It is the time of year when votes are cast in Major League Soccer. These include the VW Most
Valuable Player, Visa Defender of the Year, Coach of the Year, X-Box Fair Play Award, adidas
referee awards and more (there are five with sponsors). Among the lesser known awards is the
"Team Public Relations Award".
Add another award for Zach Thornton on the season. Today the league named Thornton it's Comeback
Player of the Year. At the same time the league also announced Fredy Montero as the Newcomer of the
Year.
Montero was one of the league leaders in goals scored this year. His 12 goals on the season blew
away any other newcomer in that category.
Hot off the presses from the league front office. Major League Soccer has announced the
finalists to their season ending awards today. Only a few shockers jump out at me here with these
but I'll get to that in a moment.
Keeper of the Year (to be announced Nov. 4)
Kasey Keller, Seattle
Donovan Ricketts, Los Angeles
Zach Thornton, Chivas USA
The regular season is done, over, finished or whatever other adjective you want to use. For the
second straight season WVH got to participate in the league's media vote for the season awards.
Voting is now over and I felt it was time to share my votes with you all.
I'll have to admit some awards were tougher to vote on than others but I tried to span the
entire season's body of work as much as I could for these awards.
Its that time of the year, the season is nearly complete and the league has handed out it's
ballots for voting for their season awards. Yes today I received an email with a link to my online
ballot for voting this year. I have to admit I wasn't expecting it to come this week but since the
season ends this weekend it makes sense.
With today being the league's All-Star game it just felt right to go into some award talk. Most
of the awards feel like they are going to be decided very late in the year this season. A lot of
names in the running for things like the MVP race and the rookie of the year race. Only the
comeback award feels like it is all but given out to Chivas keeper Zach Thornton.
If the Ricardo Clark debate weren't swallowing so much bandwidth, what has already been a
diarrhea-mouthed day would have been even runnier. Now that you're nauseous... - There's a lot to
love in DJ Walker's reminiscences of last Wednesday, when he watched his much-beloved FC Dallas
come in second-best in the U.S. Open Cup final. A [...]
The season is roughly 33% done, so I figured I'd go through and give out some awards from the first
bit of the 2009 season. Remember, these are based on form to date, not overall historic ability.
It's all for fun, so here we go...
Is it any coincidence that both of Seattle's losses came in matches without Kasey Keller (well, he
was sent off about 25 minutes into their first loss).
- Ives Galarcep picks through the traffic jam rushing toward the seventh and eighth playoff spots.
I think he's got it about right - though do feel obliged to acknowledge the distinction between
what is actually right or real and that with which I agree. - Credit USSoccerplayers.com's Ken
Pendleton for writing a column that [...]
