What really makes a player valuable?
Dictionary.com defines value as “relative worth, merit, or importance.”
This would make the MLS MVP, or Most Valuable Player, a player that is worth the most to their respective team and/or the most important player on the field for a team. Obviously, a player’s importance to a team is lessoned if the team isn’t very good.
With that in mind, for my MVP list, I only looked at players that play for the top 6 MLS teams: Seattle, LA, DC, Real Salt Lake, New England, and FC Dallas—all of whom have 50 or more points on the season and generally easily qualified for the MLS Cup Playoffs.
From those teams, I looked for which players do the most for their teams; which are of course players that if their contributions were removed, odds are that their team would fare far worse.
Honorable Mention:
Clint Dempsey:
Captain America’s production has been simply unorthodox.
Dempsey has scored 15 goals this season, which is good for seventh best in MLS. When you combine that with his ridiculously-high-for-a-forward passing percentage of 86% percent and the fact that over half of his goals have put his team level or ahead in the games he’s scored them in, you have a very dynamic forward that presents different issues for defenders to account for.
Dempsey’s 9 assists on the season reminds defenders that he is an exceptional passing forward. Forcing the ball out away from his feet can lead to damage, much like the back heel above.
Javier Morales:
Morales has been a complete #10.
Sure, his 12 assists are only good enough for fifth in MLS in 2014, but the fact is he creates 3.3 chances per game. The only other player that creates more for their team is Landon Donovan (more on him later). He has missed his world class striking teammate, Álvaro Saborío, because of a litany of injuries; that could have led to more goals.
Is “only fifth in assists” without a true #9 really doing Morales enough justice? I mean, Joao Plata is a beast in open field with the ball at his feet and/or running into open spaces, but Morales definitely misses the accurate headers that Saborio provided to escort his crosses into open nets.
He’s also been pretty clutch in 2014. Including his goal against Houston above, of the 9 goals he’s scored, 7 of those goals have either put his team level or ahead.
#5
Obafemi Martins:
I’m sure defenders have lost sleep wondering exactly how to deal with Martins.
His speed and strength are simply a deadly combo. Every time he approaches the box with the ball at his feet, he gets to decide whether he will out muscle a team’s back line
or dart passed them.
True, his 17 goals are only good for fourth in line for the Golden Boot; however, his 60% scoring percentage is freakish.
Basically Martins running full speed toward opposing keepers will generally result in a goal. Add in his 12 assists which are good for fifth best in the league, and you have a defender’s nightmare and arguably the league’s most dominant attacking force.
#4
Robbie Keane:
Keane has been an offensive machine and rightly deserves the press that he’s been receiving this year.
Keane has 19 goals and 14 assists both of which are good for third best overall in both categories. This type of dual threat behavior has led to the development of Gyasi Zardes, who has 16 goals to his name.
It’s not necessarily his amount of goals, but his ability to score on half chances and volleys in the box that makes him valuable.
No one on the field saw that coming.
It’s much less how many he can score, but the sheer fact that he is a constant threat to score that allows him to find streaking players in space for goals.
#3
Landon Donovan:
I just don’t understand what the guy that leads MLS in assists (19) on the highest scoring offense has to do to gain more respect from his nation’s coach, but Donovan has been simply phenomenal this season.
It’s quite possible that no other player on the planet creates more chances to score for his team single-handedly than Donovan with 3.6 created chances per game (whoscored.com). He completes passes at a high percentage (83%) and half of the goals that he has scored has either put his team level of in the lead.
He may be near retirement, but he’s still clutch.
#2
Osvaldo Alonso:
Almost no one is talking about his run of play this year, but his stats in 2014 scream for inclusion into the MVP conversation, if not the award.
Alonso has the highest passing completion percentage with 92%, which is even more astounding when you consider that he attempting more than 66 passes per game. Which means he’s completing nearly 58 passes each game. It’s hard to lose when your field general simply doesn’t turn the ball over.
Not only does Alonso not turn the ball over, he often gains possession in the midfield. He dishes out about 3.16 tackles a game which is third most among players with 12 or more appearances. He currently sits on about 215 duels won from 50-50 balls in the midfield, most among all midfielders and possesses the third most interceptions for any midfielder this year for MLS.
He is one of the major catalysts for Seattle’s monstrous attack, by winning balls, gaining interceptions in midfield and leaking the ball out to streaking attackers in stride.
On a team with so many offensive threats, his defense and control in the midfield allows the attackers in space to wreak havoc on opposing keepers.
#1
Lee Nguyen:
I don’t understand why he hasn’t earned a call up to the USMNT, because he has had a completely monster season.
Nguyen has scored 17 goals; no one else on his team has more than 6 goals. Also, with no other definitive goal scorers on his club, he was still able to dish out 5 assists. On the surface those 5 assists look pretty low, except for the fact that he creates an average of 2 chances a game for his teammates through his dangerous passing, which is 11th in the league (Whoscored.com).
Remember, this guy plays in the midfield… the midfield. His scoring percentage on the season is 70%; which is 3rd among players with more than 30 shots. Of those 17 goals he’s scored, 12 of them have put his team level or ahead in the games he scored them in, and 8 of them has won the game. No other player has had this type of overall performance all while pumping copious amounts of ice water through their veins.
That sounds like value to me.
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