Major League Soccer MVP Race: Profiling The Contenders

Despite Le Toux’s numbers being down from last year, and his overall importance statistically diminished, the Frenchman has become even more essential to the success of Philadelphia.

Scott Kessler is the managing editor for Union blog the Brotherly Game. Follow him on Twitter at @ScottDKessler.

It just got a little harder to argue for De Rosario to win the MVP award now that United have officially been eliminated from the playoffs. But even as that happened, it was De Rosario who nearly single-handedly willed them to victory in Wednesday’s do-or-die game.

Martin Shatzer is the managing editor at Black and Red United. Follow him on Twitter at @MShatzerDC.

That’s only one way to measure his impact on the team. Rosales’ conventional stats are 5 goals and 13 assists in his 21 starts and 4 sub appearances. In less conventional statistics, he is the leader in Assists per 90 among players with more than 5 starts. Among the other assist men on the short list, he leads in goal scoring. His performance in the clutch has him with 5 game winning assists, good for third, and adds in 2 game winning goals. Like many of the greatest players in the game teams have discovered how to stop him: foul. They foul early and often. He is the fourth most fouled player in the league and highest among regulars as a rate stat of 2.80 per 90 minutes.

Rosales’ recent injury may no longer have him the leader in the MVP race, but he’s still more than worthy of the award. His play has taken a good team and made it great. If that isn’t a representation of value what is?

By virtue of his statistics for the year - 12 goals and 3 assists measure as quite pedestrian for the 2009 MVP award winner, but still put him in the top 10 in scoring - and his leadership on a team that captured the Supporters’ Shield with three games in hand and will finish a season ranked as one of the best ever inMLS, Donovan must be given serious consideration to receive his second career MVP.

Using an adage for MLS that is borrowed from baseball, games in April count the same as games in September, so why shouldn’t player performance be recognized in a similar manner. Indeed, by virtue of Los Angeles’ strong start to the 2011 regular season, the team was able to fend off challengers to its position at the top of the MLS standings through a summer that required the Galaxy to also put resources into the CONCACAF Champions League competition.

It’s easy to quantify Montero’s impact. He has 12 goals and eight assists in league play. Rosales has five goals and 13 assists in MLS. Numbers, proof, bam. Alonso, well he has just three goals and three assists. You can’t really quantify the impact that he has made, but those who watch the Sounders know it.

When Montero was sidelined and then playing poorly with a cast following wrist surgery, the Sounders still got results. When Rosales was still trying to work his way into the starting lineup early on and then when he was sidelined with a knee injury, the Sounders still got results. No Sounders field player has more than 28 starts, except for Alonso, who has 31.