How will you remember 2014? Will it be a Thierry Henry backheel, or a Lee Nguyen dance through the defenders? A one-time smash from Robbie Keane, or a draw-and-dish from Obafemi Martins to Clint Dempsey?
Or maybe all of the above?
This year gifted us with more than our fair share of perfect on-field moments, and I've taken the liberty of narrowing them down to my own, personal top 10, the Most Memorable GIFs of 2014.
I used a few different criteria in my rubric: importance of the play (A game-winner in a Cup final? That's getting some extra weight); importance of the player(s) involved (Titi!); quality on display; and how illustrative the GIF is of the season had by the team on display. You are invited to disagree most heartily.
Also, I didn't use any Toronto FC GIFs. I realized, upon looking through my database, that I have enough flubs for a separate "Why Michael Bradley only had four assists this year" compilation.
And now some GIFs:
10. Nick Rimando wears a cape
This didn't win Save of the Year, but it did get my vote. Rimando was spectacular in this scoreless draw at Portland in the season's second-to-last weekend, probably the best game any 'keeper had in 2014. Preserving the point also meant preserving a place in the 2-3 round of the Western Conference playoffs, thus avoiding the 4-5 Knockout round. On top of that, it kept RSL in the hunt for the CONCACAF Champions League -- they'd eventually secure a spot when the LA Galaxy won MLS Cup.
9. Ruthless People
It might seem bizarre to have a Crew SC GIF that doesn't include Federico Higuain, but this is my favorite bit from the Massive Canary in 2014, in a 1-1 draw back in June. The result didn't matter a whole lot in the end, but the passage of play was definitively Columbus: compact in the middle to open up the flanks for Ethan Finlay's speed. The finish is even nicer than the through-ball from Homegrown playmaker Ben Speas.
8. No. 9
File this under "perfect hold-up play" or "the modern No. 9." Fanendo Adi changed the shape of the season for the Timbers, and while he didn't quite get his team to the playoffs, he did help get them really, really close. I gave this my vote for AT&T Goal of the Year, even if it came in a 4-3 home loss that, down the road, proved incrediby costly. Expect Portland to play through Adi even more at the start of next season as Will Johnson -- the goalscorer on this play -- and Diego Valeri will both start the season rehabbing injuries.
This game gave us a second great GIF, as well as some deep focus out of the Orson Welles playbook.
7. The Very Best
This was my favorite piece of play this year, from Houston's 2-0 win over Chicago in late September. One veteran international (Boniek Garcia) hits an outside-of-the-boot, 40-yard banana pass over the top to one future international (Giles Barnes for Jamaica, y'all), whose first touch is perfect. Barnes then tries a running, outside-of-the-boot lob from 18 yards. Another international (Sean Johnson) caps it off with one of the saves of the season. Only reason this didn't rate higher is that both teams were out of the hunt by this point.
6. A Magic Little Unicorn
FC Dallas are my "Hey, it's way too early but whatever, nobody will remember this" pick to win the Western Conference, and in large part it's because Mauro Diaz is magic. This was from a 3-1 win over Chivas RIP way back in March, and we didn't get to see many more plays like it as Diaz battled injuries for most of the year. But when he's on the field, he sees lanes other players don't even dream of.
5. Greatness Multiplied
This is the record-breaking, 136th career assist from Landon Donovan. It's his defense-splitting pass that finds A.J. DeLaGarza -- one of the four best defenders in MLS this year -- on the overlap, and it sets up league MVP Keane for a legit golazo in this 3-0 win over Toronto FC. It all came at the end of a 20-pass movement, one of the longest in the league this year. This was the Galaxy at their very best.
4. It's Their Cup
The Seattle Sounders own the US Open Cup, winning their fourth in six seasons this past year. This was the goal that clinched it, and -- bigger picture here, folks -- this is the goal that made Seattle something close to unstoppable in 2014. The ability of Martins to draw defenders, then slip Dempsey through (and vice versa) is why the Sounders were often able to just sit deep, hit on the counter and attack 2-vs-4 for huge swathes of just about any game.
That flexibility paid off with two titles, as the Sounders also won their first Supporters' Shield.
3. Insert Nguyen Pun Here
Nguyen was, without question, the break-out player of 2014. And this goal, from a 2-1 win over Montreal, is the Nguyen-iest and Revs-iest goal of them all. What makes Nguyen special is his ability to drop back into central midfield and link play while still finding ample opportunities to push forward and get goal dangerous. What makes the Revs outliers is that they play technical, pretty, team soccer, but do so by going direct through midfield.
It's all here on this play, as three guys with Champions League-level IQs (Nguyen, Jermaine Jones and Charlie Davies) simply undressed the Impact.
2. Have a Tap-in
I just love this play, which came in LA's 3-0 destruction of the Sounders in late July. Donovan is in on goal here, but rather than take the shot, he basically gave Gyasi Zardes a lay-up. This is the quintessential Donovan pass: very low on the "flash" scale while maxing out the "functionality" scale.
The hidden subplot here is that not only did this goal show the development of Zardes, it also helped the Sounders focus on and fix what they'd been doing wrong. Seattle never became a truly great defensive team, but the mental errors and pulled-up runs that plagued them through mid-summer virtually disappeared after this game. My guess is they watched this film a bunch, and both DeAndre Yedlin and Zach Scott became better players because of it.
1. Magnifique
I probably ended up making more GIFs of Henry than anyone else over the last 12 months. He's one of the 20 (or so) greatest players ever to grace our game, and he just inspired the best five-year stretch for New York, a franchise that was well and truly cursed before his arrival. While he didn't end his run with an MLS Cup, he did help give long-time fans something they enjoyed nearly as much: a playoff win over D.C. United. This was the opener in what became a 3-2 aggregate win, a sterling example of Henry's movement, touch, strength and vision.
It was also one of 31 goals for Bradley Wright-Phillips, who will become even more of a focal point in the post-Titi era. Bonus points as well for the dummy from Peguy Luyindula, one of my personal favorites.
What did Jon Busch think of this list?
He's not sure.
