With the Los Angeles Galaxy's 10th season one-third complete, the races for Best Moment, Best XI and Best Goal are heating up in LAGalaxy.com's Decade of Stars polling. With several thousand votes cast, the closest battles are taking shape in the Best XI voting, while the Best Moment and Best Goal polls look to be runaways.
Galaxy legend Mauricio Cienfuegos is currently the top overall vote-getter in the Best XI poll, but Cobi Jones, who has played for no other team in his MLS career, is just a handful of votes behind. Former Galaxy marksman Carlos Ruiz is just a few votes further back of Jones in the overall race, but "El Pescadito" is by far the top choice among strikers. The rest of the midfield candidates sit a good distance behind Cienfuegos and Jones, as third-place Chris Armas and fourth-place Clint Mathis are nearly 600 votes behind the top two.
There's another battle developing among the defenders, where MLS originals Alexi Lalas, Paul Caligiuri and Greg Vanney are all within 65 votes of each other. Lalas currently leads, but Caligiuri and Vanney are hot on his trail. A bit further back are two Caribbean internationals, Jamaica's Tyrone Marshall and Ezra Hendrickson of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. In goal, the league's all-time wins leader Kevin Hartman is starting to widen the gap between himself and former Mexican national team 'keeper Jorge Campos.
In the Best Goal polling, in which fans are asked to select one goal from each of the Galaxy's previous nine years, Ruiz's bicycle kick from 2003 is by far the biggest vote-getter. None of the other four goals from that year are within 200 votes of Ruiz's strike. Ruiz has two other goals that lead their respective years: his MLS Cup-winning strike from 2002 and a remarkable effort from 2004 in which he flipped over Dallas 'keeper Scott Garlick and recovered to slot the ball home.
Two other players have multiple leading goals. Jones' strikes from 1996 and 1997 lead their respective years by wide margins, as do Cienfuegos' long blasts from 2000 and 2001. Martin Machon's long-distance bomb leads the 1998 voting, while Carlos Hermosillo's clinical finish is the 1999 leader.
In the Best Moment voting, the clear leader - and obvious choice - is the Galaxy's triumph in MLS Cup 2002, outpacing the club's inaugural game in 1996 and the club's 2000 CONCACAF Champions' Cup victory.
Jason Halpin is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
