We tallied up our votes, and came up with our list of how the teams will finish, who will win MLS Cup and who will be the league’s MVP. No need to play the season, now. We have it all figured out.
We tallied up our votes, and came up with our list of how the teams will finish, who will win MLS Cup and who will be the league’s MVP. No need to play the season, now. We have it all figured out.
Fucito scored six goals in all competitions last year; Neagle scored five in MLS and then added another playoff marker in the Western Conference semifinal loss to Real Salt Lake. Three of Neagle's goals came in an August win over Columbus.
At that time, C.J. Sapong, who would go on to become the league's rookie of the year, was still on the board. Will Bruin, another forward who had some impressive spurts in 2011, was also still there for the taking.
Brian Ching, scorer of 77 career regular-season goals, made it public that he would rather retire than be plucked off Houston’s roster and go to the Impact. What did Marsch do? He made Ching the first pick of expansion draft.
Vancouver Whitecap Eric Hassli’s wonder strike against the Seattle Sounders didn’t win the Goal of the Year honour. Instead, rookie Darlington Nagbe got the award for his volley-and-shoot effort against Sporting Kansas City.
Vancouver’s Eric Hassli, who is likely to win the Goal of the Year for his stunning volley against Seattle, and who scored 10 times this year, finished third in voting, behind Rosales and New York Red Bull Luke Rodgers.
Danny Koevermans’ name wasn’t on the ballot for voters to select. And while his body of work, 10 MLS games, might not be enough to dislodge Rosales, he deserved to get some notice from the voters.
Canadian midfielder Will Johnson will play in the MLS Western Conference Final; but his Real Salt Lake had to survive a furious charge from the Seattle Sounders.
And if there is a group of Canadian fans who want to see Real Salt Lake return to the form it showed in the early part of the season — when it looked two steps better than anyone else in the league, including the Los Angeles Galaxy — they would have been overjoyed by Saturday night’s performance.
Throw away the fan turnout, the hoopla surrounding the game. The truth is that Keller made seven saves in the game, many of them from point-blank range. He bailed out a Seattle team that in no way deserved three points from its match with San Jose. And that’s why he got the vote — and most of the other votes, too.
The 11 offers insight, interviews and commentary by respected soccer journalists. It is affiliated with the Canadian soccer magazine, Plastic Pitch. Our editor, Steven Sandor, has covered Major League Soccer, United Soccer Leagues, World Cup qualifying, CONCACAF Champions League, women’s soccer and the Canadian Soccer League and has won numerous awards for his magazine work. His work has appeared in the Sun chain of newspapers, Soccer 360, World Soccer, Soccer Canada, Philadelphia Daily News and the Deseret News. His work has appeared in publications in Canada, the United States, Hungary, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom and Namibia.