Zusi named MLS Player of the Month for June

Major League Soccer announced on Friday (Canada Day) that Sporting Kansas City midfielder Graham Zusi had been named the June Player of the Month after the ballots from the North American Soccer Reporters were tallied. Sporting Kansas City has been on a tear. Zusi had two goals and three assists as the club went undefeated (3-0-2) in the previous month. Two of Zusi’s assists were game winners this month. It was his cross that led to Julio Cesar’s game winner as SKC beat the Vancouver Whitecaps last Saturday at the brand spankin’ new LIVESTRONG Sporting Park. SKC hasn’t lost in its new stadium, and that’s bad news for the pack of mediocre-to-poor teams in the East that is chasing the third and fourth spots in the conference standings. Because SKC had to wait two months into the season for its new stadium to open, it played its first 10 games on the road. In a league where home teams have marked advantages, SKC has only five road games left on the schedule as we head into the first week of July. How The 11 voted: The Columbus Crew has also surged of late, winning three of its last four and losing only once in the month of June. A lot of the credit has to go to striker Andres Mendoza. He scored four goals in June and has seven on the season, which is just one off the league lead. At the start of the season, with target man Steven Lenhart gone and midfield playmaker Guillermo Barros Schelotto not offered a new deal, we all wondered where Columbus would find its offence. Mendoza looks like he could be finding the same magical form he enjoyed a decade ago when he was one of the top offensive threats for Belgian power, Club Brugge.