It has been 18 years since MLS introduced the designated player (DP) rule. Originally a workaround so it could usher David Beckham to the LA Galaxy, it quickly became a bedrock of the league’s roster rules. MLS could sign big-name stars who drove interest, invest in exciting young players whom they could later transfer to European clubs, or make room for the game-breaking player who could win the MLS Cup.
Some DPs have been sensational, altering the direction of clubs on and off the pitch, while others have been calamities. Who have been the best and worst designated players?
The best
Dempsey’s claim to the title of best United States men’s national team player ever is built, in large part, on his success in Europe, but don’t ignore what he did in MLS, especially after returning to the league with the Sounders in 2013. He scored 57 goals and helped turn Seattle from a good club into the gem of the league with a Supporters’ Shield, a U.S. Open Cup and consecutive MLS Cup appearances, winning one. Dempsey paired with Obafemi Martins to make one of the best strike partnerships in league history as the Sounders climbed to the summit of American soccer.
9. Zlatan Ibrahimovic | LA Galaxy
Ibrahimovic got off the plane in Los Angeles and jumped straight into the inaugural El Tráfico, coming off the bench to make his debut and score a hat trick — which included a 45-yard volley that is one of the best goals in league history — that brought the Galaxy back for a remarkable 4-3 victory in such gaudy fashion that only Zlatan could have done it. The rest of Ibrahimovic’s time in LA looked much the same, as the awful Galaxy couldn’t defend, pass or create much of anything, but they could get the ball to their towering striker.
Ibrahimovic was the consummate one-man team for a club that, at the time, didn’t deserve his talent, so he left after only two seasons with a sensational 52 goals in 56 matches.
8. Landon Donovan | LA Galaxy
You could make an argument that Donovan is the greatest player in MLS history, so why is he eighth? Because some of his best seasons came when he was not a designated player.
Donovan occupied a DP spot only from 2010 to 2014, but though he topped out at 12 goals in that stretch, he led the league in assists twice and finished second and fifth in assists in another two years. He was a remarkable player whose ability to pressure defenses created acres of space for Robbie Keane and Gyasi Zardes to score as the Galaxy won three MLS Cups and a Supporters’ Shield in his five years as a designated player.
MartÃnez has become a bit of a journeyman in recent years, playing for his third club in as many years this season, but don’t forget what he did in his first three years for Atlanta United. The striker scored an astonishing 88 goals from 2017 to 2019, turning the Five Stripes from an expansion team into one of MLS’ best immediately. The 2018 campaign was all MartÃnez, as he scored 31 goals to break the then-MLS single-season goal-scoring record. He was named MVP and then MLS Cup MVP as Atlanta reigned supreme in its second season.
His career was derailed by a torn ACL at the start of 2020, but his first three years are unlike anything in MLS. He ranks sixth all time in goals with the best goals-per-appearance mark among players who have surpassed 100 goals.
Henry came to MLS to live in New York, where he cherished the culture and was even spotted riding the subway, but he made it clear from the start that he didn’t join the Red Bulls for a paid vacation to cap his career. The forward put up 52 goals and 40 assists in 135 matches for a club that was regarded as one of MLS’ greatest losers and directionless under Red Bull ownership prior to his arrival. His dogged competitiveness lifted the organization, and in 2013, he did what nobody has done at RBNY: He won a major trophy, as the club captured the Supporters’ Shield.
Though most of MLS’ best designated players were big-name, expensive signings, Valeri joined the Timbers from Lanús as a midfielder who washed out in Europe with just three international appearances, but he hit the ground running. The Argentine led the league in assists in his first season, earning the first of three MLS Best XI honors. He won MVP in 2017 and was named MLS Cup MVP when Portland captured its first title in 2015.
Though the club gained a reputation for phenomenal fan support since its MLS debut in 2011, there was little on-field identity until Valeri showed up in the Rose City and immediately defined what it meant to be a Timber.
How do you make this list despite having played just two years in the league? By scoring 40 goals and picking up 26 assists in 46 MLS contests. Nobody has produced like Messi, and that is to be expected from the greatest to play the sport. Give the maestro another few years and he’d be on top of the list, and that’s before we consider the commercial and cultural impact he has had for MLS and Inter Miami. He’s an unstoppable force.
LAFC’s first designated player was also their best, and the key to the Black and Gold immediately stamping their place among the league’s top clubs. Vela scored 14 goals and added 10 assists in LAFC’s inaugural season, then turned in arguably the best year in MLS history in 2019, when he set the league record with 34 goals and added 10 assists. He easily won MVP honors, and three years later, he took his club to the same unimaginable heights when LAFC claimed the MLS Cup and Supporters’ Shield double.
2. Sebastian Giovinco | Toronto FC
In the early years of the designated player rule, it was primarily used to lure older players who were at the end of their careers. When Giovinco joined Toronto from Juventus at 28 years old, it was considered a game-changing move. It proved to be just that, as the Italian scored 68 goals in 114 matches for the Reds. His masterwork came in 2016, when his 22 goals and 16 assists each led the league en route to his MVP honors. The next year, he led Toronto to the MLS Cup, Supporters’ Shield and Canadian Championship treble.
1. Robbie Keane | LA Galaxy
Keane joined a good Galaxy team that made the MLS Cup the year before and immediately catapulted it to another level. LA won three MLS Cups and a Supporters’ Shield in four years, arguably the greatest stretch by any club in league history, and though those Galaxy teams had Beckham and Donovan, there’s no doubt that Keane was their best player. He won MVP in 2014 and left LA having scored 83 goals in 125 games and making a compelling case as the most impactful player in MLS history.
The worst
10. Mista | Toronto FC
Toronto FC was one of MLS’ biggest messes in its early years, and Mista was part of that. After some putrid seasons to begin their existence, the Reds tried to spend their way to relevancy by bringing over Mista from LaLiga. By 2010, though, he was five years removed from his last season with more than three goals, and it had been four years since he had more than one assist. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t do much in Toronto, notching an assist in 544 minutes before retiring.
The Gambian joined the Whitecaps in their inaugural season and was expected to provide some much-needed attacking punch to a team headed for a last-place finish. He didn’t, failing to register a goal or an assist in 10 games. By the end of the season, he had been relegated to the bench, and Vancouver jettisoned him after four months.
8. Frank Rost | New York Red Bulls
It made sense for the Red Bulls to chase a goalkeeper in 2011 because the two they had struggled, and Rost had a long career of capably backstopping clubs in the Bundesliga. Sounds great, right? It wasn’t, as Rost played so badly in his 11 games for RBNY that he might have been the team’s third-best goalkeeper, and he knew just how bad he was because he retired after the season.
Denilson was once the world’s most expensive player, so it seemed like a steal when FC Dallas got him for only $800,000. It turned out to be a mess, as the team made several tactical changes to accommodate the man who won the World Cup with Brazil five years earlier, but he did not deliver. He scored just one goal, often looking like he wanted to be anywhere else but on the pitch. By the time Dallas made the U.S. Open Cup final, things were so bad that Denilson was left off the squad, and it was no surprise when the club let him go after just four months.
Castillo should have been the crème de la crème of designated player signings. He was a Mexico international with phenomenal skill and goal-scoring ability, and had proven himself in Europe. Best of all, he was only 26 years old, so the Fire thought they got a prime-aged superstar who would ignite the city’s Mexican population and stamp their place locally, as well as in MLS. That’s why they paid an eye-opening $2 million just on the initial loan fee. Instead, they got the heart of Castillo’s decline, as he played just eight times for the Fire and didn’t record a goal or an assist. He played four more years for four clubs before retiring, never wearing the Mexico shirt again.
5. Blaise Matuidi | Inter Miami
It’s not Matuidi’s fault that he made this list. He wasn’t technically a designated player … and that was the problem. Inter broke MLS roster rules to sign Matuidi, categorizing him as a less expensive player who wouldn’t take up a DP slot, while paying him multiple millions and essentially making him an illegal, off-roster designated player. Eventually, Miami was fined $2 million, given a significant salary cap reduction and sporting director Paul McDonough was banned for 18 months.
Even when Matuidi played, he was pedestrian more often than not, which stings for a team that was paying him well and eventually paid for its misconduct.
For almost an entire season, the Earthquakes paid Emeghara more than $1 million to sit on the bench. The striker was an unused substitute in 29 consecutive games, a breathtaking statistic considering how many underachieving, highly paid players, and even skill-deficient players, have gotten playing time because of the league’s salary cap. Emeghara was that bad, losing his starting spot after about six weeks and getting cozy on the bench before leaving the club with just one goal in two years.
The Union had a pretty good young goalkeeper in Zac MacMath and a burgeoning star in Andre Blake, then, for reasons that made no sense at the time and even less sense now, they signed M’Bolhi. Designated player spots are rarely used on goalkeepers, and M’Bohli was an unremarkable player, but he was still so much worse than anyone could have expected. He cost the Union points in nearly half of the nine matches he played before being ushered out as the worst signing in club history and making way for Blake to become the best backstop in MLS history.
2. Steven Gerrard | LA Galaxy
Gerrard was signed by the Galaxy in 2015 to launch a new era of excellence after the departure of Beckham two years earlier and Donovan’s retirement following the team’s 2014 MLS Cup triumph. But Gerrard, then 35, didn’t seem interested in still being a professional player. He kept jumping across the pond to do TV hits. When he played, he was so slow that he rarely did more than stand in place while the other 21 players moved around him.
Gerrard joined a club coming off three MLS Cups in four years, and scored just five goals over two years as he led the Galaxy from the class of the league to also-ran.
1. Rafael Márquez | New York Red Bulls
Márquez is arguably the greatest player to come out of Concacaf, so the Red Bulls were thrilled when they signed the Mexico captain at 31 years old after seven years at Barcelona. It seemed like a coup. Instead, it turned into a disaster. Márquez immediately regretted his move to MLS and spent most of his time either injured or suspended. When he played, he was petulant and slow. Even as the Red Bulls played well, he tanked them in consecutive postseasons by getting sent off and ushering the team out of the playoffs. By the end of 2013, New York paid him seven figures to go away.
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