The Nutmeg News is proud to debut their "Official North American Soccer Power Rankings" for first kick of Major League Soccer in 2015.
Today's Power Rankings have been studiously poured over by at least three drunk, unpaid interns who will be getting fired immediately after this column has been published.
As well, we would like to announce our partnership with Castor Oil, who is a proud sponsor of The Nutmeg News since July 3rd 1885.
"Castor Oil, When you need to poop and only a remedy from the 1700's will do"
and now, without further ado.
The Nutmeg News Castor Oil North American Soccer Power Rankings
As not one single game has been played, these rankings have been sorted by a coefficient of "smug"
#1 - LA Galaxy - No club is more smug than that which just won the championship.
#2 - Seattle Sounders - Second in the smug rankings, they think they invented smug in 2009. Clint Dempsey has a sponsorship with smug and "emaciated eye", a makeup that makes men look like they haven't eaten or slept in over 6 weeks.
#3 Montreal Impact - French Canadian? SMUG
#4 Portland Timbers - Timbers fans could also make the bottom of this list because they seem to vacillate between insanely extreme amounts of smug and insanely extreme amounts of self loathing.
#5 FC Dallas - Have you ever BEEN to Dallas? University Park? So much smug you can scrape it off the streets. Even if those people don't care about the team, it infects the ethos of their club with straight up smugnitactity.
#6 Orlando City SC - Kaka. Bros. Disney. Bros. "firms". There's more smug here than an AO convention at a gun show in South Carolina.
#7 New England Revolution - You make the final game of the season possible and you get smug. It is not necessarily an intense smug, but rather a locally sourced smug residual left over from the Red Sox who play 23 miles away.
#8 D.C. United - Theirs is an old smug, but still valid. Some of the preceding seasons have tamped down the smug considerably but it is still there to view.
#9 Real Salt Lake - This position for SLC is the upset of the entire smug matrix. Religious smug far outweighs any other kind of smug, but due to a variety of reasons including TNN reporters being paid off (PAYOLA) and then dropping the ball on the rankings, SLC slipped to #9. Not COOL RSL. #SMUG.
#10 San Jose Earthquakes - The Earthquakes have no earthly reason to be smug, Their team has been terrible in recent times and they look to have a questionable season ahead. However, when you are one of the few teams that ended up with multiple fans in a violence based court date, your smug abilities no know bounds.
#11 Sporting Kansas City - They won MLS Cup and their food is pretty great. Small Smug. They also have a capo who dresses like Jesus. Big Smug. [guy fieri wrap up] all in all, this smug hits the spot if you are looking for a 2000 calorie meal, so come on down to Liverstrong, er.... Sporting Park and EAT EAT EAT.[/gfwu]
#12 Columbus Crew SC - Their smug comes from an age old battle between "The right way to support" "The wrong way to support" and winning an MLS cup with "Sigi Schmid (if that is his real name)" Strong Handed Anti-Capo, pro TifoSweat Smug
#13 New York City FC - They were going to be higher up on the list, but they tried to get their smug on loan from Barcelona and it signed a contract with Manchester City instead.
#14 Houston Dynamo - Cubo Torres aside, this club hit on hard times last season struggling greatly. Their smug has been tampered by the Houston smog. Smug Smog as it were.
#15 Vancouver Whitecaps - Non majority French Canadians? Limited amount of smug. (except for the Canuck crossover in their crowd.) They are even polite in their tifo.
#16 Philadelphia Union - This team should be one of the club leaders in smug if it wasn't for their perpetually clownshoes ownership. Instead, they've put their smug into a 5 year bond in hopes that it will be twice the size when they stop signing goal keepers.
#17 Toronto FC - This organization is waiting to explode with smug. They've been on so many bad dates that it seems impossible that they will ever use their smug at this point.
#18 Chicago Fire - A once proud club at the beginning, Andrew Hauptman has removed all the smug and sold it as diversified stock options on the market to make another $100,000 dollars.
#19 Colorado Rapids - It is hard to even consider being smug when your owner probably doesn't even know you exist. If Stan Kroenke suspected that this club had smug he would have his wife sell it in wal-mart for discounted prices and underpay all the people that did so by 50%
#20 Red Bull New York - Smug? Petke? Ali Curtis hoovered up the smug into his plan and is waiting to jam it back into the faces of the respective fan groups in Harrison, if and when the team starts winning of course. Is their smug coefficient higher than other teams on the list? YES. Is their smug, however, way... way, WAY too low for a team purportedly from New York? YES. Is asking and then answering questions a cheap way to write? ABSOLUTELY.