MLS Announces All-Star XI

As I'm sure many of you who read this blog (if you exist at all) will already know that the MLS released it's All-Star team roster. If not, let me fill you in:

3-5-2 formation
Kasey Keller (SEA), Chad Marshall (CLB), Geoff Cameron (HOU), Wilman Conde (CHI), Guillermo Barros Schelotto (CLB), Freddie Ljungberg (SEA), Shalrie Joseph (NE), Stuart Holden (HOU), Dwayne De Rosario (TOR), Landon Donovan (LA), Conor Casey (COL).

Bench: Pat Onstad (HOU), Jhon Kennedy Hurtado (SEA), Jonathan Bornstein (CHV), Cuauhtemoc Blanco (CHI), Ricardo Clark (HOU), Osvaldo Alonso (SEA), Paulo Nagamura (CHV), Fredy Montero (SEA), Brian McBride (CHI).

For those of you keeping track at home, there are 5 Seattle players, 4 Houston players, and 3 Chicago players, the top three clubs represented.

There are four determinants that go into an all-star selection: fan voting, player voting, media voting and coach/general manager voting. It's very interesting to note the difference in fan voting from the other three groups, specifically towards Seattle Sounders players. (is anyone really that shocked about this though?)

The top four vote-getters from the fan voting were all Sounders. In descending order, they were: Ljungberg, Montero, Hurtado and Alonso. Only one of them (Ljungberg) is starting, however, signifying that the fans were alone in supporting these players, since they obviously didn't garner enough support from the other three groups to get picked as a starter.

On the flip side, the lack of a fan vote significantly hurt players on teams who have little to no fan support. This may explain why Jonathan Bornstein (who certainly could deserve it) isn't starting, or why no players from Real Salt Lake were chosen for example (their average attendance of 16,045 thus far this season just won't cut it compared to the 32,000 or so Sounders fans all voting for their own players each home game).

Of course, no Red Bulls players were selected. No surprises there.

The game is against Everton at Rio Tinto Stadium on Wednesday, July 29th at 9:30pm ET. It's on ESPN, so there's no excuse not to watch.

PS. Congrats to my boy Stuart Holden who made his first MLS All-Star team. That's how we do it.