LAFC defender Ryan Hollingshead is finally an MLS All-Star

Ryan Hollingshead was and was not caught off guard by being named to the Major League Soccer All-Star team for the first time Tuesday.

“It’s one of those things where you’re never really surprised and you’re really surprised,” said the 32-year-old defender, a 10-season MLS veteran. “I think I’ve been putting in seasons as an outside back over the last five or six years that when they’re announcing the All-Star team I’m looking like I should be on there.

“After enough years of not getting selected in those moments, when you feel like you’re playing at the top of your game, you get these thoughts creeping in like, ‘OK, it probably just isn’t going to happen. It’s just not going to happen. It’s just not in the cards.’”

Among the dozen players designated by All-Star head coach Wayne Rooney to participate in an exhibition against Arsenal of the Premier League on July 19 at Audi Field in Washington D.C., Hollingshead is also one of 19 debutants on the 26-man roster.

That includes Los Angeles Football Club teammate Denis Bouanga.

The explosive forward was voted in after playing 23 MLS regular-season games.

The veteran Hollingshead – drafted out of UCLA by FC Dallas, where he played from 2014 until LAFC acquired him in trade prior to last season – had 240 league matches before getting the nod, making him the longest-tenured MLS player among Rooney’s All-Star rookies.

The 6-foot-2 attack-minded fullback has 25 league goals – second most by a defender since 2010 – and 17 assists across 16,455 minutes in MLS.

The bulk of those numbers were compiled in Dallas from 2019 through his championship season with LAFC.

“This club has put me in a position to excel at the highest level and my teammates have put me in that same position,” Hollingshead said. “So I think a lot of this nod towards being an All-Star really has to do with the way that our club has performed over the last year and a half.”

From a numbers perspective, Hollingshead’s 2023 is not indicative of his best self.

One goal, a game-winner against the Galaxy in April, along with an assist through the first half of the year has not landed Hollingshead on an MLS team of the matchday roster, something 12 other LAFC players have appeared on at least once.

Though Hollingshead helped unlock important moments through the club’s Champions League run, the hangover of a draining and ineffective final alongside struggling teammates lingered into a difficult June, when the Black & Gold suffered three of their four losses in the league this year and netted seven of 18 possible points.

Following a rare full week to train, LAFC (9-4-5, 32 points) travels to Hollingshead’s old stomping grounds Saturday in sweltering Dallas, tied for first in the West.

Eyeing a season sweep over seventh-place FC Dallas (7-7-5, 26 points), LAFC’s shorthanded opponent will miss 10-goal scorer Jesus Ferreira, who had a hat trick for the U.S. men’s national team in the Gold Cup on Wednesday.

“Traditionally, Texas hasn’t been a positive place for us,” LAFC head coach Steve Cherundolo noted before the first of five matches over 14 days leading to the All-Star break.

“We’d like to start this little next stretch of games before a bigger break on the right foot.”