Voyageurs Men's International Player of the Year, 2013

[killgod]

i think this year nobody should win. Club or country it has been a low not seen in decades....for club, most of our players stepped back in level or are not playing...or both...the weekly players abroad thread is downright depressing...unused sub, nowhere to be found, didn't play, third tier came on as a sub 87th minute....

internationally, we cant even discuss.

make a statement. Leave it blank.

While you have a point, I still don't like ignoring Johnson's club season.

[Bertuzzi44]

1. Johnson

2. Hutchinson

3. Teibert

[ditty]

1. Will Johnson

2. Atiba Hutchison

3. Russell Teibert

[JamboAl]

1. Will Johnson

2. Kenny Stamatopoulos

I'm with a lot of people with the rest of the lot being meh...

[BearcatSA]

1. Will Johnson

2. Atiba Hutchinson

3. Jonathon Osorio

(4. Unused Sub

5. Not in Matchday Squad)

[Keegan]

So I'm guessing this is the biggest margin of victory for a Vees player of the year ever?

[Lord Bob]

So I'm guessing this is the biggest margin of victory for a Vees player of the year ever?

Christine Sinclair got 100% of first place votes last year. And there are two weeks to go.

[Scottie]

i think this year nobody should win.

I suggested the same thing last year, but it was not well received.

[Blackdude]

I suggested the same thing last year, but it was not well received.

To be fair, last year, it was ridiculous to thing about that, because there was one anomaly. This year, there is a better argument for it, though.

[Scottie]

To be fair, last year, it was ridiculous to thing about that, because there was one anomaly. This year, there is a better argument for it, though.

One anomaly??? I guess a year ago it could be argued that the big loss in Honduras was the anomaly, but I think looking at the big picture a year later the real anomaly was the win against Panama that put us in a position to advance in the first place. That was the only time in the last four (FOUR!) qualification cycles that we've beat an opponent that wasn't a minnow (and I'm counting Cuba as a minnow here for obvious reasons) before we were eliminated from contention. If anything, the Honduras game was just a continuation of the greater trend but to an extreme in order to balance out the anomaly.

The ineptitude we've seen this year only reinforces the idea that winning is an anomaly with this team, and an increasingly rare one.

[Winnipeg Fury]

Couldn't agree more with the sentiment of trueviking. We are regressing:

1. Johnson

2. Stamatopolous

3. Osorio

[jpg75]

1. Johnson

2. Hutchinson

3. Osorio

[Grizzly]

I totally disagree with the idea of not giving the award. This is an individual award not a team award. At a time when we do not have enough players excelling in their club career we should be encouraging not punishing those who are. As far as the choices it seems that everyone is pretty much agreed with Hutchinson and Johnson being the best two players with 3rd place being a toss up between Osorio and Tiebert as best young player. Johnson definitely was the player who had the break out year but I still think Hutch is a much better player overall so I will go with him for top player. I will go with Osorio over Tiebert just because he was a bit more consistent in his form but pretty close there too. Maybe a case for Bernier as well but half a season of being fantastic with a half a season of being injured/below form make it hard to choose him. Disappointing more players did not have better seasons this year but hopefully there will be some more young players having breakout seasons in 2014.

1. Hutchinson

2. Johnson

3. Osorio

[SteveBeau]

1. Johnson

2. Hutchinson

3. Bernier

[TheKottonmouthed1555362307]

1. Will Johnson

2. Russell Teibert

3. Atiba Hutchinson

[Lord Bob]

3. Bernier

FYI, Bernier's not eligible.

For a player to be eligible for the Voyageurs International Player of the Year the player must have been selected for international duty at either the senior or U-20 level in 2013 and be eligible to play for Canada, in accordance with FIFA laws & statutes, as of December 5th, 2013.

[jonovision]

Tough to pick anybody deserving this year.

1. Atiba Hutchinson

2. Will Johnson

3. Russell Teibert

[SteveBeau]

FYI, Bernier's not eligible.

So that means I have to change my one totally biased choice?

[Lord Bob]

So that means I have to change my one totally biased choice?

You could vote for Karl Ouimette?

[Blackdude]

Although I wonder if in the future years, we should allow players who have been nominated by the CSA for player of the year. Bernier did get nominated in that thing.

[Grizzly]

Although I wonder if in the future years, we should allow players who have been nominated by the CSA for player of the year. Bernier did get nominated in that thing.

Yes it does seem a bit unfair to exclude Bernier when from all info we have he was willing to be called and many felt deserved to be called for some matches but was not called probably due to his age. Maybe it does not matter in his case because he would not win anyway (although had he not gotten the injury half way through the season he might have had a chance at winning) but it is possible in the future there could be a player deserving of the award who for some reason is not called. I think the idea of the rule was to exclude players who were Canadian but playing for other nations, refusing to commit to Canada or capped to Canada but refusing call ups. I think it would be more fair to open the award to anyone capped by Canada who is willing to be called. If in the ultimate Voyageurs nightmare Miller or someone similar becomes coach and refuses to call out best player I would certainly like to be able to select him as player of the year and send a message to the coach/CSA.

[Sam]

The award is called the "Voyageurs Men's International Player of the Year" Award though. It's pretty hard to give that to someone who doesn't play internationally throughout the year.

[Lord Bob]

Extending eligibility to those "willing to be called" introduces an unwelcome element of mindreading. And as Sam says, the "International" is part of the point.

[madmonte]

Extending eligibility to those "willing to be called" introduces an unwelcome element of mindreading. And as Sam says, the "International" is part of the point.

I agree with this. Otherwise, honestly, Jonothan de Guzman would have been eligible, at least according to his brother, not long ago. It doesn't take a mindreader, now, to realize that Jono was probably only willing to hop on the Canada bandwagon if it was a hex-bound wagon.

[Grizzly]

Extending eligibility to those "willing to be called" introduces an unwelcome element of mindreading. And as Sam says, the "International" is part of the point.

I agree with this. Otherwise, honestly, Jonothan de Guzman would have been eligible, at least according to his brother, not long ago. It doesn't take a mindreader, now, to realize that Jono was probably only willing to hop on the Canada bandwagon if it was a hex-bound wagon.

No I clearly stated that the award would be limited to already capped to Canada who were willing to be called. Nor does this introduce an element of mindreading, we almost always have explanations on call ups and who refused a call and who simply wasn't called. Especially in the case of someone good enough to be in contention for the award if he is refusing call ups the coach will certainly let it be known he wants to call him up.

Johnson will win the award this year but I think for the first half of the season Bernier was the stronger player, probably among the top 5 players in the league. He wasn't just a strong player on a team of strong players like Johnson, the Impact's whole attack and formation was based around Bernier in the first half of the season. When he got injured and didn't play or when he did play but not at 100% because his injury was not fully healed that is when we went from being a first place team to one that did not deserve to make the playoffs. Yet at this very point when he was a dominant player in MLS, the coaching disaster Miller did not call him. By the time Floro was there he was injured/not playing well so at that point the lack of selection was understandable and he dropped out of contention for the award as well. However, had he continued his 1st half of the season form and was still not called (possibly due to age) I think it would still be a bit unfair to him to exclude him from the award.

Additionally for most of our lives with a couple of rare exceptions, Canada has been coached by coaching disasters. Not all of them were selection disasters but certainly Miller and Yallop made very poor selections. So far I am impressed by Floro but we have yet to see what his selections will be like when the games are serious qualification games and he is not focused on team/player development. By all means fence sitters or people who refuse calls should be excluded but I would hate to exclude players who deserve the award and are not getting selected because someone like Miller is running the team. I also think we should have some means of expressing our dissatisfaction when top Canadian players who want to play for us are not selected.