Major League Soccer All-Star Voting: Media Nominate, Fans Choose

Maybe even more fun than seeing who starts for any all-star game is figuring out who the biggest and most egregious snubs are. In the case of Major League Soccer’s All-Star Game, we get to take that a step further because only six players from each team were nominated.

The Brotherly Game points out the oddity that leads to three forward were nominated from a team that is primarily built around defense. They would have rather seen guys like Sheanon Williams, Carlos Valdez and Jordan Harvey nominated:

Picking the Major League Soccer All-Star Team is far from an exact science. For me, it’s a bit of a balancing act. First off, it’s very much a exhibition game, so you need to have some players on the team you just want to simply see play. Since MLS is playing against a real team, though, you’d like for the game to be competitive, so you need to have a group of players that are reasonably complementary. Finally, all-star games need to have some element of reward for a season well played.

My ballot, I think, reflects all three of those things. No player is on here simply for one reason, but I won’t pretend that all of them were here because they were simply the best players at their position. I actually think the starting lineup I constructed would at least stand a decent chance of scoring a few goals and keeping the match interesting. Feel free to share your own thoughts:

Fans must pick one goalkeeper and 10 outfield players. Once voting for the starting 11 ends on July 5, a player vote will determine the remainder of the 32-player roster.