Thus far in the 2006 season, Chivas USA has 19 non-PK goals, of which Ante Razov has scored 10 and assisted on 6. That is to say, he's been involved in 84.2% of his team's run-of-play strikes, a fraction that dwarfs any full-season number in the history of the league. It will be interesting to see if he continues in this dominant form. If the 2006 season ended today, this would be the all-time leaderboard: Code: Year Player Name Tm G A Tm G Pct 2006 Ante Razov chv 10 6 19 84.2 1999 Jason Kreis dal 17 15 52 61.5 1999 Joe-Max Moore ne 14 8 36 61.1 2002 Twellman ne 20 6 46 56.5 2001 J. Spencer clr 12 7 34 55.9 2003 Preki kc 7 17 43 55.8 1999 Preki kc 6 11 31 54.8 2001 Diego Serna mia 15 15 55 54.5 2002 Carlos Ruiz la 21 1 41 53.7 2000 D. Washington clb 15 9 45 53.3 2006 Andy Dorman ne 4 4 15 53.3 Note: PKs have been removed from all goal totals. In the 2006 standings, Andy Dorman is followed by several players tied at 50%: Jason Kreis, Carlos Ruiz, Jeff Cunningham, and Landon Donovan. The remarkable name here is LD who's had a hand in half the Galaxy goals despite being less than half of the time. (Similarly, Brian Ching has been involved in 45% of Houston's goals and has played 50% of their minutes.) EDIT: oops, meant to say LD's been on the field less than half of the time ... although considering his tendency to disappear mysteriously, who can be sure?
Taking another slant on these numbers, what if we define a "Key Attacker" as a player who has a part in more than a third of his team's non-PK goals? Most Seasons as a Key Attacker, 1996-2005 8: Preki (96-03) 7: *Kreis* (96, 98-02, 05) 6: 5: Ralston (99-02, 04) 4: Buddle (02-05), Cerritos (97-99, 01), *Cunningham* (99, 01-02, 05), *Donovan* (01, 03-05), Etcheverry (96, 98-99, 02), J.Moreno (98-00, 04) 3: Chung (97, 02-03), Diallo (00-02), Graziani (00-02), C.Henderson (97, 00, 02), C.Jones (98, 01-02), *Razov* (99-00, 02), Savarese (97-99), Serna (98, 00-01), Twellman (02-03, 05), Valderrama (97, 00, 02), A.Williams (01-02, 04) -- Players marked with * are on pace again in 2006; in addition, JP.Peguero, C.Klein, and C.Ruiz are each on pace to have a third season as a Key Attacker this year. -- My first impression is that this list works reasonably well, not necessarily for identifying the best players but for id-ing the ones who play a focal role in an offense. Clearly, it punishes players for being injured or absent from their teams (e.g. Donovan during WC02), but I think that's fair. After all, in the games when you're not on the field, you certainly aren't playing a focal role.
The 2006 Leaderboard Code: Year Player Name Tm G A Tm G LOAD 2006 Ante Razov chv 11 6 25 68.0 2006 Landon Donovan la 4 5 15 60.0 2006 Andy Dorman ne 5 7 22 54.5 2006 J. Cunningham rsl 6 2 15 53.3 2006 Jason Kreis rsl 4 4 15 53.3 2006 Carlos Ruiz dal 8 5 27 48.1 2006 T. Twellman ne 7 3 22 45.5 2006 Terry Cooke clr 0 8 18 44.4 2006 Brian Ching hou 9 2 25 44.0 2006 Chr. Gomez dc 6 6 30 40.0 2006 JP Garcia chv 5 5 25 40.0 2006 J-P. Peguero ny 6 1 18 38.9 2006 Ni. Hernandez clr 4 3 18 38.9 2006 D.DeRosario hou 5 4 25 36.0 2006 Jaime Moreno dc 6 4 30 33.3 2006 S. Stammler ny 3 3 18 33.3 2006 Chris Klein rsl 1 4 15 33.3 Note: PKs have been removed from all goal totals.
Percentage of Non-US Key Attackers by Year 1996 - 50% (5 out of 10 Key Attackers were non-US players) 1997 - 50% (5/10) 1998 - 69% (11/16) 1999 - 50% (11/22) 2000 - 59% (10/17) 2001 - 56% (10/18) 2002 - 35% (7/20) 2003 - 30% (3/10) 2004 - 40% (6/15) 2005 - 43% (6/14) *2006 - 57% (8/14) (A "Key Attacker" is one whose Load% is greater than one-third.) After dropping off precipitously between 2001 and 2003, foreign attackers have gradually regained a bigger place in MLS offenses. Nevertheless, the situation remains different from 2001. Right now, all eight foreign Key Attackers (see previous post) are under 30 years old, so they represent much more of a long term investment than previous ones did. Past veterans such as Alex Pineda Chacon, John Spencer, and Adolfo Valencia were successful when they arrived, but that didn't last for very long.