Ranking MLS rivalries: Which feuds are fiercest?

Major League Soccer has added 11 teams in the past nine seasons. For many newly minted expansion clubs, the novelty factor has yet to truly wear off and with such little history to draw on, it’s difficult for many of them to develop organic rivalries.

That’s not the case for all of the league’s new blood, though. That’s evidenced by LAFC and FC Cincinnati, who came into existence in 2018 and 2019 respectively and are already part of some of the most passionate derbies in Major League Soccer.

For some clubs, their time in MLS dates back little more than a decade, though their histories run much further. Look to the Pacific Northwest and find a rivalry between the Sounders and the Timbers, partially shaped by the feud between Seattle and Portland, that’s as intense as any in American sports.

With Rivalry Week kicking off on Saturday, and with the league’s growing geographic footprint continuing to shift the landscape of which cities and clubs are at odds with which, we asked our league experts: What are the fiercest rivalries in MLS?

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The set-tos every season between the Timbers and the Sounders aren’t so much an MLS rivalry as they are an American soccer one The first encounter between the two sides dates back to May 2, 1975 and the days of the North American Soccer League. (It ended 1-0 to Seattle.) Since then the grudge match has spanned multiple leagues — five, to be exact — and several generations of players and fans.

MLS is now benefiting from that history. The Sounders and Timbers have squared off 117 times in official competition, and it’s not just in games where the rivalry is felt, but the competing tifos that each set of fans trot out whenever these two sides meet. As such, it’s nearly impossible to crystallize the rivalry into one or two moments. Yet some…