Wasatch Soccer Sentinel

Only 10 sites published rankings following Decision Day 2024, there was no update for last week, with only 2 games played there was very little movement on team position.

A total of 19 sites were used at various times during the 2024 MLS season, two were dropped early in the season (3rd Degree & Sports Club Stats), but their rankings are still counted for the weeks they were active.

A reminder of what Power Rankings should be (not that every site does, of course):

"If two teams played tomorrow, given their current injury concerns, form, and other considerations, who is likely to win on a neutral field? All things being equal, who is the best team going forward, based on what we know now?"

— Richard Farley, NBC Sports ProSoccerTalk. March 11, 2014.

Sites Used

• Jeff Sagarin
• Who Scored
• ESPN
• Massey
• Sonny Moore Rankings
• [Betting Odds] (multiple sites, see spreadsheet)
• MLS
• Simmons Ratings
• D-Ratings
• NER Discord
• Versus Sports Simulator
• Broadway Sports
• CONCACAF Club Rankings
• The Guardian
• Tom Bogert
• Goal.com
• GOLZ TV

You may notice the inclusion of 'analytic' sites; they serve to function as a 'control group' to others which are based on opinions. There are also sites included that some will argue are 'prediction rankings' - but that also is a form of Power Ranking (see the quote at the top) since it uses algorithms to calculate a team's likely final position.

Bias for or against certain teams are sometimes an unfortunate feature of power rankings. It can be based on their analytic formula, or the raters preference. In some cases the bias can become extreme - If you feel a site got the ratings wrong for your team I invite you to contact them regarding it. Bias ratings for every site are listed below.

I will typically only remove sites for two reasons.

1. Duplicating / copying ratings from another source on the list.
2. Failure to update for 6 consecutive weeks. Previous ratings will not be removed, but new ones may or may not be added. I will still periodically check them to see if they have resumed.

All the averages use the Olympic method (I.E. Truncated Mean value) of dropping the highest and lowest scores, and then averaging the rest to reduce bias.

The full spreadsheet is here.

BREAKDOWN BY SITE The two sites that were dropped early in the season are excluded since they have no rankings beyond Wk 7. All the rest are listed below.

AVERAGE WEEKLY POSITION

Hover over any line to highlight history.

BIAS RATINGS

No site can be perfectly on average all the time, every site will naturally have a bias for or against all teams.

2024 Average Bias