Sacha Kljestan is not the player he was at his peak, but 2021 was a return to form of sorts.
The midfielder is one of the most versatile in MLS: Capable of playing as a playmaker, a deep-lying midfielder, a defensive midfielder, a box-to-box mid and even a winger, he’s had stints of his career where he’s done a bit of all of those. His first stint in MLS was as a pure attacker, before he was recast as a defensive-minded midfielder in Europe, and then returning to MLS as a pure playmaker, where for a time he was the league’s assist king.