Doug McIntyre
Football journalist
Antonee Robinson has been named US Soccer’s 2024 males’s participant of the 12 months, the federation introduced Sunday.
Known by the nickname ‘Jedi’, Robinson is the primary defender to win the award in 18 years, since Oguchi Onyewu did so in 2006. The Fulham left-back, additionally nominated for the respect in 2022, beat his teammates American staff members Folarin Balogun, Ricardo Pepi, Christian Pulisic and Tim Ream.
“It’s an unbelievable honor,” stated Robinson, who acquired it for the primary time, after being revealed because the winner. “Representing our nation is not one thing you do for particular person recognition. It’s at all times about placing the staff first and making an attempt to do your greatest for the youngsters and the nation, so to be rewarded for that’s an incredible feeling “.
Robinson, 27, secured greater than half of the ultimate vote depend weighted by ballots solid by followers, USMNT teammates, nationwide staff coaches, skilled league coaches and athletic administrators, members of the US Soccer’s board of administrators and Athletes’ Council, in addition to choose media members, former gamers and directors.
Robinson has established himself as maybe the perfect full-back within the vaunted English Premier League during the last year-plus. He leads all defenders on the world’s premier home tour with seven assists, and has captained the Cottagers to ninth forward of Sunday’s match in opposition to Ipswich Town, drawing switch curiosity from second-placed Prem leaders Liverpool native relationships.
USMNT nice Tim Howard, now a commentator for NBC, stunned Robinson by breaking the information shortly earlier than Sunday’s recreation in London.
“I assumed it was only a informal interview with Tim about how the season was going, so when he advised me I had received I used to be simply in disbelief as a result of it was the very last thing I anticipated,” he stated. “It was a thrill to get that information from him.”
Jedi made 11 caps for the nationwide staff in 2024, serving to his nation win a 3rd consecutive Concacaf Nations League crown and advance to the semifinals of the 2025 event.
He turns into the twenty seventh totally different American named US Soccer’s Player of the Year because the award was first awarded in 1984.
Doug McIntyre is a soccer reporter for FOX Sports. He was a employees author at ESPN and Yahoo Sports earlier than becoming a member of FOX Sports in 2021 United States males’s and girls’s nationwide groups on the FIFA World Cup on 5 continents. Follow him @By Doug McIntyre.
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