Ranking the 5 Best Midfielders from the 2014 MLS Season

After taking a look at the top forwards from the 2014 Major League Soccer season on Tuesday, we shift our attention to the league's best midfielders.  Most of the star midfielders this season turned in impressive attacking displays week after week, but there were a few players who turned games around with their defensive qualities as well.  Two of the midfielders ranked in the top five left the league on a high note after announcing they would not return to their respective clubs in 2015.  Here's a look at the five best midfielders from the 2014 MLS season. Begin Slideshow

LA Galaxy Make Landon Donovan Tribute Video to Mark Retirement After MLS Cup Win

Landon Donovan retired a champion after winning the MLS Cup with the LA Galaxy on Sunday, and the club has marked the occasion with a tribute video."This is the end of an era," the video begins, and it charts a great career, which saw him join the Galaxy in 2005.As the MLS champions won their fifth title, it actually marked Donovan's sixth (he picked up two with the San Jose Earthquakes before winning four with LA Galaxy).A fine way to bow out, and a fine video to pay some respect to the best American player of his generation.[YouTube, LA Galaxy]Read more MLS news on BleacherReport.com

MLS Expansion Draft 2014: Date, Start Time, Format, Rules and Schedule

The MLS will have its first expansion draft since the 2011 season on Wednesday, December 10, with Orlando City SC and New York City FC each having 10 selections to help build their rosters ahead of the 2015 campaign. The rules for this year's draft don't deviate much from the previous ones, but they remain relatively complicated nonetheless. In this article, we'll provide a layout of the draft schedule and basic rules as provided by the MLS. All rules are courtesy of the MLS and can be accessed by clicking here.   Date and Start Time The draft will take place on Wednesday, December 10 and starts at 2 p.m. ET.   Format and Schedule Each team will have 10 selections and will alternate making picks. Orlando won the right to select first. As a result, the schedule looks simple: Each of the existing 18 MLS clubs had to submit a list of 11 protected players by Friday, December 8, and the MLS is expected to make the list public before the start of the draft, via Opta's Ben Jata. At the time of writing, the list had not yet been made public: Orlando and New York will make their 10 selections based on the list of unprotected players. Once ...

Ranking the 10 Best Forwards from the 2014 MLS Season

One of the reasons why the 2014 Major League Soccer season delivered a ton of excitement was the play of the forwards across the league. Due to the strength in numbers at the position, the Golden Boot race was one of the fiercest in league history. In the end, it took a record-tying season from Bradley Wright-Phillips to win the scoring title.  Some of the top scorers this season were also some of the league's biggest names, as Robbie Keane, Clint Dempsey and Obafemi Martins finished as three of the top seven scorers.  Here's a look at the 10 best forwards from the 2014 MLS season. Begin Slideshow

Landon Donovan: Revisiting MLS Legend’s Bundesliga Failure

Walking out on the Bundesliga is probably the last thing on Landon Donovan's mind after retiring as a champion following Los Angeles Galaxy's 2-1 win over the New England Revolution in Major League Soccer's cup final. What prompted Donovan winning six MLS Cups and culminating in #ThanksLD, a tribute to a legendary career in the United States?  Unfulfillment in the Bundesliga. Playing as if he was the second coming of Bert Patenaude, Donovan had tangible upside to American superstar basketball player Kobe Bryant, according to then-United States U17 manager John Ellinger. "The level of athleticism is similar," Ellinger said, per Jeff Piasky at Boys' Life. Kobe ambitiously bypassed college to play in the National Basketball Association, drafted in 1996 by the Charlotte Hornets and traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. Three years later, Donovan's elite speed and elusive dribbling enabled him to generate separation at will from opposing markers, which entranced then-Bayer Leverkusen sporting director Michael Reschke. Leverkusen—the second-best team in the German Bundesliga—prised Donovan away from the United States on a contract valued at around $400,000.  "We seldom offer a young foreign player such a contract [like the one Donovan received]," Reschke said, per Marc Spiegler at Sports Illustrated. "But in 21 years working with young players, I have rarely seen such strong potential." A cogent feeling of vindication must have flowed through Reschke while he watched Donovan run ...

Predicting the Future for Thierry Henry and Robbie Keane

Thierry Henry says he has played his last game for the New York Red Bulls, and after an MVP campaign, Robbie Keane is likely to receive offers from a number of clubs.So what is next for these two MLS stars?Bleacher Report's Janusz Michallik joins Ryan Bailey to discuss what the next step will be for these two strikers.Read more MLS news on BleacherReport.com

Robbie Keane Schools Journalist After Scoring the Winner in 2014 MLS Cup Final

Robbie Keane doesn't tend to hold back in interviews these days, and having scored the winner for LA Galaxy in the 2014 MLS Cup final, he was on good form in the post-match interview.Keane was quizzed on chances he'd missed earlier in the match and replied:I only missed one chance, so it wasn’t that bad. Jesus, you’re trying to kill me here, we just won the championship and [I] scored the winning goal. You’re on about the miss I made.Keane, 34, has been at the Galaxy since 2011.[H/T Balls.ie]Read more MLS news on BleacherReport.com

Landon Donovan’s Performance in MLS Cup Final Proves He Is Retiring Just in Time

Landon Donovan carried the LA Galaxy to tremendous heights in his time with the club. In his last game in their strip, though, Donovan was a passenger. Fans and media love storybook endings for star athletes, though for different reasons. For instance, New York Yankees fans ate up Derek Jeter's final at-bat at Yankee Stadium, a walk-off single. The media loved it, too, but not because it won the Yankees a game or put the final touch on Jeter's legend in the Bronx. The media loved it because it made for an easy story. Donovan actually gave his fans and the media a storybook ending, of sorts. He just provided it about a month early. Going into the Galaxy's Nov. 9 playoff match with Real Salt Lake, the second leg of Major League Soccer's Western Conference semi-final, Donovan had scored one goal in eight MLS games over the previous two months. To continue their quest for another MLS Cup, the Galaxy had to get out of the first playoff round. Donovan took care of that. His hat trick against Real Salt Lake propelled the Galaxy into the Western Conference final with the Seattle Sounders. The moment was not lost on Galaxy supporters. "He extended his own ...

MLS Team of the 2014 Season

Now that the 2014 Major League Soccer season has concluded, it is time to give out our end-of-the-season awards to the league's best players.  Over the next two weeks, we will take a look who the best players were at each position, and we will release our list of the top 50 players in the league. Before we get to the positional breakdown, we will reveal our best XI from the 2014 season.  Continue reading on to see which 11 players were placed into our MLS Team of the 2014 season. Begin Slideshow

New England Revolution Is Still the Beast of the East in MLS Despite Final Loss

The LA Galaxy defeated the New England Revolution, 2-1, after extra time to win MLS Cup on Sunday. Even though the Revolution lost their record-breaking fifth final in franchise history, they're still the cream of the crop in the Eastern Conference. New England had just two wins after their first seven games of the 2014 regular season. The Revs improved in April and May, but then lost eight matches in a row from the end of May and into the final week of July. The Revolution's chances of making the playoffs were grim. Around a month later, Jermaine Jones was signed as a designated player. New England won 10 of their last 12 games with the American international on the roster. The Revs subsequently qualified for the playoffs as the second seed in the East. MVP finalist Lee Nguyen was also integral to the Revolution's success in the second half of the season. The American midfielder scored nine of his 18 goals after Jones arrived at the club. Nguyen was also extremely difficult to contain with Kelyn Rowe, Chris Tierney and Teal Bunbury alongside him. Players such as Nguyen, Rowe, Tierney, Bunbury, Jones, Scott Caldwell and Charlie Davies make up the core of the Revolution. Goalkeeper Bobby Shuttleworth ...