{"id":2537,"date":"2026-01-14T20:08:53","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T20:08:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=2537"},"modified":"2026-01-14T20:08:53","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T20:08:53","slug":"crystal-palace-defender-chris-richards-voted-u-s-soccer-male-player-of-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=2537","title":{"rendered":"Crystal Palace Defender Chris Richards Voted U.S. Soccer Male Player of Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"subnav-title ff-ffc bold fs-23 lh-25 uc pd-b-10\">\n            POPULAR SEARCHES\n          <\/p>\n<p class=\"subnav-title ff-ffc bold fs-23 lh-25 uc pd-b-10\">\n            BROWSE BY\n          <\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-746446fd>Defender Chris Richards was voted the U.S. Soccer Federation Male Player of the Year for the first time on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-746446fd>Richards played in 12 U.S. matches in 2025, starting 11 of them. The 25-year-old from Birmingham, Alabama, scored twice in the CONCACAF Gold Cup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-746446fd><i><strong>Read More: <\/strong><\/i><i><strong>Who Is Chris Richards? USA Star Talks Tattoos, World Cup Hopes<\/strong><\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-746446fd>He also helped the Premier League\u2019s Crystal Palace win its first FA Cup in 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-746446fd>He is the second straight defender to earn the award following Fulham&#8217;s Antonee Robinson, marking the first time defenders won in consecutive years since Marcelo Balboa in 1994 and Alexi Lalas in 1995.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-746446fd>Richards received 48.6% of the weighted voting from U.S. coaches and players, former players, professional league coaches and sporting directors, administrators, USSF directors and athletes council members, media and fans. Midfielder Malik Tillman was second at 21.7% and Alex Freeman third at 13%.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-746446fd><i>Reporting by The Associated Press.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-746446fd><i>Want great stories delivered right to your inbox?\u00a0<\/i><i><u>Create or log in to your FOX Sports account<\/u><\/i><i> and follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily!<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY Defender Chris Richards was voted the U.S. Soccer Federation Male Player of the Year for the first time on Wednesday. Richards played in 12 U.S. matches in 2025, starting 11 of them. The 25-year-old from Birmingham, Alabama, scored twice in the CONCACAF Gold Cup. Read More: Who Is Chris Richards? USA [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}