With two teams joining MLS this year, it should come as little surprise that there are a ton of players joining the league that weren’t here last year. In SB Nation’s ongoing effort to preview the upcoming season, we’ll be writing a series of mini-profiles looking at the 10 players who weren’t in the league last year most likely to have the biggest impacts.
MLS 2011 Preview: New Players Most Likely To Have Biggest Impacts
New Players Likely To Have Biggest Impacts
| Player | Team |
|---|---|
| Omar Bravo | Sporting Kansas City |
| Charlie Davies | D.C. United |
| Jay DeMerit | Vancouver Whitecaps |
| Eric Hassli | Whitecaps |
| Alain Rochat | Whitecaps |
| Ousmane Dabo | New England Revolution |
| Hunter Freeman | Houston Dynamo |
| Faryd Mondragon | Philadelphia Union |
| Carlos Ruiz | Union |
| Kenny Cooper | Portland Timbers |
That group includes a few Designated Players, some players returning to MLS, a few more with U.S. National Team experience and some others that were well established players overseas. The only player in this group who could really be classified as “old” is Faryd Mondragon, and he’s a goalkeeper. Just one other player is older than 31 (New England Revolution midfielder Ousmane Dabo, and a few of them are in the primes of their careers.
Not all of them are household names, but if you are a follower of the league, you should definitely familiarize yourself with these players. All of them are expected to have significant impacts on their teams, and it would hardly be surprising if some of them made bids for the Golden Boot or MVP.
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