San Jose Earthquakes dominate weekly MLS Power Rankings

Don’t believe what they say: It is never lonely at the top. And as final tickets are sold for their first round playoff game at tiny Buck Shaw Stadium, the San Jose Earthquakes welcome everyone in the Bay Area to join them in celebrating their status as the finest team in all the land.

And we are not just referring to a status born from such objective measures as points earned and placement in the regular season standings. No, we are talking about the best measures for determining the best team in all MLS — the plethora of peremptory Power Rankings!

Never a perfunctory exercise in platitudinous punditry, purposeful Power Rankings rapturously realize the ruthless from the run-of-the-mill. And which team sits unanimously at the apex of every rankings list in the league? Why, none other than the San Jose Earthquakes.

Staying close to home, the writers here at SB Nation took time out of their busy weekend gearing up for the big website redesign and expertly picked the best from the rest in MLS. The two conference leaders share the top two spots — no surprise there — but San Jose continues to put some distance between them and Sporting Kansas City in the race to be the SBN rankings leader.

Over on the MLS mothership, the Earthquakes continue their dominance at the top. The Chicago Fire and LA Galaxy are closing in, but the race to finish the season with the Supporters’ Shield winning best record in MLS looks a virtual certainty to go the way of San Jose. They also set the record straight on the silly notion that the Earthquakes are a one-man team. Sure, Chris Wondolowski is grabbing all the headlines as of late, but we all know better than that.

Venerable. Sports Illustrated keeps it really simple in its rankings this week, breaking out the thesaurus for some one-word descriptions of the 19 MLS teams in the list. For San Jose? Worthy.

Kyle McCarthy checks in with the Goal.com Power Rankings and places San Jose number one. He even gives a Goonies reference for the "never say die" Earthquakes. With San Jose’s stirring comeback draw against Portland still fresh in everyone’s mind, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Local legendary soccer scribe Ridge Mahoney knows a thing or two about rankings, and in his Soccer America list he praises the Earthquakes for their humbling defeat of Seattle over the weekend. He’s also the first one on this list to remind us all that San Jose can clinch the top spot in the Western Conference with a win against FC Dallas this Saturday night at Buck Shaw. Be sure to bring some champagne along for the post-game press-box celebration, Ridge.

The ESPNFC crew anoints the Earthquakes the top spot, and declares that they have all but secured the Supporters’ Shield. Special mention goes out to Wondolowski’s three goals in the last week that have sown (sic) up the Golden Boot race. Perhaps that is in reference to Wondo planting the seeds for next year’s award as well, but we digress.

Lastly, the lovely people over at Sounder at Heart have their own weekly rankings that, given they support the team that invented soccer, and probably MLS Power Rankings as well, begrudgingly give the top spot to the Earthquakes. Yeah, you can’t argue a three-game season sweep by San Jose over Seattle. Also, thanks for keeping the Heritage Cup warm and so gentlemanly returning it to the Earthquakes supporters. Yippee, trophy!

Did we miss any other MLS Power Rankings? Well, do your job readers, and leave them in the comments section below.