Joe's 2024 MLS Prediction Sheet
Very quickly, right at the buzzer, here's what I think will happen so that you can point and laugh at me when it doesn't happen like this
Again, for I’m putting far more faith in Dallas and Vancouver than I probably should. If they disappoint me again this year, I’m going to put them both at the bottom of the West. I think Seattle’s going to have enough depth and continuity to run through a relatively weakened Western conference, while the East’s best are all probably going to get a bit run down due to Concacaf fatigue and struggle to catch up. I worry a little about Miami due to fatigue and injury issues, but they’re deep enough to stay afloat as one of the league’s best even if that catches up with them.
Orlando is such a well-constructed team, they remind me a bit of the 2021 NYCFC squad — Battle-tested over years of getting close but losing in big games, who overcame a relatively low playoff seed with clutch goal-scoring from young forwards, and great defending and goalkeeping from their veterans.
I was between Monterrey and America for Leagues Cup, I just think the Liga MX teams are going to come in furious to this year’s tournament after how last year went. America’s been smothering everyone defensively to start out the Clausura (though the trip down to play their first CCC round in Nicaragua seems to have damaged their mojo in recent weeks), which should serve them well in a single-elimination tournament.
Miami’s going to turn their focus towards Concacaf and qualifying for the 2025 Club World Cup early on. I put next-to-no thought towards the USOC prediction, it’s hard enough to predict as it is, and the fact that we don’t even know which MLS clubs will participate makes that even tougher. I though it’d be kind of funny to put one of the independent Next Pro teams down for it, though it looks like Jacksonville Armada’s not playing in Next Pro until next season… But anything can happen in the US Open Cup!
Finally, for the mid-table shuffles: Colorado and Chicago’s pragmatic in-league shuffling will pay off in a playoff qualification for both, Minnesota’s roster is good enough that they’ll grow into having a new coach, and Gary Smith loses the room in Nashville. I worry that I’ll regret the Houston, RSL, and Portland placements, though I could see basically every slot beneath my top 3 in flux in the West. The East had such a defined upper echelon in their top seven last season, and that continues here — I have Miami and NYCFC replacing Nashville and New England this year. NYCFC’s youth could crater them as much as it could propel them, but I’m buying while their stock’s still low.
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This is going to be a fun year — at least, I’m going to commit to having fun, even with all of the controversy swirling around the league at the moment. I’d like to keep something like the Watch Grids going, though a re-shuffling of my work and life commitments (all of them positive changes) made it much more difficult and much less fun to come up with 3000+ words on the upcoming matches each week by the year’s end. I also have season tickets for Sporting this year, which will affect the way that I see the upcoming weekends. Regardless, I look forward to whatever this year brings!