America likes to do things its own way.
If you look at the league table for almost every professional soccer league worldwide you know what to expect. Relegation for those at the bottom, and promotion or trophies for those at the top.
The MLS league table is different.
Since Major League Soccer has a regular season and a post-season, the regular season is all about qualifying for the post season. There is no relegation from the league either, so teams that don’t do well simply sit it out.
For anyone familiar with soccer but new to MLS, there will be some key differences when looking at the standings. They aren’t hard to understand, but certain features may baffle you.
What does that line mean? Why are there two different tables? What does PPG stand for?
I’ll answer all this and more below.
Understanding the Official MLS Table
If you are based in the UK and search for ‘MLS table’ or ‘Major League soccer table’, you will see Google’s own interpretation at the top of the list. This will likely display the standings in a format you are already familiar with because Google is good like that.
However, if you look at the official table on the MLS website, things will be a little different.
First, more detail is contained here than in most other tables, and second, the layout has been altered.
Have a look at this:
(The Western Conference is displayed in exactly the same way as the Eastern Conference.)
Right away, you will notice that Points is the first bit of information displayed next to each team. It’s the most important information so it makes sense to have it in the most prominent position – I don’t understand why other leagues take a different approach.
Next you can see ‘PPG’. This stands for ‘points per game’, and is a good way of quickly indicating the disparity between two teams. For example, if you saw a team with a 1.86 point average one place above a team with a 1.22 point average, you understand that even though they are next to each other in the table the gap between them is much wider than it seems.
We now see some more familiar sites. Games Played (GP), Wins (W), Losses (L), and… Ties (T). You might be used to seeing a D for Draw here, but T is the letter they use instead because in America they call a draw a tie.
Goals For (GF), Goals Against (GA) and Goal Difference (GD) should be familiar to you, which just leaves us with the Home and Away columns. These show the W-L-T record at home and away at that point in the season. So 7-7-3 represents seven wins, seven losses, and three ties. This clearly shows how well teams are playing at their own stadiums as opposed to when they are on the road. A useful snapshot, especially for anyone who might be researching a bet, for example.
There is also something missing – or at least there is if you are used to looking at a European football table – current form. Usually, you can see the results of the past 5 games for each team displayed using a traffic lights system, but not here. The Home and Away record is in place of this, and you might argue it is more useful too.
That’s it. The MLS league table may look a little unusual to those used to European soccer, but for good reasons. The league table has been designed to reflect American soccer’s own unique structure.
Why are There Two Tables?
There are two tables because MLS has an Eastern Conference and a Western Conference. Both work in exactly the same way.
It takes more than 6 hours to fly from New York to California. Having two conferences prevents the insane amounts of travel clubs would otherwise suffer. It also means a larger number of teams can compete in the league.
These two conferences provide the basis for the whole structure of the league. By definition, this means they also dictate the structure of the MLS league table.
Table Structure
There are lots of international club competitions around the world. Clubs gain entry into these competitions based on their performance in domestic leagues, so the league table structure reflects that.
To take one example, the Premier League in England displays the top 4 finishers as distinct from the rest because they get to compete in the following year’s Champions League. This is denoted by a coloured bracket at the side of the table or sometimes by a horizontal dotted line.
Major League standings are displayed in a different way because their regular season is set up to decide who qualifies for the post season playoffs. The table needs to reflect the league’s most important aspects, and for MLS, that is the playoffs.
You will see dotted horizontal lines on the Major League Soccer table, effectively grouping the teams. Use the image above for reference.
The line underneath the team in 9th position shows the cut off point for winning a playoff position. So any team underneath that line has missed out and will not take part in the playoffs. So finishing in 10th place or below means the end of your season.
The next line underneath the team in 7th position creates a grouping for the teams ranked 8th and 9th. These two clubs will compete in the wild card round of the playoffs, with the winners progressing to Round 1, also known as the Best of Three Series.
The final line is underneath the team in 4th place. This creates a grouping of 4 teams at the top of the table, and the 3 teams in 5th, 6th and 7th place. These teams all enter the playoffs in Round 1 along with the winner of the wildcard round. However, the top 4 finishers each play one of the next 4 finishers and they get a home advantage. This means that if three games are needed to decide the winner of the Round (or series), the top 4 team will get that extra game on home turf. So the teams above that final horizontal line get favourable treatment during the playoffs.
CONCACAF Champions Cup Qualification
To a point, each team’s finishing position can impact if and how they qualify for the CONCACAF Cup. This isn’t displayed on the Major League Soccer table in any way, but their placing is important.
There are several ways MLS teams can qualify for the CONCACAF Champions Cup:
- MLS Cup Winner
- MLS Cup Runner Up
- US Open Cup Winner
- Supporters Shield Placings
- Leagues Cup Placings
The US Open has nothing to do with a team’s position in the league. League placings won’t help a team get to the MLS Cup final either, other than getting them into the playoffs. All MLS clubs enter the Leagues Cup so that’s not based on league placings.
However, league placings do count when it comes to the Supporters Shield qualifying spots.
The team with the best regular season record wins the Supporters Shield and get a CONCACAF Champions Cup spot. However, the Supporters Shield standings are used to fill the remaining qualifying spots.
If a team qualifies twice, by winning the US Open and the Supporters Shield, for example, they don’t need both those spots. So one will go to the next best finisher in the Supporters Shield standings who is not already qualified. This can lead to teams qualifying for the CONCACAF Champions Cup who didn’t win anything, weren’t runners up, and didn’t even finish in a top 2 spot.
In 2024, Real Salt Lake got a place in the competition and they finished 3rd in their conference and 6th in the Supporters Shield standings. So finishing position in the regular season tables can be important outside of the playoffs too.