It’s safe to say that MLS is nearing capacity.
Don Garber has stated that he is keen to expand beyond the 30 teams currently in the league as of 2025, but even with this being true, there is a limit to how large MLS can grow. What’s more, the league is becoming more and more difficult for new teams to compete in. The combination of huge expansion fees plus the experience and resources of the best existing teams means the barrier to entry is getting higher.
Nevertheless, there have been some astounding debut seasons by MLS expansion teams, and some of the best have come relatively recently, despite the league getting harder as time has gone on.
There have been some terrible debut seasons too of course, but today I’m going to look at the best debut seasons ever by expansion teams, ranking the top 3.
How to Measure Success
If we are going to talk about the ‘best’ debut season, then we need to establish how we measure success.
Since MLS is an ever growing league with a structure that has changed several times, some teams have had it ‘easier’ than others.
For example, there have been 16 expansion teams since the league began, and 8 have qualified for the playoffs in their debut season – that’s 50%. However, I have included Inter Miami who sort of… half made it to the playoffs thanks to the additional play-in round in the Eastern Conference that year. In another year they wouldn’t have counted.
More importantly, when Chicago Fire and Miami Fusion achieved playoff places in 1998 there were only 8 teams in each conference, and only the bottom two failed to qualify. So a massive 75% of teams got playoff places. These days, even with the Wild Card round included, just 60% of teams get playoff places, and it drops down to 46% if we only consider guaranteed places.
Bearing that in mind, using playoff qualification alone as a measure of success is hardly a fair comparison.
So what else can we use? Points scored? Win ratio? Again, with the structural changes such as the old shootout system, and expanding talent pool due to additional teams every year or so, it’s not really a good way to compare debut seasons.
In truth, there is no universally fair and accurate way to do it, so we will have to rank the ‘best’ performing teams by considering all of these factors and more. You might not agree with my choices.
One thing we can definitely use as a yardstick, though, is winning the MLS Cup, and only one expansion team has ever managed that in their debut season: Chicago Fire.
1 – Chicago Fire
Despite doing so back in 1998 when, as mentioned, the competition was easier to win, Chicago Fire remain the only MLS expansion team to ever win the MLS cup in their debut season.
Not only that, but they won the U.S Open Cup in the same season.
That has to put them top of the list.
In terms of overall standings, they came 3rd behind DC United and LA Galaxy and thus also qualified for the CONCACAF Champions League the following season. They finished the season with 56 points, 2 behind DC United but 12 behind LA Galaxy who won the Supporters’ Shield. That said, Chicago Fire beat LA Galaxy 1-0 thanks to an 86th minute goal in the first leg of the Conference Finals, and scored first in a 1-1 draw in the second leg before winning 2-1 on penalties.
Then, in the final, they beat DC United 2-0, so no one can claim they had a lucky run, because they beat their two biggest competitors fair and square.
The Fire remained a top team, regularly finishing inside the top 5 of the overall standings and qualifying for the playoffs every year until 2009.
2 – St Louis City SC
The second and third spots were much harder to decide because the story of most other playoff qualifying expansion teams is the same: barely scraping through then being eliminated in the first round.
However, St Louis City buck that trend, because although they didn’t get very far in the playoffs, they won the Western Conference in their debut season with a 56 point total. This made them the only expansion team ever to have achieved such a feat, so they have to take second place.
Those 56 points were only good enough to rank them 4th in the overall standings, perhaps highlighting the disparity between the Western and Eastern Conferences. That said, it was the second highest points total by an expansion team outside of the shootout era, and they achieved the most debut season wins, too – with 17 victories.
Their 2023 performance was good enough to bag them a CONCACAF Champions Cup place for the 2024 season, too.
3 – LAFC
In third, I have gone for Los Angeles FC.
This was the toughest one to call because Atlanta and Seattle Sounders were real contenders for the final spot too. The Sounders won the US Open Cup but their league performance wasn’t as strong, and it also came much earlier in MLS history when there was less competition and, dare I say it, the standard was not as high. Atlanta had an awesome debut season scoring more goals than any other expansion team in history, as well as beating the attendance records.
So why did I opt for LAFC instead?
Well, they beat both Seattle and Atlanta when it comes to points scored (57) and games won (16), and unlike those clubs, LAFC at least put up a bit of a fight in the playoffs. They were knocked out at the same stage but went down fighting, losing 3-2 to Real Salt Lake.
Here’s a table to help visualise LAFC’s debut season against Seattle and Atlanta’s:
| Club | Year | Points | Wins | Goals | Conference Position | Overall Ranking | Playoff Round | Playoff Result | Trophy? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seattle | 2009 | 47 | 12 | 38 | 3rd of 8 | 4th of 15 | Conference SF | Lost 1–0 on agg | U.S. Open Cup |
| Atlanta | 2017 | 55 | 15 | 70 | 4th (Eastern) | 8th | Knockout Round | Lost 0–0 (4–3 pens) | None |
| LAFC | 2018 | 57 | 16 | 68 | 3rd of 12 | 5th of 23 | Knockout Round | Lost 3–2 to RSL | None |
Bear in mind that in 2009 there was no Knockout Round in the Playoffs, it was straight to the Conference Semi Finals. So really, all clubs went out at the first stage, but only LAFC managed to score. Looking at this table, it’s easier to discard Atlanta United, so that narrows it down to two teams.
If you are sat there thinking that the 2009 season had fewer games than the 2018 season so of course the Sounders would score fewer goals and earn fewer points, you would be right. However, of the 90 points available the Sounders won 47, which is 52.22%. Of the 102 available points in the 2018 season LAFC won 57, which is 55.88%. A win for LAFC.
When it comes to goals, LAFC averaged 2 goals a game with a goal difference of +16, and Seattle Sounders averaged 1.26 goals a game with a goal difference of +9. Another win for LAFC.
Finishing 3rd of 12 is more difficult than finishing 3rd of 8, and finishing 5th of 23 is actually more difficult than finishing 4th of 15, despite being one place lower. Yet another win for LAFC.
The only area where LAFC didn’t out perform the Sounders in their debut season was their US Open Cup campaign, but even this is debateable. There were 20 MLS teams in the competition in 2018, and just 8 in 2009. What’s more, the Sounders only had to get through 3 stages to reach the final, LAFC had to get through 4, and they made it to the semi-finals so technically they went the same distance.
To be fair, the Sounders had tougher opposition in 2009, facing MLS teams at every stage, whereas LAFC defeated a couple of USL teams, but all things considered, LAFC had a ‘better’ debut season.
Honourable Mentions
I said at the beginning of this article that there were 8 teams to have made the playoffs in their debut season.
The three mentioned above are obviously included in that, but the others were:
- Miami Fusion (1998) – Finished 4th of 6 in the Eastern Conference by a single point, soundly beaten in the first round (semi-finals) of the playoffs.
- Seattle Sounders (2009) – Got 47 points to finish 4th in overall rankings and 3rd in their conference. They won the US Open Cup beating 4 MLS clubs along the way, but limped out in the first round of the Playoffs without scoring a single goal.
- Atlanta United FC (2017) – Atlanta United set a record for the most goals scored by an expansion team in their debut season, finding the net 70 times in the regular season. This got them to 4th place in the Eastern Conference and in the overall rankings, meaning they outperformed every club in the Western Conference. Their playoff campaign never got past the first hurdle, though.
- Nashville SC (2020) – An unusual debut season since the league was suspended during the COVID-19 lockdown, but nevertheless, Nashville finished 7th in the Eastern Conference and 14th overall. They got through the first round of the playoffs but fell at the Conference Semi-Finals. They didn’t compete in the MLS is Back Tournament because several of their players contracted COVID.
- Inter Miami (2020) – Despite finishing 10th of 14 in the Eastern Conference, Miami ended up in that weird play-in round that occurred in 2020, but didn’t progress to the Playoffs proper as they were beaten by Nashville SC. They also finished bottom of their group in the MLS is Back Tournament so failed to progress to the knockout stage.
If anyone is wondering where Houston Dynamo are, then let me explain.
I haven’t included them, because they were not a true expansion team. San Jose Earthquakes were essentially picked up and moved to Houston to become Houston Dynamo, with the same coaching staff and players. The history and logo of San Jose Earthquakes did not follow them (which is why San Jose Earthquakes re-joined MLS 2 seasons later), but all the performance based elements remained.
The team was already one of the best in the league before the move, so including them in a list of top debut seasons would not reflect reality.