FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Three New England Revolution players have been named finalists for one of Major League Soccer’s end-of-the-year awards. Revolution 2014 MVP Lee Nguyen is one of three players included on the shortlist for the Volkswagen MLS Most Valuable Player award while Charlie Davies and Jermaine Jones are finalists for Comeback Player of the Year and Newcomer of the Year, respectively. The complete list of MLS awards nominees can be found here.
The finalists for each award earned the most votes in polling of three voting groups:
- Current MLS players
- MLS Club (Coaches, Technical Directors, Chief Business Officers and PR/Community Relations)
- Media members who covered MLS regularly in 2014
With a team-best 18 goals to go along with five assists, Nguyen is enjoying his best season since joining the Revolution in 2012. His 18 goals, which were the most by a Revolution player since 2002, were the fourth-most in MLS this season and the most for any American or midfielder in the league. An MLS All-Star this season, though he was not on the game’s active roster, Nguyen led the league with nine game-winning goals, which tied him for the second most game-winners in a single season in MLS history. New England was 14-1-2 during the regular season when Nguyen had a goal or an assist and the club was at its best when Nguyen was at his, going 10-2-2 over the final 14 games of the season with Nguyen registering 12 goals and four assists in that time.
Nguyen could become just the second Revolution player to be named MLS MVP, with Taylor Twellman having won the award in 2005. Now in his third season with the Revs, Nguyen is just the third Revolution player to be named as a finalist for the league MVP, joining Twellman (2002 and 2005) and Shalrie Joseph (2009). Robbie Keane of the LA Galaxy and Obafemi Martins of Seattle Sounders FC are the other nominees for the 2014 MLS MVP award.
A finalist for the Newcomer of the Year award along with the Galaxy’s Stefan Ishizaki and Pedro Morales of Vancouver Whitecaps FC, Jermaine Jones made an immediate impact with the Revolution after signing with the club on August 24. Jones helped the Revs go 8-1-1 in the 10 regular season games that the U.S. National Team midfielder appeared in, scoring two goals and adding four assists. The Revs were 6-0-0 in the games that Jones had a goal or an assist and they averaged two goals per game in the 10 games that he played in compared to 1.29 in the 24 games prior to his arrival. Jones has also had a dynamic impact on the club’s defense with New England allowing more than a single goal just twice after his arrival and a total of 10 goals in his 10 games.
This is the second straight season in which the Revs have had a player nominated for the Newcomer of the Year with Jose Goncalves up for the award in 2013.
Charlie Davies rounds out the Revs’ award finalists, as he is one of three nominees for the Comeback Player of the Year award along with Seattle’s Stefan Frei and Rodney Wallace of the Portland Timbers. Five years removed from an October 2009 car accident that nearly took his life, Davies became an important cog in the Revolution attack in the second half of the 2014 campaign. After dealing with injuries for the entire preseason and much of the first half of the season, Davies earned a spot in the Revolution starting lineup in late July and held on to that spot for the rest of the year. He finished the regular season with three goals and four assists in 18 games before adding two goals and an assist in the Eastern Conference Semifinals against Columbus.
Davies could become the second consecutive Revolution player to win the Comeback Player of the Year award, joining Kevin Alston, who took home the honor in 2013 after his courageous battle with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), a rare but treatable form of leukemia.
The Comeback Player of the Year award will be given out on Tuesday, December 2 while the Volkswagen Most Valuable Player award and the Newcomer of the Year will be announced on Wednesday, December 3.
Davies, Jones, Nguyen and the rest of the Revolution will be back in action when the club takes on the New York Red Bulls in the first leg of the Eastern Conference Championship at Red Bull Arena on Sunday, November 23. That game will be shown nationally on NBC starting at 1:30 p.m.
The second leg of the Eastern Conference Championship will be hosted by the Revs at Gillette Stadium on Saturday, November 29 at 3 p.m. Tickets for the second leg of the Eastern Conference Championship are available for purchase now at revolutionsoccer.net or through all Ticketmaster outlets.
For up-to-the-minute information on the Revolution, visit the team’s official website at revolutionsoccer.net, or join the conversation and interact with fans on any of the team’s social platforms.
