Two days left to First Kick. Let’s see about the number 2 in MLS lore...
2 on the Trot: The Seattle Sounders have won the last two US Open Cups, the only MLS team to have won the world’s second-oldest club tournament back-to-back. The last – and only – team to win three in a row were Greek American AA of Brooklyn in 1967, ’68 and ’69.
2 Cubed: If the LA Galaxy win the Supporters’ Shield, they’ll be the third straight team to win two shields in a row. D.C. United did it in ’06 and ’07, then the Columbus Crew followed in ’08 and ’09 before the Galaxy won it last season.
Cafeteros 2: David Ferreira won the 2010 league MVP, the second Colombian to do so (Carlos Valderrama was the first back in 1996). Colombia joins Argentina (Christian Gomez and Guillermo Barros Schelotto) and Honduras (Alex Pineda Chacon and Amado Guevara) as countries beside the US that have produced two MLS MVPs.
Record 2: Two is also the number of MVPs won by former KC and Miami great Preki. He’s the only MLS player to have multiple MVPs to his credit. In addition to Ferreira, Landon Donovan and Carlos Ruiz – the only other former MVPs still in the league – are in the hunt for their second trophy.
[inline_node:326489]Top 2: Sigi Schmid and Bruce Arena both have two MLS Coach of the Year plaques, two of three managers (Bob Bradley was the other) to take the honor multiple times. If Schmid wins, he’ll do so with his third different team (LA, Columbus and potentially Seattle). Arena’s first came with DC back in 1997, and his second came with the Galaxy in 2009. If he wins in 2011, he’ll be the first MLS manager to win the award twice with the same team.
New 2: The only expansion teams to win the MLS Cup are the Chicago Fire (1998) and Real Salt Lake (2009). Every other winner was part of the original 10 MLS teams, with the exception of the Houston Dynamo – who were relocated, and won their two Cups in the years immediately following that group’s capture of the 2005 Supporters’ Shield while still in San Jose.
Backstop 2: Speaking of the Quakes from that era, that was a team spoiled for riches in net. Joe Cannon won the first of his two MLS Goalkeeper of the Year awards with San Jose in 2002 before moving on and winning his second with Colorado in 2004. Pat Onstad won both of his with the Quakes, in ’03 and ’05. They’re the only men to have won twice. Onstad is also one of just two non-Americans to have won the award, with 2010’s winner, Jamaican Donovan Ricketts of LA, the other.
2 New: 2011 is the first time since 2005 that MLS will expand by two teams, with the entrance of the Portland Timbers and Vancouver Whitecaps FC. Chivas USA and Real Salt Lake came into the league together in ’05, and way back in 1998 the initial expansion class consisted of the Chicago Fire and Miami Fusion.
