MLS: A League in Need of Better Strikers?

By: Daryl | November 17th, 2009

Major League Soccer announced the league’s Best XI yesterday, as voted for by media, players, coaches and GMs. Here’s what they came up with:

GOALKEEPER (1): Zach Thornton (Chivas USA)

DEFENDERS (3): Geoff Cameron (Houston Dynamo), Wilman Conde (Chicago Fire), Chad Marshall (Columbus Crew)

MIDFIELDERS (5): Dwayne De Rosario (Toronto FC), Landon Donovan (Los Angeles Galaxy), Stuart Holden (Houston Dynamo), Shalrie Joseph (New England Revolution), Freddie Ljungberg (Seattle Sounders FC)

FORWARDS (2): Conor Casey (Colorado Rapids), Jeff Cunningham (FC Dallas)

That’s not a bad looking midfield at all, especially when you consider the midfielders who didn’t make the cut. Guys like David Beckham and Cuauhtémoc Blanco. I’m not arguing for their inclusion. Just noting that five other players outperformed that pair on merit, and suggesting maybe that indicates MLS possesses an impressive depth of quality in midfielders.

The same thing can not be said about MLS strikers however, and I’m thinking maybe that’s a problem

Jeff Cunningham and Conor Casey take the two forward spots on this Best XI mostly because they finished #1 and #2 in the MLS Golden Boot race with 17 and 16 goals respectively. Can’t argue with that. But while both are decent enough forwards, even the biggest FC Dallas or Colorado Rapids fans would have to admit that both players are somewhat limited. As an MLS supporter (of the league in general) that worries me.

There’s the old American sports phrase: “Offense sells tickets, Defense wins championships”. Which is as true for soccer as it is for any other sport. MLS is in the business of not just selling tickets, but also selling soccer to the American and Canadian public. For that, they’re going to need some superstar strikers.

It’s absolutely not fair, but strikers are usually the guys that get the glory and the headlines. In essence they play a big part in selling the league to the public. When a striker goes on a scoring run, that right there is exciting. Think Fernando Torres and Didier Drogba in England, or David Villa and Diego Forlan in Spain. Or any other consistently good forwards from any of the other big leagues that MLS would love to be.

For whatever reason, MLS has not been host to a really prolific forward in recent years. Juan Pablo Angel looked the man for a while there, but his goal tally has dropped with each successive season and each year he’s aged. Jaime Moreno is the MLS all time leading scorer with 131 goals, but he’s 35 now and slowing down. Taylor Twellman may be the most lethal active player, the most natural goalscorer who’s not at retirement age, but his past two seasons of been decimated by a variety of injuries.

Even some of the guys who should have lit up the scoring charts suffered from patchy form. Step forward Eddie Johnson.

Maybe what MLS needs is some younger hotshots? Jozy Altidore would no doubt have been banging goals in has he not been snapped up by Villarreal at the tender age of 18. Seattle’s Colombian forward Fredy (with one “d”) Montero finished third in the Golden Boot rankings, and is only 22, but he’s on loan from Deportivo Cali and it’s still not clear whether he’ll be back in MLS for 2010.

So it’s a Catch-22 for the league, because any youngster that gets a decent goal tally – like Altidore or Montero – attracts attention from abroad and can end up departing. Which may be part of the reason why so-so players like Cunningham and Casey lead the way.

Perhaps the only realistic antidote to this relative goalscoring mediocrity is the Designated Player. We’ve yet to see a bona fide superstar striker – a Thierry Henry or a Ronaldo (the World Cup winning one, not the other one) – sign with an MLS team as a DP and score MLS goals for fun. Can you imagine the buzz such a thing would generate? No reason why that can’t happen in the near future, and MLS will have taken yet another step forward once it does.