellent. Their high-pressing style may have taken some teams by surprise, but the book is out at this point.

Related: The remarkable thing about Messi’s Miami? They’re just as good without him

But the simplest explanation for St Louis City’s tumble down the standings is this: they whiffed when it came time to retool in the offseason. When Nicholas Gioacchini and Jared Stroud left the club, 21 goal contributions left with them. St Louis never replaced either player in the winter. It’s no wonder they’ve struggled.

The good news is that a simple explanation for their fall leads to an equally simple way to fuel a potential rise in 2025. Find more talent. Really, sporting director Lutz Pfannenstiel has already done a solid job of that. St Louis City were one of MLS’s most active teams in the summer transfer window, adding Marcel Hartel from St Pauli and Cedric Teuchert from Hannover to finally bolster their attack. Teuchert, in particular, has been excellent. According to FBref, he’s in the 88th percentile in non-penalty expected goals plus expected assisted goals per 90 minutes among his positional peers in MLS.

With the long overdue replacements raising their floor, St Louis have three wins, two draws, and two losses since the summer window closed in August. The lack of a true superstar limits their ceiling heading into 2025, but there are reasons to believe this squad will be up a tier or two by the time March rolls around.

Playing the blame game

17) Philadelphia Union

16) Portland Timbers

15) New York Red Bulls

14) Charlotte FC

13) Colorado Rapids

12) Minnesota United

New York Red Bulls fans have taken hit after hit over the last week or so. Sure, they dispatched a bad Toronto FC team on Wednesday night. But before that, they watched as their team lost the Hudson River Derby on Saturday in catastrophic fashion. Then they had to sit back and see comments from Oliver Mintzlaff, a high-ranking Red Bull executive, pour in from an interview with Kicker. As translated by renowned Bundesliga broadcaster Derek Rae, Mintzlaff had this to say about MLS (and, by extension, his own team): “MLS is developing but it’s developing far too slowly and is still far away from the standard we would imagine for a country like the USA.”

Mintzlaff’s point about there being a ton of room for MLS to grow is spot-on. MLS needs more talent if it truly wants to catch enough eyeballs to become one of the better leagues in the world. But for this criticism to come from Mintzlaff, who sits on MLS’s extremely powerful sporting and competition committee and is tied to a club that failed to fill all three of its Designated Player spots coming into the year? The whole thing has a lot of we’re all trying to find the guy who did this energy.

New York is the biggest media market in the United States. The New York Red Bulls are one of only three founding MLS teams to have never won an MLS Cup. They haven’t won a playoff game since 2018. They haven’t finished higher than fourth in the East since that same year.

If Mintzlaff wants change, even simply to help the New York branch of Red Bull to produce better players for the Leipzig branch, he might want to look inside the house first.

Should we believe in Orlando?

11) Vancouver Whitecaps

10) Houston Dynamo

9) Orlando City

8) New York City FC

7) Real Salt Lake

6) Seattle Sounders

I’d be lying if I said I was confident about having Orlando City this high up the rankings.

Sure, they’re fourth in the Eastern Conference. Sure, they’ve won 10 of their last 14 games. But you know what? They’ve only beaten two teams all season long who are currently above the playoff line – Toronto FC, who sit ninth in the East and Charlotte FC, who sit seventh in the East. You’ll excuse me, then, for being something of a skeptic when it comes to Óscar Pareja’s team. There’s a very real world in which Orlando face off against a competent team in the first-round of playoffs and are sent packing after two quick losses in a three-game series.

And yet, the reason why they’re inside the top 10 of these rankings is because there’s something inherently beautiful about Orlando City. It’s not that they play expansive, aesthetic soccer – they don’t. It’s not that they create an overwhelming number of chances in the final third – they don’t. No, the beauty of this team is their flexibility.

Pareja wants this team to be something of a tactical chameleon, where they can use the ball and work through their smooth attacking playmakers against weaker teams and play against the ball and hit on the break against stronger teams. As an example, Orlando held 53% possession against Philadelphia on Wednesday. Against Columbus last month? They had just 41% of the ball. Orlando City will chop and change based on the situation, and it’s lovely to watch them flow from one facet of their identity to another.

Will being average-to-good at two things instead of great at one be enough in the postseason? We’ll soon find out.

Supporters’ Shield winners

5) FC Cincinnati

4) LAFC

3) LA Galaxy

2) Columbus Crew

1) Inter Miami

The opener came from Lionel Messi, who proceeded to snag a brace before the halftime whistle blew. Luis Suárez then dealt the Columbus Crew their death-blow just a few minutes into halftime.

On Wednesday night, Inter Miami completed their regular-season sweep of Wilfried Nancy’s team, claimed the top spot in the Eastern Conference, and clinched the Supporters’ Shield as MLS’s best regular season team this year. If they win their final two games, the all-time MLS points record will belong to Miami, too.

While Messi, Suárez, and the other Barcelona boys highlighted Miami’s important victory (and have highlighted this unique season for the team in pink), Inter Miami’s regular season success wouldn’t have been possible without a slew of key role players. Against the Crew, it was goalkeeper Drake Callender who came up big, saving a potential game-tying penalty from Cucho Hernandez in the 84th minute.

Without Callender’s ability to bail out his defense-optional teammates, Inter Miami wouldn’t have their hands on the Shield. The same goes for Julian Gressel’s effort-filled play on the right side. Or for Ian Fray’s reemergence at center back. Or for rookie Yannick Bright’s 1,300 productive minutes at the base of midfield.

Inter Miami’s 2024 season will be remembered for its star power – as it should. Never before have we seen an MLS team with this many big names. It’s quite possible, and maybe even likely, that we’ll never see a player of Messi’s caliber in MLS again. They’ve made history. But that history wouldn’t have been possible without players like Callender providing the platform for his big-name teammates to succeed.

Bring on the points record and bring on the playoffs.