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ASN 100 Report

Yedlin and Wood Making Moves; Wondo Is a Wonder

Yes, ASN ranks the top American soccer players from 1-100, in order, every 60 days. And then we provide updates on these players as their fortunes shift and/or they get really mad at U.S. Open Cup referees.
BY Josh Deaver Posted
June 30, 2015
3:40 PM

IT'S BEEN MORE than a week since Clint Dempsey (#1), the U.S. men's national team captain, who should know better than this, committed the galling and utterly flabbergasting act of—now, get this—he took the notebook from the referee, ripped it up and threw it on the ground, thereby disgracing himself and everyone who has ever kicked a ball before him.

His cowardly actions, which have done irreparable damage to the sanctity of the game in the United States and abroad, were met with stiff reaction from U.S. Soccer officials who suspended the Seattle Sounders forward from U.S. Open Cup action for two years, as well as missing MLS league games. While it’s taken a while for me to fully comprehend the damage this has done to Dempsey, his corporate image, Major League Soccer, Don Garber, and even idea of organized sports in general, and I just have to say: with time comes heeling. We will move past this, America. One day at a time.

Seriously though, Seattle doesn’t play very well without Dempsey and an injured Obafemi Martins. In a jam-packed MLS week, the Sounders dropped results to woeful Philadelphia (1-0) on Wednesday and rivals Portland (4-1) on Sunday night.

Michael Bradley (#2) Have you guys heard? It was #Heineken #RivalryWeek. In case you weren’t made painfully aware of Major League Soccer’s synergistic corporate scheduling event, it went like this: teams within close proximity and those sharing some modicum of personal history played in several professional soccer matches this week. Kicking it off was Wednesday night’s Battle of Eastern Canada between Toronto and Montreal. Not to get too deep on you but, for me, this game really showed why having good players helps you win games. After giving up an early goal, Toronto FC simply beat the tar out of Montreal. Bradley picked up the opening goal and an assist, feeding Jozy Altidore 10 minutes after intermission with an emphatic return to the scoresheet in a 3-1 win. Three days later, Bradley and the Reds played a coma-inducing scoreless draw with D.C United. It was bad.

It appears John Brooks (#11) will be staying on the books at Hertha Berlin for the foreseeable future. Last week the 22-year-old centerback signed a new contract with the club which will keep him in the  2019 season.

Lee Nguyen (#16) grabbed his second goal of the year during a 2-1 loss to D.C United on Wednesday. In case MLS coaches missed all of last season, you can’t ever let him shoot unmolested from that distance.

It’s been an open secret for a few weeks now, but DeAndre Yedlin (#17) will likely not be playing for Tottenham Hotspur this season. After acquiring Kieran Trippier, the 21-year-old American is all of a sudden the odd man out at White Hart Lane. Most reports have Yedlin joining Norwich City, with Burnley and others also looking for his signature. Stay tuned.

Absent from the final Gold Cup roster, Brek Shea (#23) was rumored to be dealing with nagging injuries he picked up during the national team’s recent trip overseas. Despite the warning, Shea received the last two starts for Orlando City without incident. However, during Wednesday’s match with Colorado, Shea was forced off the pitch with what has been initially diagnosed as a groin injury. Shea will reportedly take the next 10 days off as a precaution before returning to training with Orlando.

#RivalryWeek was in full bloom on Sunday when the New York Red Bulls and New York City FC squared off in the first ever “Holy Shit Why Are They Allowed To Play On This Impossibly Small Field Can We Make This 9v9?” Derby. Wow, that field is distractingly small.

Despite giving up an early goal, the Red Bulls handled its business against the expansion side with future NYC signing/existential hostage Andrea Pirlo looking on from an only-slightly-obscured-and-awkward Yankee Stadium sightline. Sacha Kljestan (#27), described by Dax McCarty as “our brain,” delivered two assists in the 3-1 win, providing service for Matt Miazga’s first professional goal. (Miazga is looking like a future, and longtime, member of the ASN 100.

 

Rant alert: Chris Wondolowski (#30) is a good soccer player. Every time a new U.S. men's national team roster is released and he is included—as happened last week with the 23-man Gold Cup squad—I sit back and observe the churlish cacophony of bizarre and misplaced quasi-hatred that bubbles around Wondo. Am I disappointed he didn’t score against Belgium? Yes. Does that singular moment change anything that he has contributed to both MLS and the U.S. national team? Not in the slightest. He doesn’t have the creative flair of Juan Agudelo. He’s not ‘’the next big thing” like Jordan Morris. He’s not young, flashy or athletic. He’s not cool and he’s not even particularly exciting. He’s just a dude who scores a lot of goals. You must abide.

Wondolowski is already one of the greatest goal scorers in MLS history. He is the second-fastest player to reach 100 goals and is the second-most efficient goal scorer to do so—only Taylor Twellman has him beat. He is one of only two players to score 10+ goals in five consecutive seasons and has more goals in a single five-year span than any MLS player ever. He scored 27 goals in a season! These are things that Landon Donovan hasn’t even done.

On Friday, like clockwork, he bagged another; his 9th of the year as part of a 3-1 win over the Los Angeles Galaxy. With the goal he moves into seventh place on MLS' all-time goals list—only 12 away from passing Ante Razov in fourth place. Want to hear the hottest of hot takes? At his current pace, Wondo will become the league's all-time leading scorer in three seasons.

In his last 25 games Ethan Finlay (#45) has registered eight goals and 11 assists. On Wednesday he picked up his league-leading 8th assist—finding Kei Kamara for his league-leading 12th goal—in a 2-1 win over New England. On Saturday Finlay found himself on the score sheet for his third of the season, picking up a 62nd-minute equalizer in a 2-2 draw with Real Salt Lake.

Robbie Rogers (#60) struck paydirt for the Galaxy during a 5-0 beat down of Portland last week. It was Rogers’ first MLS goal since 2011—and he scored it on Pride Night.

 

Bobby Wood (#67) scores goals against Netherlands and Germany. Bobby Wood has interest from Stuttgart. German reports say Jurgen Klinsmann tried to sway his former club from signing the Hawaiian-born forward. Klinsmann denies.

Anyway, Bobby Wood is looking for a new club. I hear Stuttgart is interested.

 ASN Contributing Editor Josh Deaver is a former academic turned soccer obsessive. Follow him on Twitter. 

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