Major League Soccer has become the place to be for kiwi footballers lately, there are almost enough All Whites jokers there to build a first eleven. There would be if you included the four dudes currently signed in the USL Championship one tier below... and also if you could get a goalie in on loan. The only foreign comp that can top that is Australia where 20 New Zealanders have taken the field in the current (-ly postponed) A-League season, nine of which are Phoenix players (as well as Barbarouses, Rojas, Roux, Stensness, the Inghams, Crocombe, Moss, McGlinchey, Ridenton and Durante (if you wanna count him)). Decent numbers but also sorta to be expected.

The proliferation of Aotearoa exports in the MLS though, that’s a little funkier. There are more kiwis currently contracted to MLS teams than have ever played MLS from Australia, not even kidding. The popular college pathway has to be a major aspect of that and Anthony Hudson did his best to help as well, plus as we’ll get to later on there’s some clustering involved too. But it doesn’t matter why all these fellas are ending up in the MLS, like a smack of jellyfish washed up on the beach shore (a group of jellyfish is called a ‘smack’, you learn something every day, aye?), let’s just enjoy the fact that they’re there.

Currently we’ve got eight New Zealanders on the books of MLS teams. A few of them are new to the MLS, a few of them are still working their way up from a lower lever and can only expect to be fringe players. Only a couple of them will be first team regulars. But all combined, for a league that has international restrictions, that’s a hell of a lot of kiwis. As many kiwis contracted in the MLS for 2020 as there are players contracted from the Netherlands and Spain (granted the minutes totals will look a tad different by the end of it).

So yeah, for whatever reason there seems to be a sweet connection between New Zealanders and the MLS. In honour of that, and since there’s been heaps of time to research this with no actual footy on at the mo’, here are the all-time stats for kiwis in the MLS...

Just like with the 2010 World Cup, Ryan Nelsen and Simon Elliott have set the standard. The MLS itself began in 1996, the current incarnation of top flight sah-currr in the States, and a couple years later Elliott found his way to the LA Galaxy – the original set piece specialist midfielder with the distinctive hair before David Beckham ever showed up in tinsel town. Elliott had a couple years at uni at Stanford then was drafted by the Boston Bulldogs in a lower tier before popping up at the Galaxy and doing so well he was an MLS Rookie of the Year candidate in 1999 as the team made it all the way to the MLS Cup final where they fell to DC United.

That would be the same DC United that drafted Ryan Nelsen fourth overall in 2001. Nelsen spent four seasons with DCU before leaving for Blackburn Rovers in England and he crammed in plenty of excellence to those four years. He went straight into the team as a rookie and was a regular starter by his second year and the team captain by his third. Then in his fourth and final year he led them to the championship. He was twice included in the MLS Best XI – in 2003 and 2004 – and to this very day he remains the only NZer to achieve such a feat. The only NZer to win any sort of MLS seasonal award.

All the while Simon Elliott was stringing together a pristine career of his own. In 2000 he was the Galaxy’s team MVP, scoring five goals that year to go with five assists. He then had double figure assists in each of the next two seasons which culminated in an MLS Cup championship in 2002. In five seasons with the Galaxy they made the playoffs each time and Elliott was a regular throughout. His 27 playoff appearances are miles beyond anyone else from these golden shores... same deal goes for his regular season stats too to be fair. The Galaxy also won the CONCACAF Champions Cup in 2000 and the US Open Cup in 2001. After five seasons and 122 regular season appearances for the Galaxy he was then traded to Columbus Crew for a first round pick in January of 2004.

At Columbus Crew he was united with compatriot Duncan Oughton for a couple years. Oughton was drafted 10th overall in 2001 by the Crew and went straight into their first team where his efforts have also set a standard that’s proved tough to match over the years. Initially seen as a utility player, he slipped in nicely as a rookie and by his second season he was starting playoff games, also winning the US Open Cup in 2002. His first four seasons were great. He was playing all the time and playing well. Then he busted his knee.

Oughton missed the entirety of the 2005 season and his career might have ended right there but for some experimental surgery and although he was released after that season he kept on training with the team during his recovery and late in the 2006 campaign he was re-signed by the Crew and would continue to feature for them, albeit sporadically, until 2010. He only made one start plus four more off the bench in 2008 as Columbus lifted the MLS Cup and he didn’t play a minute of their playoff run but all goods, still got a medal. His Crew sides also won three MLS Supporter’s Shields. For a while there he was the all-time leading appearance maker for the Crew but time has taken care of that one... he remains a healthy second for MLS x Flying Kiwis though.

Simon Elliott and Duncan Oughton only got one season together. Then Oughton got injured and while he was on the long road to recovery, Elliott won the admiration of Chris Coleman and signed for Fulham in the English Premier League... where injuries of his own restricted him to only 12 EPL appearances in his two seasons there. After which he re-emerged in the MLS in 2009 and played 15 games for San Jose Earthquakes, followed by a quick stint as an injury replacement player for the Wellington Phoenix, then he had one last MLS season in 2011 with Chivas USA to take him over the double hundy mark for MLS appearances. He’s played more than twice as many minutes as any other New Zealander.

Those three are the originales and they remain the top dogs, Elliott and Nelsen are the only kiwis to take the field in an MLS Cup final (a few more have sat on the bench)... and it’s only in the last year that Michael Boxall has been able to pierce their appearance records bubble as he nears his own century.

Boxall initially played 19 times for Vancouver Whitecaps way back in 2011 but then made his name at the Wellington Phoenix and SuperSport United (in South Africa) before returning to the MLS when he signed with expansion side Minnesota United. Other than a couple hiccups he’s been a regular face in central defence for the Loons since day one, even scoring a couple useful goals and playing all ninety minutes of their first and only playoff appearance in 2019. Lately he’s even been joined by a couple more kiwis: Noah Billingsley was drafted and James Musa was signed from out of the USL. The Moose makes that table above after his lone appearance for Sporting Kansas City in 2017... he’d been laying down the law in midfield for their USL affiliate and was called up for the last few weeks of that season as SKC sought extra depth to help them with a US Open Cup run. The one game Musa played was two days after a midweek cup semi-final that had gone to penalties. It worked because SKC went on to win that cup trophy, though Musa didn’t feature again.

What’s wild about all this – and probably not a coincidence – is how much these stories overlap. Take Anthony Hudson’s tenure at Colorado Rapids for example. In came an ex-All Whites coach (as well as a few ex-AWs staffers) and before you know it they’ve signed Tommy Smith, Deklan Wynne, and Kip Colvey. Smith was decent there but has since gone back to England, never fully settling in the American stuff. But having said that, while his team was kinda rubbish, he did pop up with a fair few goals – seven from 60 apps as a CB is more than useful. Only Simon Elliott has more. Smith had two seasons of regularity with the Rapids but Kip Colvey only ever featured sporadically, four times for San Jose Earthquakes and then three for Huddo’s Rapids. Then he retired to pursue different avenues of life (a bad concussion was a factor in that). As for Wynne, he remains at the Rapids post-Hudson having been injured most of 2019 and should be a bench utility defender for them. Wynne might be a natural left back but Hudson used him all across the backline.

Deklan Wynne never played for Vancouver Whitecaps (apart from a Canadian cup tournament thing one time) but he was on the brink of making their first team when he was traded. For a while there he was a core member of the Vancouver All-Whitecaps, with Francis de Vries and Myer Bevan and Cory Brown also passing through although none of them ever cracked the MLS level. Stefan Marinovic was the only All-Whitecap who did, getting one and a bit seasons as a starting keeper before they flicked him off to use that international roster spot elsewhere within a substantial club rebuild. The All-Whitecap thing never really took off but it was still, briefly, another Kiwi MLS cluster.

Or how about that one year Ryan Nelsen spent managing Toronto FC? It didn’t go so well for him and he’s since pivoted into sports player agency instead where he’s done a whole lot better but that one season did see him bring in Jeremy Brockie on loan. Unfortunately Brockie’s one goal in 15 appearances was more like his All Whites rewards than his SuperSport tallies. Toronto was also the home of Jarrod Smith for a year in 2008. He had similar figures with 1 goal from 20 matches after working his way up from having been selected-but-not-signed in the Supplemental Draft a year earlier. Smithy Jr then had a year with Seattle Sounders but only played Cup footy, no MLS.

And before all that Toronto welcomed its first Flying Kiwi when they picked Andy Boyens in the 2007 SuperDraft at #10 overall. Boyens played 23 times in 2007 before moving to New York Red Bulls where he played 33 times across two seasons. Boyens also had stints with Chivas USA and LA Galaxy – two of Simon Elliott’s old haunts. They obviously missed each other at the Galaxy but they hunted together at Chivas, signing as a duo as free agents on the exact same day. This was in 2011 so the World Cup will have been a factor in that. Chivas is also the same club that Tony Lochhead played 20 times for in 2014 after he left the Welly Nix. Lochhead also spent the 2006 season with New England Revolution after being drafted out of college, sitting on the bench as they lost the MLS Cup final to LA Galaxy in the first post-Elliott season.

Then there’s the Portland Timbers mafia. Cameron Knowles played four times for Real Salt Lake in the MLS but spent his best times with the Timbers back before they joined the MLS. Injuries affected his career and led to an early retirement before his 30th birthday so he moved into coaching and has for the last couple years been in charge of their reserves team... which meant helping Bill Tuiloma ease into American soccer after he left OM Marseille. Tuiloma’s first half season was spent exclusively with that reserves team (while Knowles was still an assistant in 2017) before he stepped it up as a bench utility for the MLS side (a common role for NZers it seems – especially when you look how many on that list were/are defenders) the next year. A few heroic fill-in performances during those playoffs helped his stocks massively as Portland went on to lose in the grand final (with Tui on the bench) and the following season, 2019, proved to be a breakthrough for him as he played 25 times.

Tuiloma remains an important squad member for that lot – a pretty shrewd signing by the club’s technical director Gavin Wilkinson, himself another kiwi who racked up the games before Portland made it to the top flight (by expansion, not by promotion – America being America and all that). Wilkinson also drafted Stuart Holthusen in 2018 although he was never signed. Plus for nearly a decade they had Jake Gleeson on their books. Gleeson got four replacement matches in 2011 but then got stuck in the youth/reserves teams for the next four years until he was desperately called up for a playoff game in 2015 when their main starter was ruled out with illness and Gleeson impressed with a clean sheet. He didn’t play again that year but he did hang about and was on the bench when they won the 2015 MLS Cup. Gleeson then spent the next two years battling for the starter’s gloves, though he’d lost that role by 2018 and a pretty bad tibial stress fracture cost him the chance to win it back. He’s since had to retire because of that injury.

Which leaves Dan Keat as the only fella on that list still unmentioned. Keat was drafted (third overall in the 2011 Supplemental Draft) and signed by LA Galaxy in the post-Elliott years, only playing six times across the 2011 and 2012 season – although he did make his first team debut in a friendly game against Real Madrid – before leaving to do his best stuff in Sweden where he remains today with his Ole Academy mates at Torslanda (as Sports Director). Keat shared some time at LAG with Andy Boyens so there you go.

By the way, there are about a thousand different drafts in the MLS. The SuperDraft is the main one which is for college players stepping into the pro leagues... and more recently the SuperDraft has also absorbed the Supplemental Draft which used to exist for players who have already played professionally outside MLS. Something like that... don’t worry about it. They also have an Expansion Draft to give new teams a chance to pick up some decent players and a Re-Entry Draft to disperse experienced MLS players around the place. The MLS doesn’t really have true and proper free agency, it’s complicated, hence all these silly drafts. But the SuperDraft is the big one. Here’s how kiwis have fared in that one over the years...

A licorice all sorts selection there, mate. Some superstars and some who never even got signed. Tell you what though, it’s a good sign for Noah Billingsley’s prospects. He got picked the highest any kiwi has been drafted for thirteen years. Joe Bell, had he opted to enter the draft this year, might well have gone even higher than Ryan Nelsen’s record... but he chose to do his thing in Norway instead, fair play to him.

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