{"id":11122,"date":"2017-11-20T19:19:30","date_gmt":"2017-11-21T00:19:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonsoccer.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=11122"},"modified":"2017-11-21T14:36:08","modified_gmt":"2017-11-21T19:36:08","slug":"miguel-almiron-named-mls-newcomer-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2017\/11\/20\/miguel-almiron-named-mls-newcomer-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Miguel Almiron Named MLS Newcomer of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Major League Soccer handed out its latest end of season award on Monday, naming <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsoccer.com\/category\/atlanta-united\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Atlanta United<\/a> attacking midfielder Miguel Almiron its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.atlutd.com\/post\/2017\/11\/20\/miguel-almir-n-wins-mls-newcomer-year\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Newcomer of the Year for 2017<\/a>. The dynamic playmaker finished ahead of the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsoccer.com\/category\/fire\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chicago Fire<\/a>&#8216;s Nemanja Nikolic and his teammate Josef Martinez among others in voting for the honor. Almir\u00f3n is also in the running for the Landon Donovan Most Valuable Player award.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">9 Goals. 14 Assists. <\/p>\n<p>What a season for our <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MLS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@MLS<\/a> Newcomer of the Year: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/8KZXlzRcio\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/8KZXlzRcio<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/6B64WkFiYu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/6B64WkFiYu<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Atlanta United FC (@ATLUTD) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ATLUTD\/status\/932760210137059330?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">November 20, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h1><strong>Miguel Almiron Named MLS Newcomer of the Year<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>The 23-year-old put together a multifaceted campaign for the Five Stripes in their inaugural MLS campaign. In 30 regular season appearances that included 27 starts, Almiron scored nine goals and added a team high 14 assists. The latter total was tied for fourth best in the league with <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsoccer.com\/category\/crew\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Columbus Crew<\/a> SC&#8217;s Federico Higuain, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsoccer.com\/category\/fcdallas\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">FC Dallas<\/a>&#8216; Michael Barrios and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsoccer.com\/category\/rsl\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Real Salt Lake<\/a>&#8216;s Albert Rusnak.<\/p>\n<p>His contributions played a key role in Atlanta&#8217;s dynamic attack. The club finished with more goals than any other expansion team in league history and was one of two in 2017, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsoccer.com\/category\/tfc\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Toronto FC<\/a> being the other, to eclipse the 70-goal mark during the regular season. In addition to Monday&#8217;s award, Almiron made the MLS All-Star team and the league also named him the number top-ranked player in its annual 24 Under 24 list.<\/p>\n<p>Atlanta signed Almiron on December 5, 2016, making him the second designated player in club history. Prior to that, he spent time with Cerro Porte\u00f1o in his native Paraguay and later with Lanus in Argentina&#8217;s top flight. He&#8217;s also been a fixture with the Paraguayan national team at various age levels, and currently has ten caps with the senior side.<\/p>\n<h2>A Deserved Honor<\/h2>\n<p>Almiron taking home this award doesn&#8217;t come as much of a surprise. His exploits as Atlanta&#8217;s central playmaker played a major role in them becoming the first expansion team since the 2009 Seattle Sounders to qualify for the playoffs. Though they <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonsoccer.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/2017\/10\/26\/zack-steffen-vault-crew-sc-conf-semis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">inevitably fell to Columbus in the knockout round<\/a>, 2017 certainly qualifies as a success on the field for the Five Stripes. And Almiron was at the forefront of it all. It&#8217;s a reason <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/post\/2017\/10\/08\/report-inter-milan-arsenal-interested-atlantas-miguel-almiron\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">he&#8217;s drawn interest from clubs in Europe<\/a>, with rumors of them willing to submit an eight-figure transfer fee for his services. For the time being, though, Atlanta fans can expect to see Almiron figuring prominently into their plans next season.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"bZTlTsXoT8lHGsGJFz1VHQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/848121742\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'bZTlTsXoT8lHGsGJFz1VHQ',sig:'GW8eAIZcSK6JVW8dlY5M_k55-n_syjU3hUCWY4FQy1A=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'848121742',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Major League Soccer announced on Monday that Atlanta United attacking midfielder Miguel Almiron was named the league&#8217;s Newcomer of the Year for 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":742,"featured_media":11126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[93,129,948,57,605],"class_list":["post-11122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-atlanta-united","tag-fifa","tag-miguel-almiron","tag-mls","tag-mls-newcomer-of-the-year"],"modified_by":"Matt Pollard","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/742"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}