Add another award for Zach Thornton on the season. Today the league named Thornton it’s Comeback Player of the Year. At the same time the league also announced Fredy Montero as the Newcomer of the Year.

Montero was one of the league leaders in goals scored this year. His 12 goals on the season blew away any other newcomer in that category. While he didn’t win a Golden Boot award he did gain a lot of attention for his flashy play and sometimes questionable diving. Still there was little doubt for the majority of the season that Montero wasn’t going to be the Newcomer of the Year.

As for Thornton, last week he won the Goalkeeper of the Year and now is the Comeback Player of the Year. Thornton was considered a lost cause last year when he came to Chivas from New York to fill in for the departed Brad Guzan. Most expected he wouldn’t be back for 2009 because of his weight issues but Thornton got himself into top shape and his play this season spoke for itself. He led Chivas USA to a 13-11-6 record and posted a career best 12 shutouts and 0.87 goals against average.

The regular season is done, over, finished or whatever other adjective you want to use. For the second straight season WVH got to participate in the league’s media vote for the season awards. Voting is now over and I felt it was time to share my votes with you all.

I’ll have to admit some awards were tougher to vote on than others but I tried to span the entire season’s body of work as much as I could for these awards. The way you vote for these awards is to give your first, second and third place votes for each. Now I will leave out the lesser awards like best PR from a club and best ref of the year. The rest I will list below.

Robert Warzycha was the best coach fo the year for me. (Getty Images)

Coach of the Year:

1. Robert Warzycha (Columbus): Some will definitely disagree with me on this one and I will be honest I really went back and forth on this award but at the end of the day I had to give it up to a guy that kept things just the way they were and got this club to a second straight Supporter’s Shield trophy. Consistency is key in this league and its even more amazing to see it happen after a coaching change.

2. Sigi Schmid (Seattle): I think anytime you take an expansion team to the playoffs you deserve some big time credit for it.

3. Bruce Arena (LA): I kind of have a feeling he will end up with this award but he didn’t get my top vote but not because he didn’t deserve it. The job he did in LA was definitely one of his best. I am just waiting to see if it turns into a MLS Cup before I call it his best work.

Defender of the Year:

1. Geoff Cameron (Houston): One of the easier award for me to vote on. Cameron was consistent and easily the best defender of the year in my eyes.

2. Chad Marshall (Columbus): Had he stayed healthy through the entire season he would have won back-to-back votes from me for this. It was close but his injuries hurt him I thought for this award.

3. Jhon Kennedy Hurtado (Seattle): The biggest X-factor on that Seattle defense is Hurtado. The guy is that good folks. Continue Reading…

While the day seems to be lost on everyone’s Twitter feeds being down, I figured it was a good time to get back in the award discussion once again here. Instead of waiting for putting this in the evening links and thoughts I figured I would break this discussion off into it’s own post for the day.

With a couple weeks left in the season the Newcomer of the Year award is starting to actually get a little tighter. For months it’s nearly been all Seattle Sounders leading the charge but now a couple other names are starting to emerge on the list and if some lead their clubs into the playoffs you can bet they will snatch up some of those votes from folks like myself.

Here is my top five for the Newcomer of the Year. Feel free to list yours below.

1. Fredy Montero (Seattle Sounders): The one getting all the press is still Montero though he finally has some true company for this award. The more he produces in the final weeks the better his chances are at this award.

2. David Ferreira (FC Dallas): To be honest I wasn’t a huge fan of this guy early on in the season but since Jeff Cunningham got hot so did he. Ferreira finally found his way in the league and now he is starting to look like the playmaker that Dallas was hoping he’d be. You have to believe that if Dallas somehow makes it into the playoffs Ferreira will be a big reason behind it. He does have a lot of ground to make up to win this award though.

3. Kasey Keller (Seattle Sounders): Keller’s stock continues to be in a holding pattern for this award. Not that its a bad thing and he has certainly done his part to get the Sounders where they are at right now.

4. Donovan Ricketts (LA Galaxy): LA returns to the playoffs for the first time in a couple years and believe it or not it has a lot to do with Ricketts. Now if he leads his club to a Supporter’s Shield title in the final weeks of the season you can bet he will move up these charts.

5. Osvaldo Alonso (Seattle Sounders): The last of the Sounders in my top five. He’s been a rock in the midfield for this club all year. Just a shame that no one signed this player before this season because he has potential to be a big time player in the league for years to come.

Others in consideration: Jhon Kennedy Hurtado (Seattle), Freddie Ljungberg (Seattle), Eduardo Lillingston (Chivas USA), Gregg Berhalter (LA Galaxy).

Fredy Montero. (Photo via Rick Morrison, www.digitaldadphotography.com)

Good evening folks. It’s been a rather slow day around the soccer world but there has been plenty of talk on one subject that has been pretty hot since late August, the possibility of a MLS-2. But more on that in a bit. And I have a link about SuperLiga below that is definitely worth a read.

I wanted to kickoff tonight’s thoughts/links with another look at the season awards. With a few weeks left in the 2009 season each award race is really hot right now. Tonight I want to look at the Newcomer of the Year award.

The newcomer award race pretty good this year, especially with one club the Seattle Sounders FC. That club has a chance to have three or four guys nominated for the award alone. Pretty crazy but that’s just how it worked with them this season.

Who’s on the watch list for this award? Below are the few that I think are gonna get consideration from me and other voters. And sadly most of my list below do revolve around Sounders players.

Fredy Montero (Seattle) – Pretty easy to say he may end up with this award based on his play. He’s one of the top goal scorers on the league and since the start of the season he has shown flashes of brilliance.

Osvaldo Alonso (Seattle) – Probably Montero’s biggest competition in this award is this former USL-1 star. Alonso is a beast in the midfield and has quickly become one of the best defensive midfielders in the league.

Freddie Ljungberg (Seattle) – No this has nothing to do with my biased towards Swedish players but Ljungberg has been a solid addition to the league and to Seattle since day one. When healthy he has proven to be one of the better DP signings in the league.

Kasey Keller (Seattle) – Weird to see this American keeper legend on this kind of list but it has been his first MLS season after all. No doubt he should have some consideration here because I really don’t see him winning the keeper of the year award (that should go elsewhere to Chivas’ Zach Thornton).

Jhon Kennedy Hurtado (Seattle) – The last of the Sounders for me on this list. He’s been one of the better defenders in the entire league this season.

Emmanuel Osei (New England) – Not a house hold name but believe me this guy has been a great addition to Steve Nicol’s side. As a defender his stats won’t amaze you but he’s been a rather solid rock in the defense for the Revs this season.

Eduardo Lillingston (Chivas USA) – His numbers aren’t bad (7 goals and 1 assist) but he doesn’t have the hype to get a lot of votes out west. Still he is worth a look for this award.

David Ferriera (Dallas) – It really took him a while to get use to the MLS style of play but honestly he hasn’t been a terrible signing after all for Schellas Hyndman and FC Dallas. Six goals and four assists this season really isn’t bad.

From the looks of things you gotta just pick a Sounder for this award because after that group the pickings are rather slim. And again, this award goes to non-rookies that are playing their first year in MLS. Continue Reading…

With today being the league’s All-Star game it just felt right to go into some award talk. Most of the awards feel like they are going to be decided very late in the year this season. A lot of names in the running for things like the MVP race and the rookie of the year race. Only the comeback award feels like it is all but given out to Chivas keeper Zach Thornton.

For each award I’ll give a quick rundown of guys in the running for the award. Each list is in no real order at this time since it would be almost silly to rank each player (or coach) at this point with so much left to do this season.

Feel free as always to give your thoughts on the awards and who you think should be at the top of each list.

MVP

Players in the running:

• Guillermo Barros Schelotto (Columbus
• Landon Donovan (LA)
• Fredy Montero (Seattle)
• Brad Davis (Houston)
• Shalrie Joesph (New England)

This will be a very tight race if some parties stay hurt (GBS) or are gone for national team games (Donovan). I put Joesph on the list because I’ve always been a fan of how underrated he is in this league. Without him New England would be close to what Dallas and San Jose are right now in the standings. Montero gets on the list because of the excitement he has brought to Seattle this year, and his numbers are really good. Davis is another underrated guy that more people need to look at. Houston wouldn’t nearly be as well run in the midfield if it weren’t for him. Continue Reading…

No real shockers today in the awards given out. San Jose Earthquakes Darren Huckerby took home the MLS Newcomer of the Year award, beating out FC Dallas midfielder Andre Rocha and Kansas City forward Claudio Lopez.

Huckerby was seen as one of the biggest reason to why the Quakes even made it close to the playoff picture in their first year back in the league. Huckerby joined the Earthquakes July 14 when the Quakes acquired his rights from Toronto FC. The former Norwich City star immediately made an impact on the field scoring six goals and with four assists in 14 games.

Coming over in the midseason he beat out two guys for the award that had a full half season on him. That just shows what kind of impact he made and how low on new talent the league really was this year.

Huckerby joins DC United’s Luciano Emilio on the Newcomer Award list. Continue Reading…

MLS released their award finalist today. I was planning on sharing my votes later on this week or early next week but why not today. I was able to vote in this year’s voting through the league (apparently the league enjoys the blogging world out there that cover the sport). My selections are marked in bold. I will release my Best XI later on.

Goalkeeper (Nov. 4 announcement)
Jon Busch, Chicago Fire
Will Hesmer, Columbus Crew
Matt Reis, New England Revolution

Fair Play (Nov. 4)
Juan Pablo Angel, New York Red Bulls
Michael Parkhurst, New England Revolution
Chris Rolfe, Chicago Fire

Comeback (Nov. 22)
Jon Busch, Chicago Fire
Kenny Cooper, FC Dallas
Santino Quaranta, D.C. United

Defender (Nov. 6)
Jimmy Conrad, Kansas City Wizards
Chad Marshall, Columbus Crew
Bakary Soumare, Chicago Fire
(I actually voted for Gonzalo Segares, Chicago Fire)

Rookie (Nov. 13)
Geoff Cameron, Houston Dynamo
Kheli Dube, New England Revolution
Sean Franklin, Los Angeles Galaxy

Coach (Nov. 11)
Dominic Kinnear, Houston Dynamo
Sigi Schmid, Columbus Crew
Frank Yallop, San Jose Earthquakes

Most Valuable Player (Nov. 20)
Cuauhtémoc Blanco, Chicago Fire
Landon Donovan, Los Angeles Galaxy
Guillermo Barros Schelotto, Columbus Crew

Newcomer (Nov. 11)
Darren Huckerby, San Jose Earthquakes
Claudio Lopez, Kansas City Wizards
Andre Rocha, FC Dallas