But first... Nagbe??? Be still mine beating heart. Eric Hassli was robbed I tells ya. Nagbe's goal gets a 9.1 on the Parchman-Richter goals scale. Hassli gets like a 12.7. Somebody tell me I'm not alone here.
Blech. Anyway.
Hassli not only missed out on goal of the year honors, he also took a backseat to Seattle's Mauro Rosales in the Newcomer of the Year award voting (Hassli was my pick in August). By good margin. On the same day, Kasey Keller got the nod for keeper of the year for his league-leading 119 saves and third-best 1.11 GAA (for players with at least 23 starts). I'd love to stick in an argument against either of those, except my respective picks of Eric Hassli and Kevin Hartman, who was first in my GAA stat with 1.06, have their flaws in the face of such rod-iron picks. If only the Sounders could win in Utah...
Keller also picked up the save of the year award for this ping-pong effort. Not a bad way to go out for the old fella.
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It's a close call, they were both great goals, but I think Nagbe gets the slight nod because 1) it was prettier (aesthetically) and 2) the shot had to be aimed through a crowd of players.
A fan vote + 4 Cascadia entries = Shenanigans. In this case, I blame the substantial bloc of voters that chose a candidate not named Hassli or Nagbe.
Nevertheless, Nagbe's goal is certainly a deserving winner. But it would have been nice to see a direct Hassli vs Nagbe vote. In fact, since neither got 50 percent, there should be a runoff for the top two, heh.
Hassli's was about "lets just see what happens" and got lucky.
Nagbe channeled his inner Maicon, showed touch, composure, and power, sent it though a crowd of 7-8 players and into the upper 90. Clear winner for me.
I'm with you Will - Nagbe was given too much time and space (great skill, but don't let a guy juggle at the edge of the area) the Hassli goal was utterly un-defendable.
The more I watch Hassli's, the more I like it. Sure, Nagbe's required a ton of composure and skill, but the invention from Hassli is unreal--it's selling him incredibly short to say he threw up a prayer and got lucky. Audacious, absolutely, but most great individual goals are. Hassli didn't close his eyes and toe-bash it from 60 yards, he made an on-the-fly decision and executed it perfectly.
Nagbe's goal was special. Hassli's was one of those once-in-a-lifetime confluences of angle, shot trajectory and lift. You see thunderbolts from Nagbe's area of the field every now and then, and even the juggling (which obviously won it for him) isn't completely unheard of. Something similar happens in the Brazilian league once a year or so. Hassli's goal was just so... impossible. It was off a one-touch flick to himself (that took him around a defender!), his back turned to goal, 85th minute, tied a Cascadia Cup game that the 'Caps were very likely to lose... it had everything. Look at Kasey Keller's face 16 seconds in. It's sort of this bemused resignation. For a guy who's seen everything, that's about as close to "Really?" as you're going to get.
Hassli was robbed.
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