About the Rankings

What are these rankings?

These are weekly power rankings for every Major League Soccer team, computed from match results using a statistical model.

How do they work?

Each team's weekly score is a blend of two components:

• Elo ratings — A dynamic rating that adjusts after every match. At the start of each season, teams are seeded based on their final regular-season standings from the prior year — that seed naturally fades as new results come in. A machine-learning model trained in-house on nine seasons of MLS data produces match-outcome probabilities that replace the standard Elo expected-score formula, improving how the system measures the surprise value of each result.
• Opponent-weighted goal differential— Goal differential in each match, weighted by the opponent's current Elo rating. Beating a strong team by a wide margin counts more than the same scoreline against a weaker one.

Both components are smoothed using a graph-based algorithm that propagates information through the match network. Only current-season matches are used, weighted by recency so that recent results matter more. The prior season's influence enters solely through the Elo seed, which decays over the same rolling window.

When are they updated?

Rankings are recalculated weekly during the MLS regular season, every Monday at noon UTC.