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Eddie Pope? The man who anchored the worse defense in the MLS? Chad Marshall was 100x better than him this past season.
Ronnie O'Brien is the only true outside player selected. Four central defenders, three central midfielders. (Yeah Gaven sometimes plays outside, but not consistently like ROB).
Well when they make Best XIs it's not like they take into account positions that much. No, of course there won't be more than one goalie or any crap like that, but they don't care if they have 3 attacking midfielders on one Best XI. Like look at 2002's Best XI: the 5 mids were: Chung (winger), Ralston (winger), Pareja (attacking mid), Ekelund (attacking mid), and Cunnigham (not even a mid, but a striker). Overall, I'm pretty content with it, but I think there good have been better choices than Gaven (Kovalenko, Ralston, Mulrooney, Gutierrez, etc.) and Pope (Gibbs, etc.)
Totally agreed. As for the dearth of wide players...it's a real MLS weakness. Our fullbacks and wings are pretty poor. There's a reason Chris Albright is a serious contender to be in Germany in 2006 (or was until Robbie Russell got sold and acquitted himself well in Europe.)
Yes it is a weakness, the only decent winger I can think of who had a decent year this year, was Klein and he missed the last third of the season to injury, which put him out of the running for best XI
Agreed on Pope. He was probably closer to the bottom of the league than the top. That's the only huge mistake. The rest are arguable at the minimum
I prefer to think that our glut of central players is a real strength. Damned college athletics, they're not only not paying the players, they're selling them now too!