Cunningham has strong case for MVP
Golden Boot winner thrived in first full season with FC Dallas
Now, the 12-year veteran finds himself a finalist for MLS MVP, a career first for Cunningham. Joining him on the finalist list are Landon Donovan of the Los Angeles Galaxy and Shalrie Joseph of the New England Revolution, two players the FCD forward has an immense amount of respect for.
"It's a good honor," Cunningham said after training on Tuesday. "Well, Landon (Donovan) to me, is the best player in the league. Shalrie (Joseph) deserves every recognition or honor that he gets. He's one of those guys that has been in the trenches for his club over the years and is very deserving of the award as well. And me? I'm just very proud to be mentioned with those guys."
Cunningham's inclusion on the finalist list is all the more impressive considering he did the bulk of his scoring down the stretch as FCD made a strong push toward the playoffs, which they missed by a single point.
Early in the year, the 33-year-old forward wasn't in top form and missed a number of chances, which eventually led to FCD head coach Schellas Hyndman sending him to the bench. At one point, he even pondered whether the 2009 season might be his last as a professional. However, Cunningham persevered and really hit his groove once Kenny Cooper left for Europe in early August.
The veteran scorer takes great pride in his second-half performance, but also knows that those goals came because of great teammates getting him the ball like David Ferreira, who had seven assists and Dave van den Bergh, who was second in MLS with 11 helpers.
"Definitely, my job is to score goals and those guys have created a lot of chances for me. As a result, if I win this award, it's definitely something for the team and entire organization to be proud of," Cunningham said. "The fans here got behind me, especially after the slow start. They're just part of this as well. I think it will be a great honor for the entire organization if I was to win."
Last week, Hyndman singled his veteran scorer out as one player who improved drastically from the start of the season in late March until its conclusion just over a week ago.
"I think it's Cunningham. He had a good preseason and like many players, they have their moments, moods or their frustrations and he didn't do much at the beginning," Hyndman said. "After the first couple of games missing opportunities, we took him out. Imaging if he had been just semi-active or semi-productive and how many goals he would have had this year. He could have taken that 17 goals to 20. So I would say he's been the most productive on the team."
Cunningham is just the second player in FCD history to lead MLS in scoring. In 1999, Jason Kreis of the Dallas Burn netted 18 goals and added 15 assists to earn league MVP honors. Cunningham ended up playing for Kreis for Real Salt Lake before he was traded to Toronto FC in May 2007.
Even with the influx of awards this year, he admits there is plenty of room in his trophy case.
"I collect these things. Over the years, I have accumulated quite a bit of stuff," Cunningham said. "They're just memories and now that I have a daughter, she'll be proud of those things. There will be room for them in my house."
Steve Hunt is a contributor to MLSnet.com.
