It has been a good two weeks for players that play in Cascadia (Pacific Northwest) as multiple players have won MLS Awards. To remind everyone, Cascadia consists of the three teams in the Pacific Northwest–Vancouver Whitecaps, Portland Timbers and Seattle Sounders.
MLS Multiplex
Here is a list off all the awards that players or coaches from Cascadia were nominated as finalists:
Volkswagen Most Valuable Player Finalists: Robbie Keane (LA Galaxy), Obafemi Martins (Seattle Sounders) and Lee Nguyen (New England Revolution)
Defender of the Year Finalists: Bobby Boswell (D.C. United), Omar Gonzalez (LA Galaxy) and Chad Marshall (Seattle Sounders)
Coach of the Year Finalists: Gregg Berhalter (Columbus Crew SC), Ben Olsen (D.C. United) and Sigi Schmid (Seattle Sounders)
Comeback Player of the Year Finalists: Charlie Davies (New England Revolution), Stefan Frei (Seattle Sounders) and Rodney Wallace (Portland Timbers)
Newcomer of the Year Finalists: Stefan Ishizaki (LA Galaxy), Jermaine Jones (New England Revolution) and Pedro Morales (Vancouver Whitecaps)
MLS WORKS Humanitarian of the Year Finalists: Diego Chara (Portland Timbers), AJ DeLaGarza (LA Galaxy) and Zach Loyd (FC Dallas)
Xbox Individual Fair Play Finalists: Darlington Nagbe (Portland Timbers), Michael Parkhurst (Columbus Crew SC) and Harry Shipp (Chicago Fire)
That is seven of the ten categories that a player or coach from Cascadia was nominated as a finalist. Even more impressive is the fact that three of the award winners were from the Whitecaps, Timbers or Sounders. If you even take into account the MLS Save of the Year and Goal of the Year nominations, Cascadia was represented very, very well.
Chad Marshall of the Sounders won the Defender of the Year award and rightfully so as I wrote last week. Rodney Wallace won the Comeback Player of the Year over Cascadia rival Stefan Frei. The last award that was won in Cascadia was Newcomer of the Year which was won by Pedro Morales of the Whitecaps.
One the Goal of the Year nomination, Obafemi Martins won the award after his lovely “chip” over the keeper. Some will call it luck and other will say he meant to do it. I will not voice my opinion on the goal. All I remember is that I was there and I loved every minute of it as it happened right in front of me. He had some competition from Will Johnson for goal of the year.
It has been a pretty good year in Cascadia and I can imagine the players, coaches and supporters wish there was more than just MLS Awards for these three teams. I hope the 2015 MLS season is even better.