By Clemente Lisi – NEW YORK, NY (Dec 5, 2016) US Soccer Players – With MLS preparing to crown a new champion in less than a week, now is a great time to look back on the season gone by. Several high-profile stars who made a dramatic difference to this league decided to go (Robbie Keane), while another made a brief return (Landon Donovan) after coming out of retirement. A new crop of rookies grabbed headlines (Seattle’s Jordan Morris and Philadelphia’s Keegan Rosenberry), while gate attendance continued to go up and TV ratings remained dormant, still the issue for this league.
The MLS Cup Final this Saturday between the Seattle Sounders FC and Toronto FC at BMO Field will also take the league to uncharted waters. There is a chance a Canadian team will grab the title for the first time – something not seen in a pro US soccer league since the Vancouver Whitecaps won the 1979 Soccer Bowl in the original North American Soccer League. For Seattle, it’s a chance for a championship in a season where they fired their coach and seemed out of it by the halfway mark. MLS’s structure and parity can be forgiving.
“It’s funny looking back when everyone thought we were dead in the water and now we’re in the final,” Seattle’s rookie striker Jordan Morris told reporters last week. “This team always believed that we were good enough to make it. I think we proved a lot of people wrong.”
For neutral fans, this is a tasty match-up. Both Seattle and Toronto have worked hard the past few years and through disappointments to get to this point. A final of first-timers gives hope to other franchises out there that aspire to get to this level. For US National Team fans, deciding who to root for will be difficult. Toronto has Jozy Altidore and Michael Bradley, while Seattle features Brad Evans and Morris. Whichever team is victorious, it should give a major morale boost to players on either side entering Bruce Arena’s January camp.
The game will also feature some of the league’s best foreign imports of the last few seasons. Toronto’s Italian striker Sebastian Giovinco and Seattle’s Nicolas Lodeiro of Uruguay lead that list. Though it’s an unlikely final minus any team that finished higher than 3rd-place in their conference, that’s part of the MLS story in 2016. Here are five things that stood out this season.
Dallas not in treble trouble
FC Dallas has been one of the best teams in the league the past two years, stalling in the playoffs.. This season, Oscar Pareja’s team won the US Open Cup and Supporters’ Shield double, but didn’t have what it takes to navigate the unpredictable MLS Cup Playoffs.
FC Dallas, however, is a team that will stay competitive for a number of years. It has a wonderful academy system and producing talented youngsters at a rapid rate. In that regard, it has become the envy of MLS. The team is already looking to next season. Last month, they signed Bryan Reynolds to a Homegrown Player contract. At 15, he’s the youngest player to sign such a contract in franchise history and one of 17 such players FC Dallas has under contract. That is a league record and one that bodes well for this team and American soccer as a whole.
Canadian rise
The Montreal Impact and Toronto FC had standout seasons and gave all of us a playoff series for the ages. Although both sides lagged behind the New York teams during the regular season, the Canadian clubs upped their game at the right moment.
These were the two teams that embraced the unpredictable nature of the MLS Cup Playoffs. The second-leg of the Eastern Conference final turned into a “game for the ages” as some have called it for its excitement and goals. What the game means for the growth of soccer in Canada remains a question mark. One thing is certain, and that is more game like this one will only help grow the game on both sides of the border.
New York losses
For an intra-city rivalry in its second year, New York Red Bulls and New York City FC have played some memorable games in 2016. It’s clear that these are two teams with players and fan bases that do not like one another. The Hudson River derby seemed to reach a boil after the Red Bulls’ 7-0 victory on May 21 that stunned the Yankee Stadium crowd.
When the sides met July 3, the Red Bulls lost to NYCFC 2-0 at home. That unleashed a social media storm. NYCFC trolled their cross-river rivals with a team photo tweeted out by David Villa of players celebrating in the dressing room, something teams reserve for when they win a championship. “Listen man, we are all disappointed,” Red Bulls coach Jesse Marsch said, adding, “even when New York City puts the pictures on the internet, it gets everyone riled up.”
On July 24, in the team’s final meeting of the season, the Red Bulls exacted revenge, grabbing a 4-1 win at Red Bull Arena. That adversity didn’t help in the playoffs. Both teams fell in the semifinals. That denied MLS fans a home-and-away meeting in the Eastern Conference finals. Well, there’s always next year.
Galaxy era ends
Landon Donovan returned to help the Galaxy make the postseason, but this is a team that is now in transition. Winning three MLS Cups in a span of four years made LA the league’s model team. They built on the blood and sweat of its coach Bruce Arena and on the shoulders of a player like Robbie Keane.
Keane announced he was leaving at the end of the season. He’s easy to call the best Designated Player this league has ever seen. Arena is also gone, vacating his dual role of coach and GM to return to the USMNT. The Galaxy replaced him in the GM role, but are still considering coaches.
MVP debate
The 2016 MLS MVP isn’t a foregone conclusion. The finalists, as determined by the league, were the pair of New York Red Bull standouts Sacha Kljestan and Bradley Wright-Phillips, and NYCFC’s David Villa.
It’s also worth noting the players left off that list. Giovinco, for starters, but also names like Lodeiro and Morris.
It is also no coincidence that the three players I mentioned also reached the final. An easy enough fix would be to release the list on the eve of MLS Cup. That way, MLS can factor in both the regular season and the playoffs. But debate in soccer is always good. In a week’s time, we will be debating what sort of MLS Cup final we got from Toronto and Seattle.
Based in New York City, Clemente Lisi is a regular contributor to US Soccer Players. He covers all topics relating to American soccer, including Major League Soccer. He has covered the last two World Cups for the site. He is also the author of A History of the World Cup: 1930-2014. Clemente began writing for our site in July 2007. Find him on Twitter:http://twitter.com/ClementeLisi.
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