Best signing

After a long and protracted courtship, which included some translation help from his Copa America room-mate Luis Suarez, Nicolás Lodeiro arrived at Seattle Sounders in the summer. But the Uruguay international was not arriving in a typical Sounders season. Long-time head coach Sigi Schmid had been sacked days earlier with the Sounders bottom of the Western Conference, and Lodeiro could have been forgiven from looking quizzically between the brochure and the reality.

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Instead he shrugged his shoulders and began to play. And with his help, everyone around him got better. His movement freed up the players in front of him, presented a consistent outlet for the players behind him, and as teams became alert to the danger he presented, he bought space and time for team mates all over the park. Seattle started winning and didn’t stop until they lifted MLS Cup.

Best comeback

We’re going to give this to Toronto FC. Three-nil down at the Olympic Stadium in the first leg of their Conference final against Montreal Impact, Toronto looked dead and buried. Patrice Bernier was rolling back the years to slide passes either side of a stranded Michael Bradley in the Reds midfield, and memories of last year’s 3-0 loss to the Impact in the play-in game were looming large.

Then Greg Vanney brought on Will Johnson – one of a cohort of MLS veterans drafted in to support the DP trio of Sebastian Giovinco, Jozy Altidore and Bradley. With two players at the base of midfield, Toronto stopped the bleeding and began to press forward. Altidore muscled his way in to pull one back and then Bradley drove yet another vital away goal to tip the balance of the tie.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Benoit Cheyrou leads his team to victory. Photograph: Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images

And then came the return at BMO Field, to seal a series for the ages. It wasn’t an even climb back – Montreal would lose and regain the lead as the game swung back and forth, but Toronto were relentless. Name on the Cup? No. But Toronto put their name on the one series from this year people will still be talking about in a decade.

Worst timed run

Tempting to nominate DC United for this one. United had rolled along unremarkably for the first half of the year, but then began to suddenly get active in the trade market to remarkable effect. In came Lloyd Sam from New York Red Bulls and Patrick Mullins from New York City, and within weeks DC’s attack had begun to click.

By the time the time had started battering in multiple goals in most games in the final few weeks of the season, nobody wanted to face them in the playoffs and comparisons were being made with Portland’s run to the Cup last year. Drawn at home against Montreal – poor Drogba-cowed Montreal – in the play-in game, DC … got hammered. They scored two late goals to make it 4-2, but by then Montreal were already thinking about the first leg of their Conference semi-final …

… at which point New York Red Bulls appear to spare DC’s blushes in this category. The Red Bulls came into the playoffs having been unbeaten in 20 games, and having shed the effects of a terrible start to the year to win the Eastern Conference.

Montreal beat them on the road, then beat them at home. Another year, another head-scratching Red Bulls loss.

Subtlest tantrum

Last year’s best tantrum winner Clint Dempsey did not defend his title this year, but the team he plays for, Seattle Sounders, played a part in bringing us our winner. After they’d eliminated Sporting KC in the play-in game, thanks to a couple of dodgy offside calls and the referee losing his cards after an Ozzie Alonso tackle straight out of the Big Book of Second Yellows, Sporting’s Benny Feilhaber was interviewed in the locker room. He proceeded to gently take his toys out of his pram and place them discreetly on the floor around him.

Runner up: Sebastian Giovinco shaking hands with his coach and then throwing his gloves after being subbed out during MLS Cup.

Most David Beckham thing: Miami

David Beckham lit up the Empire State Building this weekend, in his capacity as a Unicef ambassador. Whether he also ducked into MLS HQ a few blocks away to discuss his off-again, off-again Miami expansion project remains unclear.

There’s something of a bottleneck building up behind Beckham United’s attempts to get a stadium deal in place, and Don Garber has now said that there’s a firm deadline in place for Beckham to make Miami happen. But selfies with the mayor aside, nothing seems to have happened on that front for a long, long time.

Given his most recent public appearance it’s worth noting that the name “Beckham” doesn’t shine quite as brightly as it used to – with every day that passes, Beckham’s reliance on his star power to push things through in Miami seems to become a more precarious project. There’s little political will in the town to push the project forward, and whisper it, there’s possibly little will within MLS to conclude a $25m expansion fee sale to Beckham, when ownership groups are lining up to pay $100m for the same honor.

Best Little Englander: Steven Gerrard

After sharing this award with Frank Lampard last year, Gerrard moved into a class of his own this year, after Lampard belatedly started to play between injuries and rule himself out of the running. With Ashley Cole conspicuously quiet on the subject of sitting on beaches, and instead dutifully running up and down the flanks like a diligent defender, it was left to Stevie G to unbalance his team, somehow manage to keep both Robbie Keane and Gio dos Santos out of position to accommodate him, play well in spurts and forgettably in others, reminisce about Liverpool, head to England to do punditry on the Euros, reminisce a bit more about his bond with Liverpool, and finally send an instagrammed “cheerio” to Galaxy fans, that couldn’t have been more British-holiday-in-LA if it tried (bonus points for the Raiders cap).



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Steven Gerrard in LA: was it really worth it? Photograph: Matthew Ashton - AMA/AMA/Getty Images

If anyone can explain what the point of this whole adventure was, please send answers on a postcard to Juninho, Mexico.



Biggest embarrassment

Take your pick from New York City’s twin low points of the year: was it the 7-0 aggregate playoff loss in the club’s first ever playoff series, or the 7-0 regular season home loss to the New York Red Bulls?



Hard to choose, though at least NYCFC got a modicum of revenge for the latter by recording their first ever win over the Red Bulls a few weeks later, before posing for a selfie in the Yankee Stadium locker room, that featured the collective playing, technical and support staff. Sadly, that only inspired the Red Bulls to go unbeaten for the remainder of the regular season and pip their rivals to a Champions League spot (they beat NYCFC 4-1 during that sequence, for good measure).

That said, for a second year team, NYCFC generally did very well this year. Their attack was exponentially better, and Patrick Vieira got them playing with verve even on the road until that playoff sequence.

At that point Vieira seemed to lose his nerve. He dropped his goalkeeper, Josh Saunders, tried to reinvent his team as cagey counter-punchers, and while his confused team only dropped two late goals in Toronto he’d left them realistically needing an unlikely clean sheet in the second leg. Instead his team conceded within minutes, then conceded again and again as Toronto and Giovinco blew past them.

The ‘Are you still here?’ award for under-appreciated genius: Sebastian Giovinco

Last season Sebastian Giovinco set goalscoring and assist records for a first year player in the league, dragged serial under-achievers Toronto to their first ever playoff game, and strolled the MVP award.

This year, he did all the same things just as well, scored and made vital goals in a run that took Toronto to hosting an MLS Cup, and was not even shortlisted for MVP. Next year he needs to start turning water into wine, or he can go straight to the “Where are they now?” file.

Most costly lapse of concentration: FC Dallas

Young, gifted, and now winners – coming into the playoffs, Oscar Pareja’s FC Dallas team had already won the US Open Cup and the Supporters’ Shield, playing exciting soccer that blended experience with their celebrated pipeline of Texan youth talent. The number one seeds had reached half-time at 0-0 against Seattle in the first leg of the Conference semi-final, and had come out for the second half looking to nick an away goal to take back to Dallas.

And as our youthful heroes dreamed of glory between the 50th and 58th minutes, Seattle ran around them, up the flanks, and scored three goals. Dallas would win the second leg, but not for the first time this year, an inexplicable lapse in concentration would let them down. Regular season aberrant results are one thing, though – this was a season-ending catastrophe.

Premier League import it’s saddest to see leave

Robbie Keane. It’s not even close. The well-traveled Irishman has been the most effective designated player in the league at his best, and his LA Galaxy team have won three MLS Cups since he arrived, with Keane a key component of all of them. Watching his struggles with injuries this year has been tough, and in what was generally a season of treading water for the Galaxy (they replaced veterans with veterans) there was a valedictory feel to watching Keane’s influence wane alongside the drifting of his team. He’ll be missed in the US.

Most MLS deal

Anything involving Chicago Fire. The Fire may have finished bottom of the East, but they are just two future considerations and an exceptionally tall draft pick from being able to paper Toyota Stadium with targeted allocation money.

The new Fire management team started wheeling and dealing at the Superdraft and have not yet let up with their tinkering: the season began with Jack Harrison posing with a Chicago scarf, then posing with an NYC FC scarf moments later, and ended with Sean Johnson being traded to Atlanta, who immediately traded him to NYC FC.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jack Harrison at the Superdraft. Photograph: Tommy Gilligan/USA Today Sports

In between Chicago drew a lot of games, finished in last place, and generally didn’t draw much attention to themselves, but as this is MLS, the general consensus is that all their wheeling and dealing too undo the problems of previous regimes, may actually have made them a team to watch over the next two years, assuming it all works out.

On that note, the Fire are reportedly negotiating with Sebastian Schweinsteiger as we speak. Manchester United will receive a conditional third round draft pick in the 2018 draft, a Cuauhtémoc Blanco mug, and the 2012 season.

Most missed marketing opportunity

During MLS Cup Fox’s John Strong made special note of how good the pitch looked, despite the sub-zero temperatures, and described how this was achieved by a system of some 26 miles of pipework filled with warm alcohol.

The shivering masses observing this arrangement in the stadium may have appreciated a strategically tapped sprinkler.

Least swashbuckling MLS Cup victory

You remember Seattle Sounders? All-attacking, sweeping to victory, except when they lose in big games? Kind of like Spurs but in retina-searing green?



Yeah, well they’re MLS Cup winners now.

No, they didn’t. Actually they had zero shots on target over 120 minutes.

Yes the defense did play well. And Stefan Frei made the best save ever seen in MLS Cup.

Well, it was very cold.

Best 100-year-old midfield: Montreal Impact

The midfield trio of Bernadello, Donadel and Bernier collectively represent 100 years of experience, that almost got them to an MLS Cup. Having picked off DC, then outfoxed the Red Bulls feted trio of McCarty, Felipe and Kljestan in the Conference semi-finals, they looked to be doing the same to Toronto until that Greg Vanney adjustment that changed the course of the tie.

And in doing so, they took the focus off another veteran player whose presence had at one point threatened to undermine the team completely. When it became apparent that Didier Drogba’s limited mobility had become a serious liability, Mauro Biello finally dropped him in favor of the younger and faster Matteo Mancosu, only for Drogba to storm off and refuse to sit on the bench.

A vaguely contrite Drogba was eventually persuaded back to play a bit part in Montreal’s campaign, but if the team could carry a veteran midfield it became clear they couldn’t carry anything less than a young and dynamic attack as an outlet.

Biggest goalkeeping howler

Stefan Frei’s save from Jozy Altidore, during extra-time in MLS Cup, was a thing of beauty. Frei was player of the game for many, including me.

It’s not easy being a goalkeeper:

Best goal

Shkelzen Gashi won goal of the year for a wickedly swerving free kick, but had the awards continued into the playoffs, he’d have won for this shot — which lit up an otherwise dire second leg between La Galaxy and Colorado Rapids.

Least likely to swing naked from a chandelier singing riffs from “Lemonade” while scoring for fun: Colorado Rapids

Occasional Gashi thunderbolts aside, the Rapids were so-lid to a fault. Their stingy defense have been specialists at squeezing out results at home this year, particularly 1-0 wins – indeed, they were unbeaten at home in 2016 coming into the playoffs. But when they found themselves1-0 down (3-1 on aggregate) to Seattle in the second half of the second leg of the Conference final, Colorado belatedly remembered that there was something else they hadn’t done this year – won from behind.

Team of the year

FC Dallas. Look, Seattle’s second half of the year has been an extraordinary run, and their spirit and grit on the way to an unlikely MLS Cup has been its own compelling narrative – and definitely one built on team work, even though there were obvious individual catalysts. But they were awful for the first part of the year, and still need a significant retooling this off-season, Cup or no Cup.

But that 10 minute lapse against Seattle aside, FC Dallas came good on their promise this year. They got a monkey of their back by winning the Open Cup, played some of the most exhilarating team soccer the league has seen at times. They continue to lead the way in youth development, and provided Pareja isn’t tempted away (he’s already being linked with the US job after Bruce Arena).

Coach of the year

Jürgen Klinsmann Oscar Pareja.



Best player

Sebastian Giovinco. David Villa won MVP and his value to NYC FC in their up and down early days has been incalculable. Fair enough. Bradley Wright-Phillips and Sacha Kljestan, the other two MVP finalists probably deserved to split the vote. Each had excellent individual seasons, without ever putting everyone else in the shade. If Lodeiro plays a full season, etc etc.

But it’s Giovinco. Again. In this league he is that good. (And yes, he didn’t do much at MLS Cup, but if I couldn’t feel my feet in the heated press box, it’s a fair bet that Giovinco’s touch might be a bit off when trying to get a frozen rock up and down over the wall … )