San Jose Earthquakes ace Chris Wondolowski became the 9th player in MLS history to score 100 regular-season goals. It is a monumental milestone, of course, one that he shares with the likes of league legends Landon Donovan, Jaime Moreno, and Jason Kreis, among others.
Who will be the next player to score 100 goals in MLS?
Wondo's feat got us thinking about who might be the next player to join the 100-Goal Club or the Century Club.
The next five active players on the goalscoring charts after Wondo are:
- Kenny Cooper, Montreal Impact, 75 goals
- Eddie Johnson, D.C. United, 71
- Conor Casey, Philadelphia Union, 68
- Mike Magee, Chicago Fire, 64
- Alvaro Saborio, Real Salt Lake, 63
All fine goalscorers, but none seems like a safe bet to hit 100.
Cooper, still only 30, has a 0.44 goals/90 minutes in his career, but his playing time and production have fallen off the past two seasons; he has only nine goals in his last 54 appearances.
Johnson has not made an appearance this year, due to continuing health reasons. Both Casey and Saborio are 33 and have struggled with injuries in recent years.
Magee, who is still only 30, has also missed significant time through injury. What might be working against Magee more is math. His 0.32 career goals/90 mins., in theory, means he needs to play another 10,125 minutes before he hits his 100th goal. In his career, he has averaged 1,523 minutes per season, which means he would need more than six-and-a-half seasons to reach the milestone. Not impossible, but not probable.
So who comes after that?
Columbus Crew SC forward Kei Kamara -- who currently leads the Golden Boot race -- has 61 career goals. He, too, is 30 and has a relatively low career 0.38 goals/90 mins., but his body seems to have held up well and his goals/90 mins. is at 0.44 since 2010.
D.C. United's Chris Rolfe has 57 career goals, but at 32, time is not necessarily on his side if he is going to nearly double his career total. Same goes for 35-year-old LA Galaxy star Robbie Keane, who has 55 goals.
Fabian Espindola could be a decent shout. The 30-year-old D.C. United striker has 56 goals, had a career year last year with 11, and has averaged more than 2100 minutes per season over the past four years. Injury has limited his action so far this year to just two appearances. He scored in one of them, of course.
Maybe none of these guys will make it to three digits. Maybe it will be one of the young marksmen just starting to climb up the charts, like Montreal's Jack McInerney (22yo, 34 goals), Sporting KC's Dom Dwyer (24yo, 28 goals), or FC Dallas's Fabian Castillo (22yo, 24 goals).
Let us know who you think it will be.
