re: MLS is Back Tournament

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So, is Wondo being the MLS’s all-time leading scorer a testament to his ability or an indictment of MLS?

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Great question. I’m not a huge follower of MLS unless gambling is involved, but I’d say his goals were mostly poachers goals, which is his skill set, which is allowed by poor marking, which is the quality of MLS defenders....so maybe both?

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So, is Wondo being the MLS’s all-time leading scorer a testament to his ability or an indictment of MLS?

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Wondo's goal-scoring prowess in MLS is a mix of ability and circumstance. He's legitimately an excellent poacher, Belgium miss aside. He has good movement in the box and is deceptively athletic. Even John Terry was impressed by his movement. He has good instincts that put him in the right place to tap home easy goals.

He's been a regular starter in San Jose for most of the last 10 years, and rarely got injured or called up to the national team (other than that brief window around 2013-14). He consistently gets around 15 goals a season, and sometimes much more than that. That adds up over the course of a decade.

Most of the players good enough to threaten his record (Donovan, Dempsey, etc.) didn't spend their whole careers in MLS like he did or they didn't play long enough like Twellman.

IMO, Taylor Twellman would have easily been the MLS all-time leading goalscorer if his career hadn't been derailed badly by injuries.

Wondo will retire with around 160 MLS goals, and with the league transitioning into being much more of a selling league, that's a mark that will probably stand for quite some time. I think Josef Martinez and/or Carlos Vela could potentially surpass that if they stay in MLS for at least 5 more years.