Your Wednesday Kickoff: Can the West catch up to the East in 2024? | MLSSoccer.com – MLSsoccer.com

Good, glad we could get that out of the way. Big shoutout to Betteridge’s law of headlines for helping us out there. That’s our show folks, we’ll see some of you tomorrow. You can stop here if you want, but the rest of us are going to hang around to talk this out a little more.

We talked about this a lot last year. The gap between the Eastern Conference and Western Conference would have killed Evel Knievel if he tried to jump it. Based on points alone, sixth-place Atlanta United would have finished tied for top four out West. If they had played a full Western Conference schedule, they likely would have finished even higher. And Atlanta looked incredibly mid for 80% of the season.

When it came down to MLS Cup between each conference’s third seed, it felt like LAFC had a shot because they’re LAFC. Realistically, the Crew were far and away the better side at that point. If it had been any other team besides LAFC, there wouldn’t have even been a pause in picking Columbus. Honestly, it would have been hard to consider any non-LAFC team in the West a favorite against the majority of the Eastern Conference playoff teams.

That’s a little harsh and clearly based on highly subjective opinions and hypotheticals. Welcome to The Daily Kickoff. Our power comes from the fact you technically can’t prove us wrong. So, let’s take it one step further and put the 2023 West up against the 2023 East on a neutral field in a Best of 1001 series. Here’s how we envision the results…

Final tally here: East wins 8-6. Five of the West’s six wins came in spots eight through 13. And they really only got a win before that based on Seattle having better underlying numbers than Orlando and because I kind of felt bad. That one was a toss-up. Same for SKC over New York. A few tweaks here and there and we could have easily been at 10-4.

Right now, with the full understanding that most everyone’s rosters are incomplete, it doesn’t feel like the gap has closed this offseason. It’s been a quiet month out West. And even LAFC, who are as sure a bet as any, have serious flaws they still need to address. There are questions along the back line after the departure of Giorgio Chiellini and Diego Palacios. We don’t know what level Hugo Lloris will be at in goal. A midfield that struggled last year feels paper thin. Carlos Vela may not be around. And things are reportedly getting weird with Denis Bouanga’s future. They have a ton of work to do.

The fallback here, of course, is Seattle. And even though it’s fair to feel good about their roster and their new probable DP signing, Pedro de la Vega, we don’t know how the 22-year-old will take to the league and we don’t know if he’ll be the answer to their issues in attack. No one is a sure thing in this conference.

If it sounds like we’re complaining, that’s only because that’s our default. Trust me when I say we’re excited to see if an entire conference can finish within six points of each other from top to bottom. Honestly, we’re getting a little emotional just thinking about it. We have no idea what’s going to happen, but it seems like extreme parity is going to be the norm in the West this year.

At least for now. There’s still a long way to go this offseason.