Thursday, September 16, 2004

 

MONTREAL – United Soccer Leagues announced Thursday evening the Rookie, Coach and Defender of the Year honors as well as the Most Valuable Player for the 2004 A-League season at the A-League Championship Banquet, honoring Portland’s Alan Gordon and Bobby Howe and Montreal’s Gabriel Gervais and Greg Sutton, respectively.

The regular season champion Portland Timbers saw striker Alan Gordon take home the Rookie of the Year honor. Also a finalist for the MVP honor, Gordon tied Virginia Beach’s Dante Washington, the Scoring Champion and fellow MVP finalist, as the co-Goal Scoring Champion with 17 tallies on the season. Gordon was recently loaned to the Los Angeles Galaxy of MLS.

Gordon’s coach, Bobby Howe, took home the Coach of the Year honor for leading the team to the regular season championship (18-7-3) a year after missing the postseason with a 15-11-2 mark. The Timbers led the league in offense with 58 goals on the season, 14 more than second place Milwaukee and Richmond. The team also ranked sixth in the league in fewest goals allowed (30). Through four seasons, Howe has yet to have a losing campaign with a career regular season record of 59-40-11. Howe is the fourth northwest-based coach in the last five years to receive the honor.

Montreal’s Gabe Gervais became just the second defender to win back-to-back Defender of the Year honors Thursday night. Rochester’s Scott Schweitzer is the only other player to have received the honor multiple times, winning it in 1998 and 1999.  Gervais helped lead the Impact to a record year in 2004 as the team broke Rochester’s 1998 single season shutout record of 18 with 19 during the regular season. The club went on to record three more in four postseason games for 22 of 32 games on the year. The club’s 15 goals allowed tied Rochester’s 1998 league record for the fewest in a season of 21 or more games. Gervais was named to the A-League All-League First Team for the third straight season. He played in 26 games and was recently called up for international duty with Canada during the playoffs.

Anchoring the Montreal defense was current two-time Goalkeeper of the Year Greg Sutton, who became the third goalkeeper in A-League history to win the Most Valuable Player honor, joining Kasey Keller (Portland Timbers, 1989) and John Swallen (Minnesota, 1999). He was also the first player to win the honor from a Canadian club. Sutton won the Goalkeeper of the Year honor for the second straight season. He had a record year, tying former Rochester Rhinos netminder Pat Onstad’s 1998 league record of 16 shutouts in a season as the Impact went on to break the 1998 team shutout record of 18 held by the Rhinos. He has since gone on to record three shutouts in four playoff matches as well. Sutton’s league-low goals against average of 0.54, which earned him the Goalkeeper of the Year honor, is the third lowest in A-League history for a season of 20 or more games. Onstad, last year’s Major League Soccer Goalkeeper of the Year, finished the 1998 campaign at 0.50 for the second lowest mark with current US National Team goalkeeper Kasey Keller holding the record at 0.36 for his 1989 season with FC Portland.