Several weeks ago it was announced that Major League Soccer was doing away with its Rookie of the Year award in favor of a new award, the Young Player of the Year. To be eligible, the player has to be 22 years of age or younger.
In plenty of respects the change made a lot of sense. The league is beginning to move in a direction where lots of young talent is coming in from MLS academies, USL teams, or overseas rather than the just the MLS SuperDraft. From that angle, the move makes plenty of sense by allowing the league to honor someone like Diego Rossi, who was already a professional before joining LAFC and thereby wouldn’t have qualified for the Rookie of the Year award.