Sporting KC Best XI - Midfielders

The voting for the midfielders in Sporting KC's "Best XI" has finished up and with that done I'm taking a look at how I selected my team for the Best XI. The first thing I immediately noticed when going in to make my picks was the fact that after selecting three defenders, we were selecting five midfielders, setting up a Bob Gansler-esk 3-5-2 lineup for the Best XI team. With the five spots available, there were 14 players available for selection; Sporting Legends like Preki and Chris Klein were available for selection along with current players Roger Espinoza, Benny Feilhaber, Paulo Nagamura, and Graham Zusi. Also included in the list was the club's first draft pick, Matt McKeon and fellow MLS original, Mark Chung, and players from the middle of KC's history, the likes of Davy Arnaud, Chris Brown, Francisco Gomez, Jack Jewsbury,  Sasha Victorine, and Kerry Zavagnin. Certainly a difficult vote, but easier for me personally than the last one when it came to the defenders.

First, I'm not even going to attempt to beat around the bush here with the first player I selected, Preki, he is the best player to have ever played for this club, the only player to win the MLS MVP award twice in their career, the second time at 40, he absolutely is on the Best XI.. He's the team's all-time leader in goals (71 league, 81 all) and in assists (98 league, 104 all) appeared in over 200 games, starting over 200 in all competitions, falling just one short of that in league play (199). This whole discussion for the top five midfielders for the Best XI really should have just been done as Preki and the other four midfielders as arguments can be made for or against other candidates, but I don't see a logical way that you can argue against his inclusion in this team.

There were two other players that I immediately added to my list of five midfielders, Davy Arnaud and Chris Klein. The recently retired, future Sporting Legend and last year's inductee as a Legend, Arnaud and Klein are both no-brainers for me as a fan. Both are in the top 10 in terms of appearances (Arnaud 240, most in club history, Klein 200), and starts (Arnaud 213, Klein 183), they're also both top five in terms of goals (Arnaud 43, Klein 39) and assists (Arnaud 35, Klein 45). While the pair certainly isn’t Preki, the pair is ahead of the rest of the pack of players in the midfield and easy selections for spots two and three in the midfield.

That leaves us with just two spots left and another 11 players still available for selection. From here one thing I looked at to help narrow my list down was a player's longevity with the club. While players like Mark Chung, Paulo Nagamura, and Sasha Victorine have done a lot for the club, I don't think they've done it over a long enough period of time to give them one of the final two spots on the list. And while it may bother a few of the newer fans I feel that Feilhaber falls into that same category. While he has 18 league goals and 25 assists, he's played less than 100 games for KC (91) and started 84. For the last two spots I felt that there were players that have been at a higher level for longer than Feilhaber has.

One of the hardest parts of the midfield selection was giving some credit to those players who don't play an attacking midfield position. Players like Espinoza, McKeon, Nagamura, and Zavagnin never put up great offensive numbers when they played in Kansas City but that shouldn't keep them from being able to be selected to the Best XI in my opinion. At the same time I had to keep reminding myself that this wasn't a team that would actually take the field, so some lack of defensive help, or two to three players that mainly play the right wing is just fine when selecting your players (it's the same issue that I always used to have selecting my fantasy team, building a good well rounded team, but lacking because I tried to build a "team" and not one to just get points).

After eliminating Nagamura earlier due to his lack of longevity, I'm left with Espinoza, McKeon, and Zavagnin among defensive minded midfielders. While Espinoza has had the most success of the three at the national level and McKeon had a strong career for the Wizards, if I'm going with any defensive minded player in the midfield, it's going to be Zavagnin, second behind Arnaud in terms of appearances in league play with 237, but first in appearances in all competitions (291), starts (281), league starts (228), and is the team's leader minutes played in league (20,516) and all competitions (25,290).

While Zavagnin leads the way if I go with one defensive minded midfielder, I still have seven players left with Brown, Gomez, Jewsbury, and Zusi joining Espinoza, McKeon and Zavagnin. Of those seven I feel I can comfortably knock it down to five, because while Chris Brown and Francisco Gomez both played over 140 games across all competitions for Kansas City, when I think of a Best XI midfield for Kansas City, neither one of those players is even close to the discussion. Brown was a consistent performer, but the way that I think would relate him to many newer fans would be that he was Gansler's Jacob Peterson, he worked hard, it did all the things that were asked of him, and he did well in practice, in an earlier MLS without the skill players there are now that was enough to get you consistent starts. As for Gomez, he just never reached the expectations that were there when he was signed as a Project 40 player (the precursor to the Generation Adidas program). He'd been seen as an eventual replacement for Preki at the attacking midfield position, but never got close to that level.

With the remaining five, I just felt that I could cut the final three I needed to so I could get my five midfielders. While Jewsbury appeared almost 200 times in league play for KC, he struggled for a long time even finding a position on the field for KC. While he eventually slotted in mainly as a defensive midfield, Jewsbury spent time as a forward, wingback, and a winger for Gansler. He was a good player, but when KC brought in a better one for that position, he moved elsewhere on the field. He really fit the jack of all trades joke that people made. The last two I cut from my list were Espinoza and McKeon. I stated the reasons for considering Zavagnin above both of them above, but I'd also put Zusi above both of them. Zusi has been a strong performer for Kansas City, a top 20 goal scorer and already in the top five for assists in both league and all competitions for KC. He very likely won't ever catch Preki for number 1 on the list but should easily set himself as second on that list by the time he retires.

So with just the forward line to go, here is my Best XI for Sporting KC so far:

Klein - Arnaud - Preki - Zusi

Zavagnin

Besler - Conrad - Garcia 

Nielsen

Sporting KC Best XI - Defenders

The second stage of voting has been closed for Sporting KC's Best XI for the team over their prior 20 seasons. After picking goalkeepers, fans have now finished voting for three defenders to place in front of the goalkeeper. KC throughout its history has been blessed with a number of very good defenders, being a city that doesn't necessarily attract the big names building from the back is usually the smart move for "smaller" markets, focusing on stopping the other team and building from there. That has left fans with plenty of options to vote for in the defense, and it’s shown in a list that includes 13 players on, two of whom are current Sporting Legends, while another couple can and should make the list over the next few years. This list includes: Matt Besler, Sean Bowers, Jose Burciaga, Aurelien Collin, Jimmy Conrad, Nick Garcia, Michael Harrington, Chance Myers, Uche Okafor, Brandon Prideaux, Seth Sinovic, Peter Vermes, and Alex Zotinca.

The process of cutting 10 players from that list down to three certainly isn't easy and cases can be made for many of the players on the list to be included in the Best XI, but there are a few that I think you can immediately rule out simply because of the class of player ahead of them. For example I think Zotinca can immediately be ruled out, as can Prideaux, while both of them were on the back line for teams that made MLS Cup, others on the backline were more responsible for that team's success. The pair has also played some of the fewest games for KC on the list, and with a defender it's a lot more about legacy, especially for a Best XI. I think a similar fate falls on Burciaga, who like Zotinca was on the backline for the 2004 MLS Cup final, and scored a goal in the game, but he was overshadowed by better players on the same backline throughout his time in KC even though he played 130 games and scored 15 goals. He had one really good season but was very hit or miss for games during his career.

With defenders one area that needs to be looked at is how good the defense as a whole was, even under an offensive coach the defense should still be able to shut down the opposition. With that in mind I can't vote for players from KC's early years. Offenses as a whole in those early years of MLS were allowing a number of goals and with that in mind I just couldn't vote for early KC Wizards defenders because the ones that came later were just better all around. With that in mind I cut Bowers and Okafor from my list of players I'd vote for.

That cuts the list of players from 13 down to eight, with Besler, Collin, Conrad, Garcia, Harrington, Myers, Sinovic, and Vermes still available for me. Cutting down further, I feel that while Harrington played more games for KC, he lost his starting spot with the club when he was still in his prime to Sinovic. With that thought I couldn't vote to put both Harrington and Sinovic into my Best XI so I cut out the one that lost his starting job to the other.

The remaining seven players are 2/3rds of the 2000 backline (Garcia and Vermes), the defense that had been considered the best backline in club history until four other players on the list (Besler, Collin, Myers, and Sinovic), and finished up with a perennial defender of the year finalist during his time with KC (Conrad). From here the list is really hard to cut down to the final three, because all seven were a key part to a strong backline in KC's history. For me when it comes to voting for the best defenders it is hard for me to vote for an outside back, it's similar to how you don't see outside backs up for defender of the year for the most part, the center backs just get all the acclaim for their position. In that regard I ruled out the two remaining players who basically solely played outside back, Myers and Sinovic.

Cutting the final five down to just three is a difficult task; it basically comes down to your personal preference from here. One thing I thought about using was defender of the year, which KC has had three, Besler, Conrad, and Vermes, that seemed fairly easy, but the thing with Vermes is his lack of longevity with KC, making fewer than 100 appearances in league play for KC. From there I thought about longevity with the club, and three of the defenders on the list are the three with the most appearances for the club, Besler (219), Conrad (230), and Garcia (273). But personally I wasn't sure I wanted to rule out Vermes and Collin quite yet. So I looked further at trophies that each player had won in KC: Besler (3), Collin (2), Conrad (1), Garcia (3), and Vermes (2). Thinking further I looked at what each player brought offensively to the team, who had contributed the most to the club when they pushed further up the field: Besler (2 goals, 11 assists), Collin (16 goals, 4 assists), Conrad (17 goals, 5 assists), Garcia (1 goal, 5 assists), and Vermes (2 goals, 7 assists).

Thinking about these numbers I was able to select two of my three defenders, Besler and Conrad were my first two choices, in my mind the pair are the best and second best defenders to ever wear the KC jersey, no matter what order you want to put them in. They have each won a defender of the year award, they've been part of championship teams, they've both captained the club in their career, and they’re just two very easy picks to make.

To make my last pick though was much more difficult. Of the three remaining candidates I ruled out Collin, not because he wasn't a great defender for Kansas City, but because of the fact that I felt Besler was the better of the two defenders and I wasn't positive that the team from 2011 through 2014 had two of the best defenders in team history, or if it was just the way that the pair worked together. In the end I decided that it was the way the two worked together and because Besler does a lot of the simply stuff that allowed Collin to be more of the destroyer that made so many fans fall in love with him. I think you're seeing that reason develop again with the early returns on the play by Nuno Coelho next to Besler.

That left the final pick down to Garcia, a defender who has made the most appearances for the club of any defender, a pest on defense that frustrated opponents so much he earned a call up simply to mark Carlos Ruiz in Guatemala, but didn't see the field when Ruiz was ruled out, and a future Sporting Legend, and Vermes, a Sporting Legend, the 2000 MLS Defender of the year and the anchor of the 2000 backline. In the end while Vermes had the MLS defender of the year award, I went with Garcia because of his longevity in being a strong defender for KC, especially since Garcia played almost three times as many games for the club as Vermes did, if Vermes had played more games for KC he likely would have been the third but appearing 273 times in a shutdown defensive role is enough to just have Garcia beat out Vermes for the last spot.

So through the first two votes, here is how my Best XI voting has turned out so far:

Besler - Conrad - Garcia
Nielsen

Sporting KC Best XI - Goalkeeper

Sporting KC will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of their first game coming up on April 13th. The match on that day will actually be a replay of the club's first match as the KC Wiz from 1996 against the Colorado Rapids. Ahead of that game, Sporting KC is doing a poll for fans to pick the Best XI in the club's history, starting with goalkeepers, then up the field to defenders, midfielders, and forwards. The goalkeeper poll is already over and the defender one is currently up. As someone who has seen each of the players brought up live for Kansas City, I figured I'd give my vote from each one of the groups as KC puts the rest of their polls up.

To start I'm going to back up and start with goalkeepers. The list for KC included the likes of Tony Meola, Jimmy Nielsen, Bo Oshoniyi, Kevin Hartman, and others. For me the list of goalkeepers really only comes down to two players, Meola and Nielsen, while the rest of the field wasn't bad for KC, those two are head and shoulders above the rest of the group at goalkeeper. Both are arguably two of the best no just for KC, but throughout the 20 seasons of MLS so far. If you'd have told me back in 2010 that I'd even be debating whether Meola was the best goalkeeper in club history after 20 seasons I'd have told you that you were crazy, but that's exactly what I'm doing. Meola is the only goalkeeper to win the league's MVP award back in 2000 when he swept MVP, goalkeeper, and comeback player of the year when he recorded 16 shutouts in league play, allowed just 29 goals for a goals against average of just .92. He played in a club record 156 games in goal for Kansas City. He finished his career with a 1.22 goals against average for Kansas City and was the career leader for KC in basically every goalkeeping stat until Nielsen came along.

Nielsen topped Meola's career stats, posting a goals against average of just .99 over his four seasons, besting Meola's 2000 GAA twice, and topping Meola's career shutout total. I never would have thought that I would see Meola's numbers topped, especially so quickly, and yes you can argue that Nielsen's defense was better through his KC career than throughout Meola’s entire career, but that's also not giving Nielsen enough credit. In the end, while Meola is a Sporting Legend and certainly deserving of the honor, Nielsen will be there sooner than later as well and in this situation I got to give the starting goalkeeper position in KC's best XI to Nielsen.

Once the defender poll has officially closed I will post my vote on that.

Feilhaber Named to MLS Best XI

End of the season awards for Sporting Kansas City continued yesterday with the announcement of the league's "Best XI." No surprise in the announcement that Sporting KC midfielder and MVP finalist, Benny Feilhaber is among the players on this year's team. Feilhaber is the only Kansas City representative on the team, collecting 10 goals and 15 assists in 2015. He becomes the 13th different player from KC to make a Best XI in the club's history. Sporting KC' MVP is joined on the team by Luis Robles of New York in goal, Laurent Ciman of Montreal, Kendall Waston of Vancouver, and Matt Hedges of Dallas on defense, Fabian Castillo of Dallas, Dax McCarty of New York, and Ethan Finaly of Columbus in midfield, and up top by Sebastian Giovinco of Toronto, Kei Kamara of Columbus, and Robbie Keane of LA.

Besler and Zusi Named to Best XI

MLS announced their Best XI today as voted on by teams, media, and players. Sporting KC was represented on the list by two players. Sporting defender, Matt Besler and Graham Zusi were KC's two representatives on the list.  It's the second straight year for both players to be selected to the Best XI.

Jimmy Nielsen's absence from the team would seem to indicate that he won't win goalkeeper of the year, which usually goes to the goalkeeper in the Best XI (Donovan Ricketts).

Four Sporting Players Named to Best XI

Today during the State of the League address, Don Garber announced this year's Best XI team as voted on by teams, media, and players.  Sporting KC ended up leading the way in players selected for the team with 4.  San Jose and LA each had 2, while New York, DC, and Seattle all had 1.  KC's four consisted of KC's goalkeeper of the year finalist, Jimmy Nielsen, their two defender of the year nominees, Matt Besler and Aurelien Collin, and MVP finalist Graham Zusi. 

Nielsen's selection likely means that he's also been selected as goalkeeper of the year this year.  Nielsen played every minute this season for KC in league play.  And played all but 90 minutes in all competitions, only missing KC's 3-2 win over Orlando in the US Open Cup.  Nielsen had 15 shutouts, one short of a league and team record.  He also set team records for non-shootout wins with 18 and goals against average with .79

Besler coming off winning defender of the year played in 31 of KC's 34 league games and plenty of Nielsen's stats can be seen as a helping hand for Nielsen as well.  Collin is like Besler in that regard, while Collin helped to anchor the back like for 29 games this year.

Zusi led MLS in assists this year with 15 and added in 5 goals to his total as well.  Zusi also established himself as a regular call up for the national team this year as well.  A very strong season for Zusi.

The rest of the roster saw Victor Bernardez and Chris Wondolowski from San Jose, Landon Donovan and Robbie Keane from LA, Thierry Henry from New York, Chris Pontius from DC, and Osvaldo Alonso from Seattle.

Soccer America MLS All-Decade Team

With the end of 2009 lots of people are putting together lists on the "best of the decade" stuff. Soccer America has put out their MLS All-Decade team. The Wizards are represented pretty well on the list, with 2 current and 2 former Wizards on the team.

The only representative on the Best XI team is the Wizards current captain, Jimmy Conrad. Conrad was selected to the Best XI team 3 times and earned one Defender of the Year award in the decade. Goalkeepers Tony Meola and Kevin Hartman were named to the reserve squad. Meola was MLS MVP in 2000 and was a consistent performer for both KC and New York. Hartman became the MLS all time leader in most goalkeeping categories during this decade. Also on the list is the best player in Wizards history (and I don't think anyone can argue that point), Preki. While Preki was an MVP in this decade his only playing in half the decade is why he's likely not on the first team. There is one former Wizard who did not make the list that I thought probably deserved a mention. That player is Nick Garcia who has been in the league since 2000 and while he hasn't brought in the awards has been a strong defender in the league.

UPDATE: Had this pointed out to me as I missed it originally, but Diego Gutierrez is on the list as well. While he's only listed as being on Chicago, Gutierrez played for the Wizards from 02-05. During that time he was the club captain in 04 and 05 and won the US Open Cup.

Conrad Named to Best XI

Not a surprising announcement today considering his nomination for Best Defender this year, but Wizards captain, Jimmy Conrad has been named to the MLS Best XI. This is Conrad's 4th appearance on the Best XI team. In 2008, Conrad played all 2700 minutes for the Wizards along with teammate Kevin Hartman, they were 2 of 6 players in the league to accomplish that. Of the Wizards 35 games in all competitions this year (30 MLS, 2 playoffs, 1 USOC qualifier, 2 USOC) Conrad appeared in all but one of those games. Congrats to Jimmy.

Yahoo Best XI

Found this Yahoo article tonight with the Best XI this season for MLS, voted on by Martin Rogers (Yahoo! Sports), Grahame Jones (Los Angeles Times), Steven Goff (Washington Post), Greg Daurio (MLSnet.com), Scott French (MLS Magazine), Frank Dell'Apa (Boston Globe) and Michael Lewis (New York Daily News).

So here's the roster

Brad Guzan
Michael Parkhurst - Wade Barrett - ClaudioSuarez - Jimmy Conrad
Shalrie Joseph - Guillermo Barros Schelotto - Ben Olsen - Cuauhtemoc Blanco
Juan Pablo Angel - Luciano Emilio

No Wizards made the "bench." Now, I love Jimmy, he's probably one of, if not, my favorite players ever to wear Wizards blue, but he is not deserving of being on the Best XI this year. Off the top of my head I can think of at least one defender I'd rank ahead of Jimmy this year, and that's Eddie Robinson of Houston. But it's how those guys decided to vote, so congrats to Jimmy on being named to this team.