it was a sight to see. He's had a bit of a rebirth this year in East Rutherford, but his 2000 season will always be remembered as Clint's greatest season.
10. Jason Kreis, 1999 (18 goals). Not only did Kreis tally 18 goals but he also dished out 15 assists in one of the great seasons ever put together by an U.S. attacking player in MLS. Good enough to earn him the Honda MVP trophy. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Kreis was the greatest free-kick taker in the history of the league. From 18-30 yards, he was a 'keeper's worst nightmare.
9. Taylor Twellman, 2002 (23 goals). It was the season that got the Revolution rolling. No, they haven't won an MLS Cup, but in terms of consistency, the Revs post-2002 have been a model MLS club on the field. Credit Twellman, who moved to MLS from 1860 Munich in '02 and immediately showed why he's one of the best box strikers the league has ever seen.
8. Mamadou Diallo, 2000 (26 goals). He left the league a villain because of his awful collision with Metro goalkeeper Mike Ammann, but for one year there was probably not as brilliant an individual striker in MLS as Big Mama. Here's the funny thing, though, about Diallo. He only seemed to work well when he played alone up front. The Mutiny front office banged their collective heads against the wall for a year, trying to find him a partner, when the reality was that all a partner ever did for Diallo was get in his way. One of my favorite things to watch with Mamadou was his penalty kicks. All he did was hit the ball as hard as he could and hope it hit the net. He pretty much knew there was not a 'keeper anywhere who could keep it out of the net, even if it hit him square in the hands.
7. Juan Pablo Angel, 2007 (17 goals). Might as well live in the present here. It's been a long, at times agonizing, search for a marquee striker in New York. Finally, in Angel, that man has arrived. Since the day he set foot on the field for the Red Bulls, JPA has shown a million different ways a striker can put himself in position to score. What sets him apart, however, is that when he gets a chance, Angel rarely misses the target. On to the playoffs, Juan Pablo: RB fans are hungry to advance for the first time since 2000.
6. Raul Diaz Arce, 1996 (23 goals). Here was the classic case of a striker who drove fans nuts as much as he brought them out of their seats. Diaz Arce was not the most aesthetically pleasing striker MLS has ever seen. His touch was suspect and his decision making on the ball was often out of sync with his teammates. But the man never stopped working to put himself in a position to score. And with teammates the likes of Marco Etcheverry, Jaime Moreno and John Harkes, Diaz Arce got enough chances that he couldn't help but score. To be fair to RDA, he was an excellent header of the ball, which is how he scored most of his goals, and it's hard to imagine D.C. winning that inaugural MLS Cup without him as their target.
5. Alex Pineda Chacon, 2001 (19 goals). I often ask myself, did Alex Pineda Chacon's 2001 season really happen? I mean, of course it happened, but what happened to this guy at every other stop along the way? In '01, playing with Diego Serna and a band of wily veterans assembled by Ray Hudson, Pineda Chacon was the perfect complementary player, who just so happened to be the man who usually got the last touch of the ball before it hit the net. His finishing in '01 was near-perfect, though my memory tells me that many of his goals were side-footers from inside the six with the 'keeper nowhere to be found. He never got those chances again as he bounced around MLS. Still, in '01 he was an MVP.
4. Stern John, 1998 (26 goals). To Columbus by way of Trinidad & Tobago and Mercer County College, Stern John took the league by storm in 1998, scoring one clinical goal after another for the Crew. He turned his MLS success into a long, successful career in England and I'll guess we'll see him return to MLS again one day soon. It's doubtful, however, he'll be able to have the impact he had back in '98, when he was as unstoppable as any forward MLS has ever seen.
3. Luciano Emilio, 2007 (20 goals). When D.C. got out of the gates slowly this year, I wondered if this team, under the direction of a new coach in Tommy Soehn, would flounder. Emilio made sure that did not happen, taking charge of the D.C. attack and leading them to what looks like a Supporters' Shield. I rank Emilio's season this high because I think he is exactly the player United needed to succeed in '07, and he's the reason they're a good bet to win a fifth MLS Cup.
2. Carlos Ruiz, 2002 (24 goals). Hard to beat the very first season that El Pescadito had in MLS. A young and inexpensive signing by then-coach Sigi Schmid, Ruiz brought a physical, at times nasty, style of play to the Galaxy and the results spoke for themselves. He scored 24 goals in the regular season, a bunch of them in overtime (remember the league had the golden goal back then), then capped the year off with the MLS Cup winner at Foxboro Stadium, finally getting the Galaxy over the hump to win their first MLS Cup.
1. Roy Lassiter, 1996 (27 goals). There was a time, way back when, that I did a goal scorers First XI and I did not give Rocket Roy his due. I heard about it from Eric Wynalda, who said it was flat out wrong to not list Lassiter's season as the best-ever by an MLS striker. So, this time, I'll give the nod to Lassiter (and Waldo), who (to my recollection) scored all of his record-setting (and still standing) 27 goals with his left foot, on breakaways, off feeds from Carlos Valderrama, and then did "the airplane." Sure, that's an exaggeration, but 1996 seems so long ago. At any rate, Lassiter set the bar that strikers in MLS still try to reach. That's influential.
Jeff Bradley is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. Send your comments and complaints (200 words or less, please) to Jeff at jbradleyespn2003@yahoo.com and he promises to read (but not respond to) all of them. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author's, and not necessarily those of Major League Soccer or MLSnet.com.
