Your Monday Kickoff: Which Western Conference teams could win MLS Cup?

RSL take down LAFC

Chicho Arango found the net in the 72nd minute to push RSL past LAFC in a 1-0 win. RSL jumped to second place in the West with the win while LAFC ended the weekend in fourth place, just three points ahead of eighth-place San Jose.

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If we’re going off points, Nashville, the seventh-place team in the East and a Leagues Cup finalist, would be fourth in the West and one point out of second with a game in hand. There’s a bit of a gap here: If Inter Miami win the Wild Card game with a healthy Lionel Messi available, it’s fair to say every Eastern Conference playoff team would be favored in MLS Cup except for a few instances where St. Louis might get the nod.

But, in the end, MLS Cup is one game. Anything can happen in one game. All you really have to do is make it there… and then probably play the game of your life or have the luckiest day of your life or both. It can happen though! All you have to do is get there. The question is, who’s got enough in them to emerge from the rubble and make it to the end? Someone has to. And we can’t just point to St. Louis and call it a day. That’s not how the playoffs work.

Let's explore each probable Western Conference playoff team and try to determine what their MLS Cup timeline actually looks like.

FC Dallas have spent the last few weeks proving they can compete against the best teams in the league. They haven’t proven they can beat the best teams in the league, though. The last six games have included draws against Atlanta, Seattle, Columbus, Philadelphia and post-US Open Cup Houston. They did pull off a win against a spiraling RSL team in that span. Their last loss came against St. Louis over a month ago.

Even if it doesn’t seem like they have the juice to win outright over the course of 90 minutes against multiple upper-tier teams, they don’t need to in a playoff format. Penalty shootouts are remarkably winnable. There is a world where Dallas come in on the road against these Western Conference teams, put in a professional shift, get some moments of brilliance from Jesús Ferreira and Alan Velasco, and either win a close one or survive in penalties. That’s not a surefire formula for a playoff run, but it is a plausible route.

Ok, I’m honestly not sure what the Quakes’ route is here. They’ve spent the last few months feeling like they should be getting better results and then not doing that. They’ve won three times in the last 15 regular-season games. That’s not the kind of stretch that inspires a lot of confidence for the playoffs. 

But we’re here to dream. And those dreams involve attackers Cristian Espinoza and Jeremy Ebobisse plus the goalkeeper, Daniel, getting hot at just the right time and elevating the team to the point where their flaws aren’t nearly as apparent over the course of the next couple of months. Like, extremely hot. It’s a long shot.

The Timbers just have to go out there and do whatever the Timbers did to get to the last two MLS Cups they participated in. Seems easy enough. All they need to do is get hot at the right time and just do… ya know… Timbers things. I’m honestly not really sure how to explain it, but sometimes the Timbers just win a bunch and all you can do is sit back and accept it.

Kind of like exactly what they’re doing right now. Interim (probably permanent if he keeps this up) manager Miles Joseph took off the restrictor plates and let the group play a little more actual soccer, and it’s paying dividends. I don’t know if they’ll have the firepower or defensive solidity to make it all the way through a playoff field, but I’ve learned my lesson over the last few years. There’s no reason to assume Portland are dead until there’s an official time of death. Even then, it’s ok to be skeptical.

They might have to win a handful of 4-3 games to get there, but they’re definitely capable of that.

Just like everything else this year, it depends on Brian White and Ryan Gauld. If they’re at their best in the playoffs, the Whitecaps are as good as anybody. But they need both to be at their best at the same time, and they need that rising tide to lift all boats. The Whitecaps haven’t been able to find consistency all season despite solid underlying numbers and a talented roster. It wouldn’t be so hard to believe in them if they stopped giving us reasons to doubt.

Still, if you’re looking for something close to a dark horse in the West, the 'Caps are a great pick. It feels like they’re a step away at any moment from everything clicking.

This one’s easy. All they have to do is keep playing how they’re playing. They survived their first post-US Open Cup hangover game against FC Dallas and earned a draw. They have highly winnable games against CF Montréal and Colorado this week. Then they get a break before they close the year against Portland. That sets up nicely for them to earn a home playoff spot. 

This Houston team with a few playoff home games feels very dangerous in the West. Yes, there are concerns about a lack of bonafide matchwinners, but the goal-by-committee approach hasn’t failed them much lately. Considering their form compared to everyone in front of them, it wouldn’t be wild to think of them as the second-most likely team to make it through the West at this point.

This is where the West gets really, really weird. How confident is anyone in this Seattle team? There’s no way around it, they’ve been wholly mediocre for the majority of the season. The underlying numbers have been there. The ability to put together a complete game hasn’t been. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense considering who we’re talking about, but that’s where we are.

Since a 3-0 win over St. Louis on April 8, the Sounders have been on a 1.32 points-per-game pace. That’s essentially FC Dallas’ and San Jose’s season-long pace. It’s been uninspiring, to say the least. But maybe they get healthy enough to start looking cohesive over the last few games here? Maybe they get Raúl Ruidíaz back to looking like Raúl Ruidíaz? Maybe they just continue to have the West’s best defense and win every game 1-0 or via shootout? It’s all on the table. Although it’s the last option that feels most likely.

It’s… uh… kind of a mess right now. They can clearly make it through this conference, but there’s little reason for confidence in that other than the brand. Take away the logo and the name and you’d see as middling a team as any in the West right now. We’re talking eight points over the last eight games since Leagues Cup. Their two wins came over LA and Colorado. They haven’t given us much reason to believe in them for a while.

And as I’m writing that, I’m realizing, for some reason, the perceptions around the teams below the home playoff line in the West are better than most of the teams above it right now. We’ve talked before about the gravity of the MLS standings. It’s always pulling teams back to the center of the table and very few teams escape it.

In this case, that gravity is leading us to a point where all the lower-seeded teams are getting hot down the stretch and all the higher-seeded teams are stumbling. This could be an all-time mess of a playoff bracket if things keep trending this way. I’m envisioning a world where all the lower seeds advance past Round One and it’s not very hard to do. I’m just saying.

Hey speaking of higher-seeded teams spiraling…

To be fair, RSL have pulled out of a tailspin over the last two games. It wasn’t pretty before that, but they’ve taken down Vancouver and LAFC in the past weeks and maybe, just maybe, righted their course. If they’ve finally figured out how to exist without Pablo Ruiz, we know they can be dangerous. Chicho Arango’s presence alone makes them a threat to take down any team at any moment. But still, there’s a lot left to prove. Are these last two wins the new norm or a blip of luck?

And finally, we reach the only Western Conference team worthy of your confidence. And… well, uh, I’m still not entirely sure how confident we can be. They’ve clearly been the best team over the course of the season and have been obliterating their opponents every other week. That’s how we’ve reached a point where they have the only double-digit goal differential (22) in a conference where the second-place team has a -2 GD.

That said… I don’t know y’all, the playoffs are hard. Things happen. And it’s not like teams built in the high-pressing, Red Bulls-esque mold have thrived in the postseason.

St. Louis are the clear favorite to advance to MLS Cup, though. It’s frankly not even close. In a weird way, that’s what worries me. MLS is going to MLS. And in one of the strangest years for a conference I can remember, it feels like the outcomes you least expect in the postseason will be the ones that feel normal by the end.

• Matt Doyle’s Sunday column is up and good.
• Cincinnati celebrated their Shield win with fans at the airport.
• Take a look at which teams have qualified for Concacaf Champions Cup 2024.

Good luck out there. Be above it all.