MLS: Top 5 players in league history from the rest of Europe
By Matt Coles
1. Stefan Frei
It is not often that a goalkeeper will head up a list of the greatest players in a league, but that is testament to the consistent brilliance of Seattle Sounders shot-stopper, Stefan Frei. Frei has spent the entirety of his professional career in MLS, having come through the American college system, but he was born in Switzerland and moved with his family in his early teens.
After being drafted by Toronto FC in the first round of the 2009 MLS SuperDraft, he immediately tasted success as the team won the Canadian Championship four years in a row. However, he fell out of favour north of the border, playing just 90 minutes across his final two terms in Toronto, and following the end of the 2013 season, he made the move to Seattle.
He quickly became their first-choice goalkeeper and has since missed just six regular-season matches across his six seasons in the North West. During that time, Frei has played exactly 200 league games, keeping 57 clean sheets in the process. In his first season in Seattle, the club won the U.S. Open Cup, and since then, the Sounders have gone on to win the MLS Cup twice, in both 2016 and 2019.
Frei was named the MLS Cup MVP in the first of those triumphs after one of the most brilliant goalkeeping displays in league history. He was an MLS All-Star in 2017, won the MLS Save of the Year award a year later, and has finished in the top three of the MLS Goalkeeper of the Year award twice in the last three seasons.
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No wonder, then, that Stefan Frei takes the two spot on our list of the best five MLS players to come from the rest of Europe.