Red Bull New York announced its 2010 Team Awards today. Midfielder Joel Lindpere took home the team’s Most Valuable Player award while rookie Tim Ream won Defender of the Year. In addition, forward Juan Pablo Angel earned the team Golden Boot for his club-leading 13 goals and midfielder Seth Stammler captured the club’s Humanitarian of the Year award.
In his first year in Major League Soccer, Lindpere was one of the team’s most consistent players, starting in 29 of 30 matches and recording three goals and a team-high six assists. Signed on March 5, 2010 from Norwegian First Division side, Tromso, Lindpere, a two-way left-footed player, was a finalist for the league’s Newcomer of the Year award. Lindpere scored the first ever goal at Red Bull Arena in the Red Bulls’ 3-1 exhibition win over Santos FC on March 20. He followed that effort up a week later in the venue’s opening MLS match with another tally during a 1-0 victory against the Chicago Fire. The Estonian International also scored the lone goal in New York’s 1-0 playoff win over the San Jose Earthquakes.
Ream, who recently earned his first start and U.S. Men’s National Team cap on Wednesday in a 1-0 win over South Africa, won the team’s Defender of the Year award after being one of two players in MLS this year and one of three rookies all-time to start and play in every minute of every regular season game. The former Saint Louis University product and MLS Rookie of the Year finalist tallied one goal and helped the team concede an Eastern Conference-low 29 goals and earn 13 shutouts – both of which are franchise records. Along with the 30-game regular season schedule, Ream also started in New York’s two playoff games. The 23-year-old was drafted in the second round (18th overall) in the 2010 MLS SuperDraft after playing four seasons at Saint Louis and being named the 2009 Atlantic 10 Conference Defensive Player of the Year.
[inline_node:6164]Angel was the club’s leading goalscorer for the fourth straight season. In 2010, Angel amassed career highs in both games played (30) and minutes (2,593). He ranked sixth in the league with 13 goals, and also registered three assists while firing a career high and league leading 98 shots. Three of Angel’s goals were game winners, and two of them came in second half stoppage time, including his dramatic free kick winner against Houston on June 2. Angel was a finalist for the MLS Most Valuable Player Award in 2007.
Also the 2010 MLS W.O.R.K.S. Humanitarian of the Year, Stammler earned the team’s award for the fourth straight season for his charitable work in Haiti and the local community. Stammler founded and oversees Sporting Chance Foundation, a 501(c)(3) certified nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of individuals in Haiti – known as one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere. Stammler was inspired to create his own foundation after visiting Haiti on a six-day service trip at the end of 2006. SCF’s main aims are to provide educational scholarships and water wells that produce potable water for the Haitian people. Already, Stammler and his foundation have built a water well that supplies clean water for over 9,000 Haitians. In addition, SCF has granted over 60 scholarships to aspiring Haitian students.
With the tragic Haitian earthquake earlier this year, SCF intensified its efforts to give relief aid to people in need. Along with the water well, which stayed intact despite the earthquake, Stammler and SCF helped raised thousands of dollars through a number of fundraisers, raffles and other events. Stammler, who visited Haiti in December 2009 and plans to do so again later this year, planned numerous projects that would benefit Haiti, including private fan tours of Red Bull Arena with his teammates. Two new initiatives that Stammler is currently involved in are building two more water wells in Haiti and starting a Cash for Work Program that provides jobs to Haitians who were devastated by the earthquake. For more information regarding SCF, log onto www.sportingchancefoundation.org. Aside from his work on Sporting Chance Foundation, Stammler has also dedicated his time off the field to a variety of different aims including volunteering at his local YMCA, participating in clinics for underprivileged children throughout the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area and in his native Ohio. Stammler also donates his time to the charitable organization, Athletes for Charity.
