Seattle Sounders FC dominating all star voting

Fan voting is under way for this years MLS All Star Game.  Just like with other all star games sometimes the fans of one team can dominate the voting.  Luckily for everyone that is not on the Seattle Sounders FC roster the fans vote only count 25% of the final tally to determine the starting 11.  If that were not the case – as of today the All Star starting 11 would be made up of 8 Seattle Sounders FC players.

Kasey Keller, Freddie Ljungberg, Fredy Montero, Osvaldo Alonso, Tyrone Marshall, Steve Zakuani and Jhon Kennedy Hurtado are the top 7 in the voting right now, while James Riley comes in at the 9th highest voting total.  Non-Seattle players currently in the top 11 are Columbus Crew defender Frankie Hejduk, TFC’s Dwayne De Rosario and LA Galaxy’s Landon Donovan.

How would that be for a starting lineup?

The team that is 8 points ahead of anyone else in the league (Chivas USA) would not even be represented.  Certainly someone there must be worthy?  Would Brian McBride not make the starting 11?  How about Josh Wolff?

Maybe Seattle will get into gear and get a starting 11 fully represented by Seattle Sounders FC players.  That would be swell.  Would MLS realize then that fan voting for all stars is a bad idea?

What do you think?  Should fans still be able to get 25% of decision of who starts the all star game?

All Star first XI lineup

The first XI for the 2008 MLS All Star game was announced. This isn’t necessairly the starting lineup – coach Nicol will decide who starts. These are just the first 11 guys named to the team. If it were the starting lineup it would look something like this:

Donovan – Cooper

Rogers

Kljestan – Blanco – Joseph – Beckham

Parkhurst – Conrad – Hejduk

Reis

What other players do you think will be added to the team?  What will the starting lineup really look like?

Gold Cup Roster Announced

Eight Major League Soccer sides will have representatives on the team that will represent the US in this summer’s Gold Cup.  Bob Bradley announced the roster today featuring 12 MLS players and 11 from outside MLS.  The Gold Cup is the number one priority for Bob Bradley this summer, so this should be his top team.   The US won the Gold Cup in 2005.  All of the players listed as forwards come from Major League Soccer.

MLS Members:

  • Steve Ralston
  • Taylor Twellman
  • Michael Parkhurst
  • Brian Ching
  • Ricardo Clark
  • Brad Guzan
  • Jonathan Bornstein
  • Landon Donovan
  • Pablo Mastroeni
  • Frankie Hejduk
  • Justin Mapp
  • Eddie Johnson

Non-MLS Member:

  • Tim Howard
  • Kasey Keller
  • Carlos Bocanegra
  • Jay DeMerit
  • Oguchi Onyewu
  • Frank Simek
  • Jonathan Spector
  • DaMarcus Beasley
  • Michael Bradley
  • Clint Dempsey
  • Benny Feilhaber