No MLS award brings out the critics like the Comeback Player of the Year, because there’s always one question that no one can quite seem to answer.
OK, so what constitutes a comeback anyway?
Is it when you step back on the field for the first time since a guy barreled into you and snapped your leg in two places? Or maybe your ankle was smashed about 18 months ago and then some dude went and broke your foot during a preseason game down at Disney World, of all places, just when you thought everything was getting back on track.
Is it when you score 13 goals the season after surgeons carved you up to repair tears in your abdominal muscle and both hip adductors? How about when you return to MLS after your father passes away, an event so emotionally traumatic that you took an indefinite leave of absence with three months left in the season?
Or, in the case of this year’s winner, maybe you broke back onto the MLS scene after some European teams couldn’t find any room for you and a Mexican team passed you by because they said you couldn’t even pass the physical exam.
So goes the plight of Eddie Johnson, the Seattle Sounders forward who won the second Comeback Player of the Year Award of his career on Tuesday for what seems to be a comeback from, well, no one seems to know.