A week removed from breaking down the best teams in the Eastern Conference ahead of Major League Soccer’s 29th season, we close out our preview coverage with a look at the West.
Let’s break down the favorites, contenders and a sleeper.
FAVORITES: Seattle Sounders FC, LAFC
Seattle Sounders FC
The Seattle Sounders will always be a favorite. That’s just the culture that’s built and the sustainable success that’s cultivated in the Pacific Northwest.
The question around Seattle last year and into the offseason was whether the championship window had closed or is closing for their core. When injuries creep up, and they have often for the likes of Raul Ruidiaz, Jordan Morris and Cristian Roldan, the Sounders look like a shell of their dominant selves.
Part of that championship core is gone with club legend Nico Lodeiro departing in free agency, signing with Orlando City. The Uruguayan playmaker had 41 goals and 80 assists in 191 matches for the Sounders.
Of course, Lodeiro’s departure opened the door for Pedro de la Vega’s arrival from Lanus. The 23-year-old had 17 goals and 14 assists in 127 matches for the Argentine side and should provide a fresh spark on attack. He already scored his first goal from the penalty spot in a season-opening defeat to LAFC.
LAFC
LAFC are another team that should permanently be in the upper echelon of the Western Conference. And after back-to-back MLS Cup finals, they should contend for a third in a row.
Like Seattle, there are some big names who departed with Giorgio Chiellini announcing his retirement, Carlos Vela out of contract and Maxime Crepeau and Kellyn Acosta finding new MLS homes.
But there’s always ambition and a willingness to spend at LAFC so in comes Hugo Lloris, a legendary goalkeeper at Tottenham Hotspur who helped lead France to the World Cup title in 2018.
He’s joined by Omar Campos, who signed from Liga MX side Santos Laguna to replace Diego Palacios as starting left back after the Ecuador international left for Corinthians in Brazil, as well as 18-year-old Venezuelan winger David Martinez. And Eduard Atuesta is back in LA on a season-long loan from Brazilian top flight side Palmeiras. The 26-year-old was an MLS Best XI selection in 2019 and an MLS All-Star in 2021.
Atuesta will slot right into a midfield with Timothy Tillman, Ilie Sanchez and Mateusz Bogusz, while Denis Bouanga is the reigning Golden Boot winner after 20g/7a last season.
CONTENDERS: St. Louis CITY SC, FC Dallas, Houston Dynamo FC
St. Louis CITY SC
What an opening statement from St Louis CITY SC, who set all kinds of records and finished atop the Western Conference as an expansion team last year.
What’s the encore? Well, St. Louis is largely running it back this year with little change to a high-pressing, high-energy squad.
Back are core pieces in goalkeeper Roman Burki, the MLS Goalkeeper of the Year, defender Tim Parker, midfielder Eduard Lowen and forwards Joao Klauss and Sam Adeniran. And St. Louis is one of those teams who seem to find magic up and down their roster with MLS SuperDraft pick Hosei Kijima coming off the bench to score the late winner in the club’s first-ever Concacaf Champions Cup match.
A concern is they hugely overperformed their xG and expected points number a year ago. Will there be a regression to the mean?
FC Dallas
They didn’t quite have the overhaul of an offseason the Colorado Rapids did, but Dallas did splash the cash to upgrade their attack and Nico Estevez is changing his tactics as well. They brought in Petar Musa for a reported club-record fee of $9.7 million from Portuguese powerhouse Benfica. The Croatian international striker had 17 goals and 5 assists in 66 matches for Benfica and his arrival should allow for Jesus Ferreira to thrive on the wing.
Dallas also brought in Enes Sali, a 17-year-old winger from FCV Farul Constanța in Romania’s top flight and brought back Dante Sealy after not panning out at PSV Eindhoven. The homegrown striker turned wingback, still just 20, made an immediate impact in his return, scoring the stoppage-time winner in a 2-1 season-opening win over the San Jose Earthquakes.
"He's adapting to a new position that he can fit very well, and I think this new formation is helping him to shine," Estévez said after the match. "He's doing a really good job because we've been working with him during the whole preseason, but we have a lot of time to keep working with him."
Houston Dynamo FC
Houston were one of the big success stories of 2023, a club that went from perennially missing the MLS Cup playoffs to reaching the Western Conference final in Ben Olsen’s first season as head coach.
Like St. Louis, it’s all about the encore for the Dynamo, who will have to navigate the injury bug early in the season with influential midfielder Hector Herrera and fellow Designated Player Sebastian Ferreira both out to start the season. They join Colombian forward Nelson Quinones, who is out for the season with a knee injury on a team that already doesn’t have a ton of depth.
But Houston does have Coco Carrasquilla, who is one of the most electric, and perhaps underrated, players in the league and brought in Jan Gregus as midfield depth. And although it’s been a quiet transfer window, it’s one that’s not closed yet and Houston ownership have the means and the mechanism (open DP spot) to spend on a difference-maker.
SLEEPER: Portland Timbers
Portland Timbers
There’s a few potential sleepers in the West — the Colorado Rapids, Vancouver Whitecaps, LA Galaxy and Minnesota United among them. But we’ll go out to the Pacific Northwest where we think the Timbers will have a bounce back year.
Phil Neville is the new coach after his midseason departure in Miami last year preceded the arrival of Lionel Messi in South Beach. And he is touting a “new era” in Portland.
“We're almost resetting the culture in a way,” Neville said after a season-opening 4-1 win over the Rapids. “I felt tonight there was a different feeling to the whole stadium. It was almost like there was a reset. There was a freshness. This is a new era.”
The Timbers were MLS Cup finalists in 2021 and 2018, but were ousted in the opening round in 2019 and 2020 and didn’t qualify for the postseason a year ago, with the club parting ways with former head coach Giovanni Savarese.
In comes Neville, who made an upgrade in the back with goalkeeper the arrival of Crepeau and fellow Canadian international defender Kamal Miller and have two open DP spots to find game-changers. Midfielder Eryk Williamson is healthy again after a pair of ACL injuries and scored his first goal since May 1, 2021 in that season-opening win.
That was a victory without Evander, Felipe Mora and Claudio Bravo, who all started the season on the injured list.
