MLS announces nominees for 2024 Year-End Awards
Major League Soccer on Monday announced the nominees for 2024 Year-End Awards. Voting will open on October 7 and conclude on October 21, shortly after Decision Day (end of MLS regular season). Additionally, fans will have the opportunity to weigh in on the top plays of the season with both the AT&T Goal of the Year and MLS Save of the Year by casting their votes on MLSsoccer.com. Take a look at the nominees here.
The MLS Year-End Awards nominees are out. As usual, there are… a lot of nominees. Like, you were probably nominated. Seriously, check the list. Just make sure.
Because there are too many nominations, we wanted to do some service journalism and see if we could narrow all of them down to a shortlist. Here are three folks to keep an eye on for each award.
- Lewis Morgan - New York Red Bulls
- Robin Lod - Minnesota United
- Gonzalo Higuaín
Based on the nominees, Morgan and Lod are the two obvious choices. Lod returned this year from a season-ending meniscus injury and immediately started producing. Lod has six goals and 15 assists this season for a playoff-bound Minnesota team.
Meanwhile, Morgan missed large chunks of 2023 with a hip injury. He bounced back and picked up right where he left off. He’s up to 13 goals and six assists on the season. That’s a career-high in goal contributions.
Don’t count out Higuaín though. Sure, he’s been retired for a while now, but you can never count him out for this award.
- Kristijan Kahlina - Charlotte FC
- Matt Freese - New York City FC
- Roman Bürki - St. Louis CITY SC
Twenty-five teams nominated someone for Goalkeeper of the Year. I won’t name names, but seems a little mean from four teams in particular. It’s also a little pointless for 22 of those 25 teams. Kahlina, Freese and Bürki are in a tier of their own statistically this year. American Soccer Analysis’ shot-stopping numbers have each of them in the top three by a notable margin. There’s a drop-off to Steve Clark from there and an even bigger drop-off to John McCarthy from there.
In particular, Kahlina has stood out among everyone this year. If we’re talking total numbers over the course of a full season, Kahlina is just behind Djordje Petrovic in 2022 and Tim Melia in 2017 for the best shot-stopping season in MLS history. In theory, with a standout performance on Decision Day, Kahlina could end up with all-time numbers.
- Steven Moreira - Columbus Crew
- Adilson Malanda - Charlotte FC
- Miles Robinson - FC Cincinnati
Moreira may not be the best pure defender of the bunch, but he might be the most valuable. He plays a critical role for a Crew team that, for my money, is still clearly the best in the league. They’ve also been outstanding defensively this year in addition to being typically elite in attack. The Crew have only allowed 36 goals. That’s the best mark in the East. Moreira will get my vote.
The second-best mark in the East belongs to Charlotte FC. Part of that is down to Kahlina standing on his hand (see: MLS Goalkeeper of the Year), but don’t discount how good Malanda has been for The Crown.
And then there’s Robinson, who’s been his typically excellent self while holding a depleted back line together as best as he can. He’s worth acknowledging for helping to keep Cincy afloat while their defense was held together with duct tape and crazy glue.
- Diego Luna - Real Salt Lake
- Diego Gómez - Inter Miami CF
- Quinn Sullivan - Philadelphia Union
- Obed Vargas - Seattle Sounders FC
Gómez is the heavy favorite to top the 22 Under 22 list, but is he the favorite here? There’s a decent argument that while he might be the best of this group, he hasn’t been the most productive. Gómez has only made 15 starts this year. He did put up three goals and seven assists for a Shield-winning side in his 15 starts, but he has the fewest minutes of this group.
If we’re just looking at pure statistics…
In 2,129 minutes for RSL, Luna has put up seven goals and 12 assists. In 2,473 minutes for Seattle, Vargas has a goal and seven assists. And in 2,312 minutes for Philadelphia, Sullivan has four goals and 11 assists. Luna and Vargas have both contributed heavily to teams sitting on 56 points with one game remaining. Sullivan has had a breakout season with more production than Gómez.
Personally, I’m leaning Luna. But there are arguments for everyone here.
- Luis Suárez - Inter Miami CF
- Gabriel Pec - LA Galaxy
We’ve tried to go at least three names deep here, but let’s not waste your time. This is down to Suárez and Pec. Suárez has 18 goals and seven assists for the Shield winners. Pec has 15 goals and 14 assists for the first-place team in the West. Suárez will probably end up winning because of branding, but Pec has been incredible after a slow start to the season.
- Wilfried Nancy - Columbus Crew
Don’t overthink this.
- Luciano Acosta - FC Cincinnati
- Cucho Hernández - Columbus Crew
- Lionel Messi - Inter Miami CF
- Evander - Portland Timbers
- Denis Bouanga - LAFC
- Gabriel Pec - LA Galaxy
Ok, so you may have noticed this list isn’t all that short. If you don’t want to know any more about why that is, we can go ahead and skip to the real world ending: Messi’s gonna win.
But if we want to pretend Messi isn’t going to get a ton of votes because the voters at large are (correctly) unprepared to give MVP to a player that’s only played 1,453 minutes, this is a fascinating race. Acosta and Evander are both leading the league in goal contributions with 33 on the season. Hernández is right behind them with 32 contributions for the league’s best team and he’s done it in just 22 starts. Bouanga and Pec have 30 and 29 goal contributions respectively for the two best teams in the West.
Everyone here has a real argument. In the end, I’ll probably end up going with Cucho. But I can’t remember a closer race on paper. Even if the ending is obvious, this has been the best MVP race in recent memory…
Oh man, I forgot to include Christian Benteke. He’s going to lead D.C. United to an Audi MLS Cup Playoffs spot while winning the Golden Boot presented by Audi. Has any player been more valuable to their team?
I mean, yeah, maybe, probably Cucho, right? I don’t know y’all, my head hurts.
Hernández named Player of the Matchday: Columbus Crew star Cucho Hernández is the Player of the Matchday presented by Michelob Ultra for Matchday 37 after a dominant display against the Philadelphia Union. The Colombian international struck for two goals, including the 76th-minute match-winner, in Saturday's 3-2 victory at Lower.com Field. He's now totaled 32 goal contributions (19 goals, 13 assists).
- Diego Valeri wrote about the true meaning of heritage.
- Bradley Wright-Phillips picked out his favorites for the MLS year-end awards.
- Sacha Kljestan looked at whose stock is up and whose is down.
- Here’s your Team of the Matchday presented by Audi.
- Take a look at every coaching change so far in 2024.
Good luck out there. Be a fan favorite.
