Article by Matt Lichtenstadter
Most fans and observers of any sports would be able to tell you players he or she believes are overrated and underrated without much thought. And even though those sentiments are often quite meaningless, it’s often fascinating to see what the peers of those players may think as to who is overrated and underrated in their eyes. Getting those players to talk on the record about such matters is often impossible, but the cloak of anonymity provides cover for those players to speak their mind without getting assaulted with hateful tweets or a little extra in future challenges.
ESPN’s annual MLS player poll often asks fascinating questions of players in the world’s most unique soccer league, but the headline grabber often is the “overrated, underrated” question. 104 players were polled in the preseason and asked this question, and the results, though they may not mean much, are enlightening in how the average MLS player thinks about who he goes up against every weekend.
The “winner” of being the most overrated player in the league, according to fellow players, is Gio Dos Santos. Last year, as the Galaxy spiraled into oblivion, Dos Santos scored six goals and chipped in three assists, which by any measure is not great value for a $5.5 million salary, according to the MLS Player Union, which is sixth highest in the league. In 2016, he had 14 goals and 12 assists. 11% of those polled gave out Dos Santos as their most overrated player for reasons such as “leading the worst team in the west” or, in essence, euro-snobbery, because of his hype from his Barcelona and Tottenham days, so says one eastern conference player.
Second in the poll was Michael Bradley at 10%, largely on the backs of the US’ failure to qualify for the World Cup, and many other USMNT figures also figured highly into the overrated category, largely for those reasons. Jozy Altidore registered at 7%, the same figure as new Crew forward Gyasi Zardes, and others making the list included Paul Arriola, Tim Howard and Darlington Nagbe. Notably, 21% of players polled did not want to answer the question, for seemingly obvious reasons, and most noted it was harder to find overrated players with the number of older euro-imports going out and young DP’s coming in.
While little can be gained from learning who anonymous players think are overrated on the surface, the fact that the field is more fractured in terms of choices, as well as players admitting the question is harder to answer now shows not just that the league’s quality is improving, but the players are noticing it. It is one of those small signs, but a notable one, that the league is shaking away its past image of a retirement home for European stars past their sell-by date.
Players are likely more open when it comes to saying who is underrated in their mind, and their answers often conflate with fans answers to the same question. Coming in at #1 this year is Montreal midfielder Nacho Piatti, right ahead of last year’s winner, Dax McCarty. Piatti has been the central cog for the Impact in midfield for multiple years not just in scoring goals but creating them to, but was left out of MLS’ best XI last year, inexplicably. McCarty often gets credit for doing the dirty work, but not getting the same recognition as others would for the same job, which is why this category was filled with defensive midfielders as answers, such as Seattle’s Cristian Roldan and Columbus’ Wil Trapp. Interestingly, while Darlington Nagbe was viewed as overrated by 3% of players polled, he was viewed as underrated by 5%.
So what can be gleaned in general from an anonymous player poll about overrated and underrated players? Normally the answer would be “not much”, but this poll seems different. In addition to the lack of clear consensus as to who MLS players find overrated, which had been a staple in years past, the variety of players who were considered underrated by their peers has also seemingly skyrocketed. Combine this with the overrated list having a distinct sentiment of a USMNT World Cup hangover, MLS players have certainly noticed that their league is improving, and not just at the top either.
MLS’ next step after attracting top end talent in its prime was to improve around the margins, and that has certainly taken place not just in results and in the quality of play, but in seemingly superficial stories like an anonymous MLS player poll. Often times its not the obvious indicators that dictate growth, but smaller signs like even these that can show how a league is improving and also how the “working class” of a league like MLS views the top of its proverbial tree.
MLS, like all leagues, is very much one of haves and have nots, particularly when it comes to players. But as the league’s quality begins to balance out, and a new era has seemingly begun in terms of players coming to the league, answers to what otherwise would be easy questions such as who is overrated and who is underrated suddenly becomes harder to find.
And for the league, even though they may not like these anonymous player polls (for obvious reasons), the signs of growth and there to see, even in small sample sizes like this.
