MLS All-Star roster announced, no Austin FC players made it (not even Brad Stuver)

For the first time since Verde's inaugural season, with an expansion roster built in the throes of a global pandemic, it will send no All-Stars to the Other Midsummer Classic.

Brad Stuver didn’t even make it onto the All-Star team. That tells you the kind of 2024 it’s shaping up to be for Verde fans.

After two straight years of having Austin FC representation at the MLS All-Star Game — Sebastián Driussi for an MVP-caliber season in 2022, and Jon Gallagher for being the highest-scoring fullback heading into the 2023 edition — Verde won’t be represented at the 2024 version of the event.

Shockingly, one of the other leading candidates at Stuver’s goalkeeping position was passed over as well.

Monday’s announcement revealed that FC Dallas goalkeeper Maarten Paes, bolstered by what the league confirmed in an MLSSoccer.com story as “a wave of support from Indonesia, which the Dutch-born goalkeeper aims to compete for internationally after obtaining his passport in May,” was the leading vote-getter at Stuver’s position.

The MLS All-Star team head coach for 2024, Wilfried Nancy, with license to select the other two goalkeepers, opted for a pair of high-profile keepers with histories in Europe: LAFC’s Hugo Lloris, in his debut season with the MLS club after being a mainstay with France’s national team and Tottenham Hotspur, and St. Louis City SC ‘keeper Roman Burki, last year’s top All-Star vote-getter at his position after coming over from Borussia Dortmund.

Is it possible that Nancy picked name players with big reputations rather than players actually putting in the work and putting up the numbers? Let’s dig in a little.

Brad Stuver won’t be an All-Star player this year (though I contend he still has a case) (OtraXFavor)