The AT&T MLS All-Star Fan XI was announced on Saturday afternoon, and the fans mostly did a pretty good job. You could quibble about a selection here or an omission there, but there's nothing truly glaring.
With that said: No All-Star Game gets the selections 100 percent perfect, since there's an inherent bias towards either a) veterans with recognizable names and games, or b) youngsters who take the league by storm. There's less room for guys who slowly but surely add pieces to their games, improving each year around the fringes rather than making an undeniable one-season leap from "bit player" to "star attraction."
That, presumably, is where the coach's and Commissioner's Picks should come in. Here are my suggestions for three guyswho deserve consideration:
D: R.J. Allen (NYCFC) -- Keegan Rosenberry won the fan vote more for his superb individual defense and reliability in possession. He deserves his spot.
Elsewhere in the Eastern Conference, however, you can find a right back whose attacking exploits have largely gone unnoticed. Allen hits as incisive a final ball as any fullback in the league:
Gonna talk some potential @MLS all-stars later on today... pic.twitter.com/BpJnU0wSzh
— Matthew Doyle (@MLSAnalyst) July 9, 2016
David Villa didn't bury that one, even though he probably should have. No worries, though, as Allen has nonetheless managed one goal and four assists in 930 minutes, while earning the job as a full-time starter on the right of NYCFC's back line.
D: Matt Hedges (FC Dallas) -- This is from Brian Sciaretta's MLS Midseason Awards column over at AmericanSoccerNow:
In the 12 games featuring Hedges, Dallas has six wins, four draws, two losses with six cleansheets. Meanwhile Hedges has just two yellow cards and is the captain for the best team in the league. In those 12 games, FC Dallas has conceded 12 goals (although five goals came in an inexplicably bad loss to Houston—an outlier).
Following Friday night's 1-0 win at San Jose -- the first home loss the Quakes have suffered this year -- make it 7-2-4 with seven shutouts for Dallas when Hedges plays, while conceding less than one goal per game.
I didn't list Hedges as my Defender of the Year because he missed too many games in the first half of the season. But if he stays healthy and FCD keep playing like they have been, he'll be the odds-on favorite to win.
MF: Marcelo Sarvas (D.C. United) -- Once again D.C. United are among the best defensive teams in the league, and this time it's not because Bill Hamid is the league's best shot-stopper, or because the Bobby Boswell/Steve Birnbaum combo has been impenetrable. All three of those guys have been mostly very good, but none have been the key to this team's defensive prowess.
Marcelo, however, has been irreplaceable, especially following the recent (and thus far, profitable) switch to a 4-3-3/4-1-4-1. He sits deep as a lone d-mid and is asked to protect the entire backline, not just central defense:
He's 34, and playing a new(ish) position for a new team in a new formation, and making it look natural -- there's a reason Goal.com's Ives Galarcep gave him a spot in his midseason Best XI. Given the struggles some of the league's other top d-mids have had this year, Marcelo deserves that nod, as well as a date with Arsenal at the end of the month.
