So who were the best eleven players in MLS this season? This being MLS Cup week, and with the build up now firmly underway, the league announced their official selection in New York — following Commissioner Don Garber's annual state of the league address*.  (*capsule version: nothing to reveal about a timetable for Miami, or for that matter Atlanta, San Antonio, St Louis, Minneapolis, Austin, or Sacramento; the league has spent $20 million on player development; it still hasn't broken even; it's not switching to a winter schedule; it's doing very well thank you…)  The Best XI was announced via a webcast at Google HQ, with an invited audience (or ones left over from the Commissioner's address, anyway), and with some of the selected players in attendance via webcam. This meant we got to see Mike Magee looking downbeat in a big chair in a man cave. Which made the whole affair worthwhile.  This being sports, assessment of "best of" polls tends to go beyond the slightly subjective into heavily partisan disgust at why your team's kit man wasn't included, and the MLS poll was no different. The inclusion of Tim Cahill got a big cheer from the New York crowd in attendance, but there was no corresponding cheer for Jamison Olave, who missed the cut. And RSL may have got to MLS Cup at the expense of Portland Timbers, but didn't have anyone selected on the Best XI, while the Timbers had three players named. RSL's Cup final opponents Sporting Kansas City had two, while Cahill was the sole representative for the Supporters Shield winners.  So who was chosen, and who can feel slightly aggrieved at missing out? Well:  When the Guardian interviewed Caleb Porter recently he was keen to emphasize that Donovan Ricketts was the first player he and Gavin Wilkinson moved for when he was appointed Portland coach, and the big man has made some athletic stops this season to help keep an attacking Timbers line-up honest at the other end.  But spare a thought for both the keepers in Saturday's final — Nick Rimando and Jimmy Nielsen, who've been as dependable as ever this year. Luis Robles overcame some early problems with rebounds to help New York on a run to the Shield, while Raul Fernandez's early season form with Dallas earned him an All-Star spot with his acrobatic shot-stopping. Just don't mention Carlo Cudicini at LA Galaxy.  Matt Besler (Sporting KC); Omar Gonzalez (LA Galaxy); Jose Goncalves (New England Revolution)  No argument about Goncalves, who was immense this year, not just for his own defensive play, but in leading the Revs back line as it came together to prop up a playoff challenge. He deserved his defender of the year award.  Perhaps the faintest of a raised eyebrow at the inclusion of the pairing of Besler and Gonzalez, particularly the latter. This may have been the year that these two made themselves the surprise first choices as center backs for the national team, and for that alone it's been a good year, while Besler can point to helping marshall the stingiest defense in the league for a second year running, but take away the international duty and looking purely at league play, and it's hard to say that Gonzalez had a better season than Jamison Olave, for example, while Portland Timbers fans might claim that Pa Modou Kah deserved a nod, were it not for the fact that they have three players in the line up already, and such demands might look a teensy bit greedy. Nat Borchers seemed to take on an extra level of responsibility for RSL too, and had one of his better years.  Perhaps more pertinently, the existential problem of Best XI lists in general, and MLS Best XI's in particular is that attackers are favored over defenders — and in MLS's case central defenders are favored over full backs. In part that's because there are few genuinely good full backs in the league — when salary caps pinch, it's often been one of the areas where teams economize rather than splashing out on a specialist. There were decent examples in the league this year — DeAndre Yedlin introduced himself with a bang for Seattle, while Chris Klute (Colorado) and Kofi Sarkodie and Corey Ashe (Houston) had their moments throughout the year. But nobody really made an irresistible claim for Best XI status.  Tim Cahill (New York); Diego Valeri (Portland); Will Johnson (Portland); Graham Zusi (Sporting KC)  Not many arguments here, though again, Zusi's been good without being spectacular for Sporting this year — at the risk of overloading on Timbers players I'd have put Diego Chara ahead of him, while it seems slightly perverse that the RSL midfield diamond that bamboozled the Timbers doesn't see any of its constituent parts get the nod. Perhaps it's a little like Jason Kreis being overlooked in Coach of the Year — you just expect the likes of Kyle Beckerman and Javier Morales to do their job. Diego Valeri was an exciting and crucial addition for the Timbers and deserves his nod, but on the evidence of the playoffs especially, you'd have a hard job seeing anyone keeping Morales out of the side — great to see him come back to something like his pre-injury form.  Clint Dempsey made a bigger splash than any other midfielder just by arriving in the league, but he's yet to play into anything like his best form. But if he needs inspiration he only has to look to Tim Cahill, whose first full year overturned a slow start to see him lead his side in a charge to the Supporters Shield. He deserves his nod, as does Will Johnson, who had a career year after being surplus to requirements at RSL.  Elsewhere, Ossie Alonso had a solid year for Seattle without threatening to break the Best XI, while Patrice Bernier got an All Star shout for Montreal's strong start, and was a creative foil to Marco Di Vaio, but like Fernandez at Dallas, his Best XI credentials were rather undone by his team's collapse down the stretch.  Marco di Vaio (Montreal); Robbie Keane (LA Galaxy); Mike Magee (Chicago)  Sadly the last competitive sight of Marco di Vaio, was during the game-ending flurry of red cards which concluded Montreal's miserable skid out of the playoffs in the wild card game against Houston. A shame, as before that he'd had a great season, not exactly rolling back the years, but showing exactly what the years still permitted him. Di Vaio's finishing remains sublime, even if getting into positions to execute requires him taking his chances of offside and more often than not, being penalized. Happily we'll see him for at least one more year.  Interesting that all three attackers should be of the same small poaching variety in this line up — with Robbie Keane the example par excellence. Another strong year for the Irishman, whose movement continues to be the best in the league. It wasn't enough to help LA recover from their structural problems in a transitional year, but the most consistent and immediately successful designated player has proven his worth again.  At the start of the year though, it was Mike Magee who was scoring the goals for LA — prompting some to joke that nobody had told the playoff specialist that the 2012 season had finished. Then came the Robbie Rogers move to LA that sent Magee home to Chicago…and Magee kept scoring — right up until the final day of the season, when for a few brief moments the Fire looked to be on their way to the playoffs while upsetting the Red Bulls' Shield charge. It wasn't to be of course, but given a full season it's just possible Magee would have put that team on his back all the way to the knockout stages in what's been a remarkable career year for the 29 year old.  Notable exceptions to the list include the well-renumerated likes of Thierry Henry and Landon Donovan, who both had flashes through the year (though Donovan's highlight of the year was undoubtedly his contribution to the Gold Cup winning team), but could hardly complain about not making the Best XI. 2012 Golden boot winner Chris Wondolowski revealed after the year was over that he'd been playing with a broken foot, which partly explained his own muted outing in his first year at DP money, though he too will have memories of a great start to the Gold Cup. Eddie Johnson briefly helped Seattle on a great late summer run, but his year ended in mutterings about fallouts with the coaching staff, and of course that humiliation against Portland.  But of course, the biggest omission by far is Camilo Sanvezzo, the Golden Boot winner, who has scored perhaps the greatest goal of the year, and who was one of the few consistent bright spots for Vancouver in a frustrating year, where the side repeatedly seemed like their own worst enemy. I think Camilo's unlucky about the form of the other three players, though perhaps on his all-round contribution he might get the nod over Di Vaio.  Elsewhere I'd also spare a thought for the likes of Oscar Boniek Garcia at Houston, though can't see him beating out any of the above players in a final selection.  Jose Goncalves (New England), Jamison Olave (New York), Matt Besler (Sporting KC)  Tim Cahill (NY), Diego Valeri (Portland), Javier Morales (RSL), Will Johnson (Portland)  Camilo (Vancouver), Mike Magee (Chicago), Robbie Keane (LA)
Graham Parker: As MLS announces its 2013 Best XI in the lead up to MLS Cup, we look at the selection and suggest a few players who were unlucky not to make the cut