Wegerle is the tough one for me - here is a guy who scored 27 goals for QPR in the top flight in England and is one of those guys who helped with the reemergence of the US on the international level..... I'm saying yes, but barely.
So the magpie is beating 8 other professional football players. I must say, the impact had on the midnight riders organization and to a further extent the new england revolution soccer club and even further major league soccer has been astounding and I would just like to say without these contributions, we may not even have a league at all. Thank you magpie for your dear contributions to the world of soccer, first ballot.
We love The Magpie, we do... We love The Magpie, we do... We love The Magpie, we do... The Magpie, we love YOOOOOO! I gotta say I was surprised at some of the players on the list, like The Magpie's (almost) namesake: Judging by the criteria, the only reason Whitfield is on the list is that he played with some pretty good players (Novak, et al) who won some silverware: This is how it works: He or she must have been retired as a player for at least three years, but for no more than 10 years (for purposes of the 2008 election, this means that he or she must have retired no later than 2005 and no earlier than 1998) He or she must have played at least 20 full international games for the United States. This 20-game requirement is reduced to 10 games if the games were prior to 1990. He or she must have played at least five seasons in an American first-division professional league, and won the league championship, won the U.S. Open Cup or been a league all-star at least once. Whitfield was an average at best player. I don't remember him as ever being an all-star. He might have been invited to a US camp during the winter months, but I'd be surprised if he had a cap. much less multiple ones. I guess the caveat against denying a good player who was on crap teams is that they'd typically qualify on # 2.