That would be Jermaine Jones. The final piece of the Revolution jigsaw arrived after the World Cup and a faintly ludicrous blind draw to determine where he ended up. After watching what he did for New England and their MVP candidate, Lee Nguyen, the Chicago fans who saw their team miss out on Jones thanks to the Revs’ late interest could be forgiven for feeling peeved. But at this point it’s hard to imagine Jones anywhere else than New England – so perfect a fit has he been.  Ben Olsen spent the better part of 2013 watching his side get beaten in depressingly record-breaking circumstances. The one bright spot was their unlikely run to win the US Open Cup that earned them an even more unlikely spot in the Concacaf Champions League.  By the end of 2014, DC had topped the Eastern Conference and despite a first ever playoff loss to their bitter rivals New York, could look back on a year where their fellow MLS Champions League contenders had largely fallen by the wayside (other than Montreal incidentally, who picked up the baton of DC’s 2013 league haplessness in their own underwhelming campaign), while they were the last US team left standing in the competition. Crowds were up by the end of the year, their stadium looked like it was finally getting built (more of that in a moment) and in an off-season that started with them trading international spots, the young American core of the club Ben Olsen et al are trying to build is looking in rude health for the future.  Runner up: All the US national team players who followed their hearts back to MLS before the season started.  Caleb Porter came into the league with youth, confidence and four-hour statements to the press. He took a Portland Timbers side that had yet to match the passion of their fans and turned them into contenders – winning the Western Conference and beating rivals Seattle home and away before falling just short of an MLS Cup appearance. That was 2013. What would they do in 2014? Well … not much. The team never quite gelled the same way in 2014 and Portland missed out on the playoffs after a vain pursuit of Vancouver for the final spot. Darlington Nagbe didn’t score until the season was nearly over and the central defender spot remained a problem. The recent acquisition of RSL’s man mountain (of hair) Nat Borchers might help the latter problem next year, but all in all, a difficult sophomore season for Porter.  The deal that brought Jermaine Jones to MLS had it all, including wonderfully arcane language (“blind draw”, “designated player of a certain threshold”, “Zarathustra throw-in”), And also that moment when, in explaining the deal to someone who doesn’t understand said deal, the league’s single entity structure, or the fact that 20 years in to the league’s history bits of how its run are made up on the fly, you see them realize that according to their understanding of the rules it’s possible Colorado Rapids have a discovery claim in on their firstborn, should he bypass college, and make more than four Czech league appearances.  A toss up between two players. In the red corner, Jermain Defoe who, when he wasn’t injured for Toronto, appeared to be hanging around QPR sending subliminal reminders that he was a “triffic little player” to the incumbent manager. In the blue corner, Frank Lampard who signed for New York City FC, went on loan to Manchester City to prepare for the MLS season starting in March and now faces a tough tug-of-love battle between plucky independent NYCFC and don’t-call-us-a-parent-club Manchester City for his services through the rest of the English season. Who will win?  It was a season when the nominees for MVP demonstrated their value to their teams all the way through the playoffs. The winner, Robbie Keane, actually scored the cup-winning goal against a New England team featuring fellow nominee Lee Nguyen. Obafemi Martins’ Seattle Sounders side had won the Supporters Shield and US Open Cup but fell short of a historic treble when they fell to LA in the Western Conference final.  Spare a thought though, for the player who didn’t make the final shortlist at all, but who had done in the playoffs what he’d done throughout the season. Scored goals. Lots and lots of goals. Bradley Wright-Phillips tied the regular season goals record set by Roy Lassiter in the league’s first season, and matched by Chris Wondolowski in 2012. But where Wondolowski’s 27 goals had earned him the MVP award that year, BWP was consistently damned with faint praise and pointed looks at the supply line of Thierry Henry.  At least his team recognizes his value. Wright-Phillips has just got a pay rise and is now one of New York’s designated players. He’ll get plenty of chance to prove his value next year as well – with Henry having left the building.  As Henry left the field following the Red Bulls’ playoff elimination, he stood up for the waiting press pack in the locker room, beckoned them closer, and as “record” buttons clicked in anticipation of what was widely expected to be the great man’s final utterance as a Red Bull, indeed as a player, he asked if we were ready. We were.“Well done, New England.” At that point Henry spun out of the huddle and va-va-voomed.  At the Fifa15 game launch in New York, sundry lovelies, including the Seattle Sounders and New York Red Bulls teams cavorted in the lights and music, as game demos and guest DJ’s blared all around them and drinks flowed freely.  And in the middle of it all, sitting with arms folded and sweater vest taut and resplendent, looking singularly unimpressed with everything he saw, was Sigi Schmid. The Seattle coach looked like a bored Nero styled by Michael Douglas in Basic Instinct and for that alone he deserves an award. His team may have been soundly beaten on the field a day or so later, but in Mike “sweater vest” Petke’s back yard Schmid showed who was boss.  This is a hard one, since Schmid took a reputation that was severely dented by the end of 2013 and Seattle’s humiliating exit to Portland in the playoffs. This time around they went within a whisker of an Open Cup, Supporters Shield and MLS Cup treble, seeing off LA Galaxy in the final two games of the regular season to ease to their first Supporters Shield.  That trailer for the playoffs was as good as it got however. An unconvincing away goals victory over Dallas was followed by defeat to LA, also on away goals. That set the stage for Bruce Arena to win another MLS Cup and remind Schmid and the rest of us that he ain’t new to this.  Keane. Through one on one with New England’s Bobby Shuttleworth in the final, Keane inexplicably hit a tame shot off the keeper instead of slipping the ball to the open Landon Donovan beside him. With a couple of other errant passes before that in the game, the MVP looked less than valuable. Then with even more time to think about another chance he shot across Shuttleworth and won the game in extra time. Afterwards, he looked faintly incredulous at suggestions the earlier miss had played on his mind. “It was just one chance.”  Runner up: Clint Dempsey/Sigi Schmid. Dempsey missed a sitter early and scored the winner late in Philadelphia during the US Open Cup final. When his coach was asked if he was worried the early miss signalled it wouldn’t be Seattle’s night, Schmid claimed, “The good ones don’t think about it”. He may have been talking about himself.  “It’s a bloody big deal.” Toronto FC trailed the signing of Defoe with a painted double decker London bus parked outside Real Sports, and a series of videos of Brits spitting out their tea at the news the Tottenham player was signing for Toronto, before doubling the splashiness by also bringing back then US golden boy Michael Bradley. MLSE sports supremo Tim Leiweke declared the playoffs a given and when Seattle were beaten in Seattle on the opening day, Toronto fans could have been forgiven for thinking that this year it was going to be different. It wasn’t.  The rather smaller cardboard bus that someone placed on the same spot as Toronto’s original double decker, after Toronto’s “guaranteed” playoff spot failed to materialize.  Robbie Rogers. At the end of 2013 Robbie Rogers had come out in a blaze of international publicity and returned to the game with LA Galaxy. Had the credits run after his first appearance as a substitute that would have been something of a minor key feelgood movie, but what happened next was much more interesting. As a lightweight LA attack crashed out of the playoffs, Rogers found himself compared unfavorably to Mike Magee, who’d been traded to Chicago as Rogers came to LA. Magee had gone on to win league MVP, while Rogers had done little to remind us he’d actually scored the first US goal of the Klinsmann era.  In the off-season, Rogers refocused on his game and the team that had given him a route back into it, cut down on interviews and personal appearances related to his historic announcement, and began to slowly give his presence as the first openly gay soccer professional a deeper resonance, by succeeding on the field.  Appropriately enough this happened via a reinvention. As injuries strained the Galaxy defense, Rogers found himself pressed into service as a full back – originally as a stop gap, and then as the season went on, as an increasingly assured and potent weapon on the overlap. A new deal with the Galaxy followed and almost the perfect ending as Rogers came close to scoring in the opening seconds of MLS Cup. Maybe it’s more appropriate that he won it as a worker among workers though. Either way, a triumphant return.  The Philadelphia crowd serenading John Hackworth out of his position at PPL Park each week, as he slowly lost the team, induced the odd wince as it unfolded, but spare a thought for Mark Watson at San Jose. Granted, the team were having a poor year, but there was something pretty awkward about the way the regular updates on their new stadium, their own rebrand, and general promises of a bright new tomorrow, carefully elided what was happening in the here and now.  With good reason it turned out. With the season running out it became clear that the coach’s chair at the new San Jose stadium had been designed with Dominic Kinnear rather than Watson in mind. With a couple of weeks of the season remaining the leaks had become so persistent that San Jose and Houston were forced to confirm the worst kept secret in the league: Watson was out and Kinnear would be replacing him in the off-season. San Jose lurched to the end of the season rudderless on the field, but with eyes firmly fixed on the future.  Special mention to Ryan Nelsen’s exit at Toronto, alongside his ultimate boss Tim Leiweke’s “this was totally in the plan” announcement of his departure from MLSE.  San Jose miss out on this award by virtue of the fact that theirs is actually being built, and reality is always going to disappoint when compared to extravagant promises. New York City FC promised a “home” for their side and will still be househunting for the forseeable future as they squat Yankee Stadium for their debut season.  Neighboring NASL side the Cosmos have notionally gone a step further by at least having Photoshop renderings of the stadium they’d like to build. Even New England got in on the act later in the year, by teasing their long-suffering fans with a possible move from Gillette Field to a more suitable soccer-specific venue in Boston proper, while Atlanta’s drapes couldn’t quite conceal the controversy behind their stadium’s funding and location.  But the winner goes to DC United’s proposed stadium, that would finally move them out of RFK. Aside from the benefits of getting out of that crumbling venue, the new stadium is also likely to be the gift that keeps on giving for investigative journalists everywhere, as the full story of the Beltway political antics that have seen it get this far through committee emerge.  Chivas USA. So long the byword for what was wrong with MLS, and a particular top-down branded vision of American soccer, Chivas USA were finally eased out of existence at the end of this year. It came after almost a decade of under-achievement, alienating ownership, dwindling attendances and some of the most long-suffering fans in the league. Even their “shop window” year under the decent footballing men, Nelson Rodriguez as interim president and Wilmer Cabrera as coach, ended without a buyer willing to take over the assets as they stand. But given how toxic the team’s reputation had become that was always a tough sell despite the best efforts of a surprisingly resilient Chivas front office.  A new LA side will start play in 2017, owned by a cast of millions, if the rather confusing announcement of that deal is anything to go by. They’ll have the luxury of a low bar.  Nat Borchers. Runner up: most of the RSL team.  They didn’t get much to cheer about this year, but at least Chivas USA fans got to see Erick Torres’ goal against RSL in week 16.  Honorary mention: Obafemi Martins’ acute angle chip against San Jose; Diego Valeri’s Torres style effort against the Whitecaps; Keane’s chip against Chivas; Will Johnson capping of a team move for Portland against Vancouver; Henry’s zero backlift rocket against Sporting Kansas City; Colorado’s Kaman Hill flicking one in against Houston.  After Donovan announced that he was retiring, the MLS equivalent of the Franklin Mint kicked into gear producing things for him to take with him. Paintings, framed shirts, mugs, Klinsmann masks – you name it, and an awkward looking photo of Donovan holding it before a game could be found each week. By the time of his final appearance at MLS Cup, a quiet Donovan performance was possibly down to the player trying to work out where the hell he was going to put all these “finely crafted tributes to an American icon”.  Seattle. Yes, the playoffs didn’t help the memory of what this team did this year, but with a stacked and deep squad sweeping all before them up until then, and lifting two trophies, including their beloved Open Cup, this was a return to swaggering form, typified by the movement and invention of Martins and Dempsey up front.  LA Galaxy and New England. MLS Cup is about timing your run and we got the final the form book suggested. The Galaxy eased into November without letting the climax to the Shield race distract them and ultimately took care of business in Seattle after demolishing RSL in LA. They beat New England in the final, but had to beat them twice, after the Revs first refused to lay down, then threatened to win a poor final late on. Seems hard to believe that pre-Jermaine Jones the Revs had had a nine game losing streak. By the end of the year, they were a well-oiled machine.  Schmid, for coming from where he stood personally at the end of 2013 to do what he did in 2014.  A cluster of these in the East – but in the end the underrated Petke, and just about correctly rated Jay Heaps miss out to the man who held his nerve (and whose board held theirs) after 2013 and bested them both in the regular season. Ben Olsen.  Robbie Keane. He was the best player.
Graham Parker: From Sigi Schmid’s sweater vest to 2014’s best goal, our pick of the highlights from this year’s action