MLS At Midseason: SB Nation Editors Pick MVP, Top Rookie and Coach, As Well As All-Stars

MLS At Midseason: Brek Shea, Landon Donovan, Brad Davis, Thierry Henry Nearly Unanimous All-Star Picks

SB Nation's soccer editors were given a bit of a blank canvass when they were asked to pick an All-Star lineup. We simply told them to pick their Bext XI without forcing them to pick players by position. Although most of our editors used a 4-4-2 alignment, when taken together the only real way to make it work would be to roll out a 3-5-2 formation. Brek Shea, Brad Davis, Landon Donovan and Thierry Henry all appeared on

Our lineup features three center backs and only one purely defensive midfielder, but they are a group that any coach would be happy to have.

Goalkeeper: Nick Rimando. The Real Salt Lake goalkeeper is not posting numbers quite as audacious as what he did a year ago, but he's still the class of the league.

Defense: Nat Borchers, George John and Omar Gonzalez. Obviously, this will not be the fleetest of foot defense. But no one is going to outmuscle this crew. Borchers, John and Gonzalez all have tremendous size, but also add a little something on set pieces.

Midfield: Osvaldo Alonso, Brek Shea, Jack Jewsbury, Brad Davis and Landon Donovan. I'm not sure this is most practical midfield ever to be deployed, but, man, it could be fun. With Alonso playing almost as a fourth defender, Shea would probably have a fair amount of defensive responsibility. Jewsbury and Davis may be a bit redundant, but is there really too much of a good thing? This midfield would certainly have no shortage of playmakers, as this crew has combined for 24 goals and 18 assists.

Forward: Thierry Henry and Charlie Davies. Both of these guys have been proving naysayers wrong this season and might just make a nice pairing with Davies playing more of the burner. They've already combined for 17 goals and five assists.

MLS At Midseason: CJ Sapong Edges Out Joao Plata For Top Rookie Honors

Easily the hardest decision SB Nation's soccer editors had to make for their midseason awards was Rookie of the Year. No rookie has really stood out during the first half of the season, but two players have at least impressed enough people to be the front-runners: CJ Sapong and Joao Plata.

Our editors narrowly picked Sapong, probably buoyed by his recent form which has seen him score two goals in Sporting Kansas City's last five games.

Here's what our editors had to say about the pick:

Chris "UZ" White, Burgundy Wave: Highly derided when he was picked 'too high' in the MLS draft earlier in the year - yet another reason why the phrase 'forget everything you pretend to know about a draft the second it starts' is pretty much always true - Sapong out of JMU has been a star for Sporting Kansas City through a very tough start to their season. Three goals and three assists has him tied for the team lead for both as of this writing. He also has the cool distinction of being the first non-cow to score at Livestrong Sporting Park.

Joey Samuel, Brotherly Game: Kansas City certainly knew what they were doing when they took him out of James Madison, despite the pick surprising most of us. He's been so good that he's essentially sent Teal Bunbury, tapped to be the future center forward of the USMNT, to the bench.

MLS At Midseason: FC Dallas' Schellas Hyndman Runaway Winner As Top Coach

In what was perhaps our editors' easiest pick, they overwhelmingly went with FC Dallas head man Schellas Hyndman. It's pretty remarkable to look at what he has done since being hired just three years ago. Last year, he took his team to the MLS Cup championship game. This year, he has them poised for a Supporters' Shield run.

Amazingly, he's done it all with a payroll that pales in comparison to many of the other teams in the league. This year, he's doing it without the league's reigning MVP, and has managed to get even better since David Ferreira went down.

Here's what some of our editors had to say about the pick:

Adam Taylor, Black and Red United: When RSL lost their MVP candidate, their title hopes faded and they've fallen back on their otherworldly defense. When FC Dallas lost theirs, head man Hyndman retooled the formation and has somehow made his team even better. Props to Robert Warzycha and Robin Fraser for exceeding expectations, but Hyndman is an easy pick here.

Alicia Ratterree, The Goat Parade: FC Dallas look like Supporters Shield and MLS Cup contenders halfway through, which represents a remarkable turnaround from the beginning of the season. Despite finishing as the MLS Cup runners-up last year, Dallas got off to a very slow start that seemed to indicate their playoff performance last year was a fluke. Then, just as reigning MVP David Ferreira was hitting his stride, he suffered a season-ending injury. But Hyndman got his team to regroup and they haven't looked back since Ferreira went down. Most importantly, moving Brek Shea out of defense has worked wonders, and Dallas looks like a team that will be very tough to beat in the second half of the season.

Notable vote-getter: Peter Nowak. 

Sidereal, Sounder at Heart: This was supposed to be a lost season for the Crew after turning over a huge chunk of their roster in the offseason. But now they're sitting on an automatic playoff spot in the East.

MLS At Midseason: Break Shea Is Our Clear MVP

Brek Shea is a popular target of ridicule among MLS fans. Maybe it's the bleached-blonde mohawk, the artistic bent or the confidence with which he plays. Either way, outside of David Beckham, he's the player fans love to hate more than almost any other.

Thing is, he's also a pretty darn good footballer. At the halfway point of the season, he's in the running for the Golden Boot with eight goals, including scores in four straight games. So far, he's been reason -- at least offensively -- that FC Dallas has actually improved dramatically since David Ferreira was lost to an injury. In fact, seven of his goals have come since Ferreira was injured. Amazing as it sounds, FC Dallas has gone 8-1-3 since Ferreira's injury. 

These are just some of the more obvious reasons when SB Nation's soccer editor's made Brek Shea the first-half MVP by a relatively wide margin. Of the 22 editors who submitted ballots, Shea was the MVP pick on 12.

Perhaps not so coincidentally, Shea's and FC Dallas' fortunes began to really turn around when coach Schellas Hyndman scrapped the Brek-Shea-as-a-defender experiment and started playing him at his much more natural left midfield position. As a left midfielder, Shea has been able to showcase remarkable speed -- especially for a player with his size -- as well as impressive on-ball skills. Nearly every goal he's scored has highlighted a different skillset, whether it was his chip against the Los Angeles Galaxy on May 1 or his video game-esque goal against Sporting Kansas City on June 12.

In 12 matches playing in the midfield, Shea has taken 37 shots and put 11 of them on frame. That seems to have played at least a role in the Toros' scoring 20 goals during that time, as opposed to scoring six in their six other matches.

Shea is constantly creating matchup issues with defenses. He's too big for most full backs, and way too fast for most center backs. If there's one asset that seems to stand out, it's that speed. Especially for a 6-foot-3 midfielder, Shea gets behind defenses with remarkable ease.

The scariest part? This might just be the beginning. Shea is still barely 21 and only now seems to be settling into a role. In his professional career, he's played just a shade over 4,000 minutes. Luckily for FC Dallas, he recently signed a five-year extension. At this pace, it seems unlikely he'll stick around that long, but at least the Toros will be compensated. For now, we should probably just try to enjoy it.

Other notables: Thierry Henry. The New York Red Bulls striker was the only other player to receive more than one vote, receiving six.

Chest Rockwell, Black and Red United:  I hate this, but right now he's the best player in MLS and simultaneously as valuable to his team as any player in the league is to theirs. By whatever measure you use to determine what "MVP" means, Henry's work for the venal, craven charlatans of NYRB is the best body of work a player has put together in MLS this season. Hate hate hate.

MLS At Midseason: SB Nation Editors Pick MVP, Top Rookie and Coach, As Well As All-Stars

With bloggers covering almost every team in MLS, we here at SB Nation Soccer like to flex our proverbial muscle from time to time. In this case, we asked the various editors to give us their half-season MVP, Rookie of the Year, Coach of the Year and All-Star starters. We received 21 responses and came away with some clear winners, as well as some predictably close races. 

The MVP and Coach of the Year races weren't particularly close. Brek Shea was named our half-season MVP, earning the support of 12 of the 21 editors. Schellas Hyndman was an even bigger winner, garnering 14 votes, with no other candidate receiving more than two votes.

The Rookie of the Year race was far more contentious, as CJ Sapong and Joao Plata each received strong support. In the end, though, it was Sapong and his strong recent form that won the day.

Our voters were basically told to pick their Best XI in whatever formation they felt was appropriate. This forced us to make some interesting decisions when it came to starters, but we settled on a 3-5-2 with three center backs that will look like this: Nick Rimando; Nat Borchers, George John, Omar Gonzalez; Brek Shea, Landon Donovan, Brad Davis, Jack Jewsbury, Osvaldo Alonso; Thierry Henry, Charlie Davies.