LAFC’s Diego Rossi, Bradley Wright-Phillips, Mark-Anthony Kaye finalists for 2020 MLS awards

Major League Soccer released the finalists for the 2020 end-of-season awards on Wednesday, and three MLS players have made the podium across four categories.

Diego Rossi is a finalist in two categories: Most Valuable Player and Young Player of the Year. The 22-year-old has already won the MLS Golden Boot this season as the league’s top scorer, and I think he has a very good shot of winning Young Player of the Year in particular.

LAFC have last season’s MVP, Carlos Vela, although Vela did not feature most of this season and will not be winning any awards this campaign.

Meanwhile, Bradley Wright-Phillips is a finalist for MLS Comeback Player of the Year. The criteria for this award are somewhat amorphous, but this season in particular the finalists are all coming back from injury and BWP is I suppose also overcoming the perception he may have been washed up in his final season with the New York Red Bulls. Hard to handicap this one — I think he or Kevin Molino are probably most likely to win, but since this is perennially one of the most controversial awards it’s a bit tougher to project a winner.

And midfielder Mark-Anthony Kaye is a finalist for Humanitarian of the Year. I think all three players who were named finalists have a good case here, as is usually the case for this award.

You can find the full award finalist list here.

One former LAFC player, defender Walker Zimmerman, is a finalist for Defender of the Year and likely to make the Best XI again this season.

Voting for these awards is already complete (full disclosure: I voted for these awards, as I have every season since 2011) but the winners will be announced sometime in the coming weeks, likely before MLS Cup, which is scheduled for Dec. 12.

Congrats and good luck to Diego, Bradley and Mark! I suspect at least one award will be won by an LAFC player, but we’ll have to see what happens.

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