MLS Team Of The Season 2024: A Data-Driven Selection

The 2024 Major League Soccer season concluded last weekend.

Record MLS Cup champions Los Angeles Galaxy ended their longest title drought since the league began in 1996 by winning their sixth crown in a 2-1 win over New York Red Bulls on home soil.

Now that another season is over and the league has announced its annual award winners, we thought wed take our own crack at selecting the 2024 MLS Team of the Season.

While Major League Soccer themselves opted to cram as many high-profile attacking names as they could in their own version of a Best XI, we will take a slightly different approach by aiming to opt for a somewhat more realistic side with a certain level of defensive balance in mind.

Therefore, this piece will not just aim to assemble the best eleven players in the league, but rather create a functional side that can potentially coexist within a collective framework on the pitch.

With that being said, given the vast array of outstanding offensive performers in comparison to defensemen, there is little choice but to play a very attack-minded side, especially with the league averaging 3.15 goals per game this year, the highest since the 2018 season.

Thus, we will line up the selected eleven players in an asymmetrical 4-2-3-1 formation, with one pure defensive midfielder and one attack-minded central midfielder in the middle behind a front four guaranteed to score, create goals, and wreak havoc for any opposition they may encounter.

This setup will enable us to include the very best and most deserving attacking talents in the league this year, while still providing sufficient defensive coverage behind them with the seasons standout defensive contributors.

Lets begin.

Goalkeeper: Kristijan Kahlina, 32 Years Old, Charlotte FC

Starting in goal, weve gone with the Croatian-born Kristijan Kahlina of Charlotte FC, the same choice that MLS made.

Few would disagree with that, especially given his data profile.

Kristijan Kahlina 2024 MLS Data Profile

Although there were other solid options, such as Stefan Frei, Matt Freese, and Hugo Lloris, to name a few, what separated Kahlina from the rest was his monstrous save rate of 82.8%, which no one came even close to matching this year in the league.

Kahlina was in a league of his own when it came to his shot-stopping abilities.

Although Frei and