Major League Soccer has been through an awful lot of development since the first season back in 1996.
An almost constant trickle of expansion teams has joined the league, seeing it grow from 10 to 30 teams, and it’s fair to say that some of them have had better starts than others. Some of the most successful debut seasons from expansion teams have resulted in trophies, while some of the worst debut seasons have resulted in embarrassment, and in one case the team even went on to fold.
It is the MLS expansion teams with the worst debut seasons I am going to be exploring today. Those that started the season full of hope and optimism, but ended it slumped at the bottom of the table, exhausted and demoralised.
I am going to find the top three worst debut seasons in MLS history.
How to Measure Failure
There have been some absolutely disastrous debut seasons in Major League Soccer, so in order to pick the very worst of them, I will have to set out my criteria. In other words, how to measure failure.
This is tricky because MLS has grown so much over the years. Formats have changed, the league has tripled in size in terms of the number of clubs, and the strength of the competition has intensified over time. This means an expansion team in 1998 would have had a very different experience to an expansion team in 2025, for example.
I can’t simply look at finishing position because:
- A – More than three teams have finished bottom or joint bottom of their conference in their debut season
- B – A team finishing bottom in a very tough season might actually have a better record than a team finishing bottom in a much easier season
I can’t judge it solely on points scored or goal difference, because the number of matches played per season has changed over time, and therefore so has the number of opportunities to win points and score or concede goals.
The fairest way to do it is to look at the percentage of available points each team won. You might also call it a points per game percentage. I will then consider things like finishing position and any particularly terrible losing runs or internal disasters as secondary factors.
With that nice and clear, let’s see the top 3 worst debut seasons in MLS history.
1. Chivas (2005)
Top spot goes to Chivas. There are no two ways about it – their debut season was a complete disaster.
They finished the season with just 18 points from 32 games – that’s just 18.75% of the available points. A shocking statistic and still one of the worst records ever. To put things into perspective, Columbus Crew finished bottom of the other conference, and they had 38 points.
It wasn’t just the points though, the goal difference was inexcusable. With 67 goals conceded and just 31 goals scored, Chivas were left with a goal difference of -36! Another stat that is still one of the worst in MLS history.
Things went so bad, so fast, that Chivas head coach, Thomas Rongen, was sacked after just 10 games. The team had suffered eight losses, a draw, and a win – although the win came against Real Salt Lake who also feature on this list, so that was no real achievement.
The team only managed four wins all season, and were also dumped out of the US Open Cup in the 4th round. They went through an interim manager while Rongen was replaced, but the new full time head coach, Hans Westerhof, was replaced at the end of the 2005 season too. Three head coaches in a single season…
Chivas had a very brief period in 2007 and 2008 when it looked like they may have been growing into the league, but things fell apart again and the club folded in 2014.
2. Real Salt Lake (2005)
There was obviously something in the air in the Western Conference in 2005, because Real Salt Lake also debuted that year and had a truly horrible season.
They didn’t come bottom of the conference or of the overall standings, but that’s only because Chivas did even worse. In any other season Real Salt Lake would have been bottom of the pack. This is evidenced by their terrible points percentage of 20.83% – a tally of just 20 points. They won just 5 games all season, scoring 30 goals and conceding 65, giving them a goal difference of -35.
These are both in the top 10 of record lows in the history of MLS.
Their numbers are almost identical to those of Chivas, who were in the same conference. The other four teams in the Western Conference must have been having a field day playing Chivas and Real Salt Lake.
In 2009, RSL surprised everyone and won the MLS Cup, despite only scraping through to the playoffs on goal difference. It is their only trophy to date as of 2026.
3. FC Cincinnati (2019)
Hot on the heels of Real Salt Lake, albeit 14 years later, FC Cincinnati take third place for worst debut seasons with 25.53% of the available points. That gave them a tally of 24 points at the end of the season.
Of course, in 2019 the league was much deeper, the season was two games longer, but you can’t argue with those percentage figures, and 25.53% lands them firmly in top 3 worst debut season territory.
They ended the season bottom of the Eastern Conference and bottom of the overall standings with an absolutely horrendous goal record. They found the net just 31 times in 34 games, but conceded 75, giving them a goal difference of -44. This is still the worst goal record ever in the history of Major League Soccer, for all teams in all seasons.
The club stuck with manager Ron Jans throughout, despite the poor results, but he resigned during the off season in 2020 after allegations about a racial slur. The club continued their poor form into the next two seasons, before turning things around in 2023.
Other Honourable Mentions
There are two more teams that almost made it onto the top 3 worst debut seasons list, and they are Toronto FC and Vancouver Whitecaps.
- Vancouver Whitecaps (2011) – The Whitecaps won just 27.45% of the points available to them in their debut season, for a grand total of 28 points. They had the worst regular season record in the whole league, but were slightly unlucky to come bottom. New England Revolution had the same number of points and even the same goal difference (-20), but scored 3 more goals: 38 compared with 35.
- Toronto FC (2007) – With just 25 points on the board, Toronto FC finished bottom of the regular season rankings as well as bottom of their conference. They managed a points percentage of 27.78% though, which is why they escaped the top 3 on this page. Still, as debut seasons go, especially factoring in their -24 goal difference, this was a disaster.
Plenty of other teams have had poor starts, like Philadelphia Union in 2010 and Minnesota United in 2017, but as bad as they were, they didn’t embarrass themselves to the level that the teams on this list did.