MLS Season Preview: Top 10 players heading into 2016

Major League Soccer was injected with a tremendous amount of top-level talent last season. As the level of talent on the pitch rose last season, the quality of play quickly followed.

Each of the 10 players on this list demonstrates a tremendous level of individual technical skill, highlight-reel worthy goals, and assists or raw metric output.

While keeping in mind factors like form, consistency and potential, here's a ranking of the top 10 MLS players heading into the 2016 season:

10. Benny Feilhaber - Sporting KC

This Sporting KC midfielder showed last season exactly the kind of form that gets players called up to their national team ... except Feilhaber wasn't called up to the U.S. team. Somehow, his 10 goals and 15 assists from the middle of the park wasn't enough to convince Jurgen Klinsmann, but it did convince the rest of the league that Feilhaber's a threat lurking in the Kansas plains.

9. Kei Kamara - Columbus Crew

Goals don't lie. And if there's one thing Kamara, the Columbus Crew's star forward, knows how to do, it's score goals. Kamara kept up his impressive run of form in MLS with a 22-goal regular season performance last year, finishing as the season's joint-top scorer. For his efforts, Kamara was awarded a Designated Player contract extension by Columbus.

8. Fabian Castillo - FC Dallas

There are few players in MLS as exciting and full of potential as this 23-year-old FC Dallas winger. With nine goals and nine assists to his name last season, this speedy, tricky left winger bamboozled opposition defenders all year long, and his play even earned him some call-ups to the Colombia national team. Castillo's time in MLS is likely destined to end with a big-money sale to a European outfit - but for now, he'll continue to make the lives of MLS defenders miserable.

7. Michael Bradley - Toronto FC

Bradley is a leader for Toronto FC, both on the field - on both ends of the ball - and off, as captain of this ambitious outfit. Bradley also sports the captain's band for his country, and while the U.S. international has his commitments split, his undying engine and spirit of competition keeps both the U.S. and TFC ticking.

6. David Villa - New York City FC

The prolific Spanish goal scorer took his talents from La Liga to New York City FC last season, and once again continued to prove there aren't many strikers in the world like him. Villa, who proved to still be in blistering form last season at age 34, joined and captained this expansion side during what was a tumultuous first season for the club. While the team struggled, Villa thrived in Yankee Stadium, notching 18 goals and eight assists in 2015. Ole, indeed!

5. Robbie Keane - LA Galaxy

The perennial leader of the LA Galaxy continues to show the rest of the league that age is really just a number. At 35, Keane doesn't appear to have lost a step at all, with the Irishman notching 20 goals last season in only 24 games. It's an astonishing rate of return for this timeless figure.

4. Giovani Dos Santos - LA Galaxy

On the flip side of the aged coin comes Dos Santos, who, at 26-years-old, comes into the league with the LA Galaxy as he enters the prime of his career. The Mexican icon is attempting to write his legend on the fields of MLS, a decision that wasn't well-received by his national team coach, but he remains one of the top talents from the United States' neighbors to the south.

3. Didier Drogba - Montreal Impact

Drogba took one look at opposition defenses in MLS last season and laughed. He then scored 11 goals in as many games for the Montreal Impact, ruthlessly rampaging through teams with his trademark penchant for the incredible. The former Chelsea man was courted heavily by his former club for a return to Stamford Bridge, but ultimately chose to return to La Belle Province for one last bow in 2016.

2. Kaka - Orlando City

Kaka is a rare talent, and Orlando City has built its entire team around him. Despite being 33-years-old and somewhat injury prone, the Brazilian icon proved in 2015 that he's still one of the best players in the world. The Lions benefited not just from his nine goals and seven assists last season, but also from his professionalism and leadership, qualities that only a former FIFA World Player of the Year can bring with him.

1. Sebastian Giovinco - Toronto FC

What can we say about the Atomic Ant that hasn't already been said? Was it his record-breaking 38 combined points (22 goals, 16 assists) that made this Toronto FC standout a star last season, or his ability to utterly destroy opposing defenders with his nifty, seemingly never-ending bag of tricks? Giovinco is, hands down, the best player in MLS right now, as evidenced by his winning the league's MVP last season - as an MLS rookie, no less. The sky's the limit for Giovinco in Toronto.