MLSsoccer.com polled 22 of our editors, writers, videographers, statistics specialists and social media masters to bring you the Stories of the Year, our annual look at the biggest storylines from the outgoing year in Major League Soccer. New media editor Nicholas Rosano examines what Jermaine Jones brought to the Revolution.
Jermaine Jones had quite a summer.
He played every minute of the United States national team's four games in the 2014 World Cup and scored a memorable goal against Portugal. He partied with Charlie Sheen. And then he took the New England Revolution to within a hair’s breadth of an MLS Cup title – but only after his headline-grabbing acquisition.
First, Brazil. There was little question as to Jones’ place within the US program heading into 2014, and by the time the World Cup rolled around, his up-and-down spell with Turkey’s Besiktas and previous comments that MLS was on his mind indicated that the tournament could well be a showcase for potential MLS suitors.
It was hard for the teams watching Jones not to be impressed. He was one of the USMNT’s most consistent field players and lashed home a long-distance equalizer during his best game of the tournament against Portugal.
Following the team’s elimination, Jones did nothing to disabuse the interested public of the notion that he’d follow up his show on the world stage with a move to MLS, but the 33-year-old also did not rush into the thick of the summer action after a grueling run.
Instead, he reveled in the afterglow of the visibility provided by his emergence in Brazil – Instagram shots with Sheen, Mike Tyson and Paris Hilton became the norm as MLS fans bided their time, waiting to see which team would land the newly-minted soccer celebrity.
As negotiations with MLS ramped up, it became clear that the Chicago Fire were one of the most insistent suitors for Jones, even if he didn’t quite reciprocate the interest. It was reported in early August that Jones had turned down a Designated Player offer from the Fire, but Chicago kept pushing, with singer Lupe Fiasco joining the recruitment drive at one point.
One team sorely in need of Jones’ help at the No. 6 position kept their interest in the German-born player quiet – the New England Revolution. But it was not for a lack of previous interest.
"When we learned that he was interested in signing with MLS, we immediately informed the league of our interest,” Revs investor/operator Jonathan Kraft recalled later.
The official news of Jones joining the league finally broke on Aug. 24, and it was indeed the Revs who’d snatched him away from the Fire – but not without some controversy.
As both clubs expressed interest in and possessed the resources to sign Jones, and he was a player considered above the threshold for entering the typical allocation process, the situation was resolved by a blind draw, which landed Jones on a Revolution squad just one month removed from an eight-game losing streak, with their playoff hopes remaining in the balance.
"Jones, as a designated player of a certain threshold, was not subject to allocation ranking for dispersal to an MLS team,” the Revs’ announcement of his signing read. “The Revolution and Fire expressed an interest in Jones, and had the available salary budget and a designated player slot to accommodate him. Following a blind draw between the two clubs, Jones was assigned to the Revolution."
There was plenty of recrimination among Fire fans after the decision, but the Chicago brass remained diplomatic in their response to the application of a previously-unused mechanism that led them to miss out on their highly-coveted target.
"The Chicago Fire Soccer Club has pursued Jermaine Jones as a free agent signing over the past month and a half, and have gone to great lengths to bring him into Major League Soccer and our organization," Fire head coach Frank Yallop said in a statement. "We thought that he'd be a great fit in Chicago. While we're deeply disappointed that he will not be a part of the Fire, we respect the system employed by MLS and wish Jermaine well with his new club.”
Jones’ impact was far more immediate than anyone could have expected for a 33-year-old veteran coming off of a nearly two-month break following a grueling World Cup. A 25-minute substitute cameo less than a week after his arrival was followed by a string of three starts, and Jones picked up an assist in each one, all of them wins.
He was everything the Revs had hoped for and more, showing off his attacking abilities to the tune of two goals and four assists overall as the Revs went on an 8-1-1 stretch run that landed them the No. 2 playoff seed in the Eastern Conference.
“The one thing that Jermaine has brought by coming is a real swagger; it’s a confidence that allows the players to [be themselves],” Revs head coach Jay Heaps said in the lead-up to MLS Cup. “We as coaches can say, ‘Hey, you’re great,’ but it doesn’t mean anything until someone like Jermaine steps on the field and says, 'This is how you do it. This is how we’re going to do it.' That’s why I credit him to allow our guys to be themselves during this last stretch run.”
The impressive attacking stats did not mark a downturn in Jones’ defensive abilities, either. He continued to show the physical, hard-working style of play that made him one of the most fearsome and frustrating defensive midfielders in the German Bundesliga. He picked up three yellow cards in the regular season and continued to stay in the headlines – not even necessarily for his physical play, but by calling out the play of those he felt were going outside the laws of the game in targeting him.
“I don’t know the name of the player, but he tried maybe two or three times, without the ball, to kick me,” Jones said of a Sept. 13 encounter with Montreal midfielder Calum Mallace that led to his halftime substitution. “It’s not nice when you feel like you have players that try to hurt you, and this guy tried to hurt me.”
Heaps also stuck up for his swaggering midfielder before the season was through, worrying about his being unfairly targeted by the Columbus Crew in their late-season encounter. Even as the Crew talked up their re-match with Jones ahead of the two teams’ playoff series, Jones let his play do the talking, setting a physical tone and chipping in an assist in a 4-2 away-leg romp that all but secured the series win for New England.
Another assist and a goal (not to mention a nasty tackle on Dax McCarty), in the Eastern Conference Championship series against New York had Revs fans dreaming that their new arrival could, along with MVP candidate Lee Nguyen, lead them to a first MLS Cup title after falling in their four previous trips to the title game.
But even Jones’ steely resolve in the midfield couldn’t hold off an LA Galaxy team seemingly destined for the history books. There was to be no storybook ending for one of the most remarkable years in the life of an American soccer player, but who says we’ve reached the end of the story?
