By DAN KARELL
After failing to find the back of the net in the last month and a half, Robbie Keane exploded into action on Saturday evening.
The Los Angeles Galaxy star proved his worth as a designated player, scoring a hat-trick to lead the Galaxy in a rout over Real Salt Lake. Keane’s performance earned him a place on the SBI MLS Best XI for Week 25. Joining him on the list is teammate and U.S. Men’s National Team defender Omar Gonzalez, who scored his first goal since signing a designated player contract.
Along with Keane, the Houston Dynamo’s Giles Barnes and Columbus Crew’s Federico Higuain made the Best XI team this week, each scoring two goals for their clubs in key victories. Even though the game ended in a scoreless draw, Dax McCarty finished with 84 of 88 passes completed (95.4 percent) for the New York Red Bulls.
Here is a rundown of the full SBI MLS Best XI for Week 23:
————Robbie Keane————Giles Barnes———–
————————Federico Higuain—————————
—Brad Davis————————————Diego Valeri—
—————————Dax McCarty—————————
—Chris Tierney—————–————Sean Franklin—
———Omar Gonzalez———-Clarence Goodson——-
—————————–Clint Irwin—————————-
HONORABLE MENTION
Jon Busch, Matt Reis, Zac MacMath; Jordan Stewart, Jose Gonçalves, Jeff Parke, Amobi Okugo Jamison Olave, Steven Beitashour, Marvell Wynne; Justin Mapp, Juninho, Nathan Sturgis, Deshorn Brown, Osvaldo Alonso, Lee Nguyen, John Thorrington; Juan Agudelo, Marco Di Vaio, Chris Wondolowski.
Why wasn’t Dax McCarty called up to the Gold Cup, again?
Yeah. Okugo was better than Goodson this week.
I can respect the guy’s play but I hate the showmanship. Every goal he scores he acts like he just cured cancer.
Rumor has it that there are pictures of Robbie Keane doing things on the pitch other than preening and showboating. Rich bounty for those who find such mythical things.
Sean Franklin? Really? I’m a Galaxy fan, but come on, dude only played thirty minutes.
LOL
The choices were few and far between i guess?
he changed that game with two beautiful balls to help Keane unlock RSL
interestingly, it’s the one piece to his game that, if he could raise it to the level he showed against RSL, would dramatically change his class as a player. could say that about a lot of players of course, but he does other things very well, has typically struggled to provide consistently good service tho
You missed Okugo!
Okugo and MacMath played huge in New York. Those two kept the clean sheet. I’ve been impressed with Okugo for a while, but I doubted MacMath. The last few weeks he’s proven that he really can be consistent enough to be one of the best keepers in the league and if he keeps growing as fast as he has the past few years he’ll be giving Sean Johnson, Bill Hamid and Cody Cropper a real fight for a USMNT spot.
by years I meant weeks. He’s looked much improved the last month.