MLS throws shade at Nigel de Jong, misses mark

Our friends at Dirty South Soccer had some choice words to describe this unusually harsh promotional video featuring De Jong’s exit from the league.

Basically, they thought it was ridiculous.

As they should. The short clip was rather out of bounds, diminishing De Jong’s value to the club with irrelevant stats while highlighting the Darlington Nagbe horror tackle that most of us who aren’t Merritt Paulson have moved on from. If the intention was to shine a negative light on the Netherlands international, the argument was uniformed at best.

With a dismissive tone, the voice over concludes, “The Galaxy will definitely be a better team”. Huh?

How bad is the clip? His fellow teammates are sticking up for him on social media, which ought to tell you how they feel about him personally as well as his playing ability.

I get that de Jong is considered a league villain, but let’s not unfairly criticize a player who by all accounts was one of LA’s most consistent performers this season.