Sounders forward Fredy Montero and defender Jhon Kennedy Hurtado were added today to the MLS All-Star team that will meet Everton of the English Premier League on July 29 in Sandy, Utah.

Here's my story from the Tuesday paper.

The final selections by All-Star/Houston coach Dominic Kinnear give the Sounders four all-stars, with midfielder Freddie Ljungberg and goalkeeper Kasey Keller having been named earlier to the MLS First XI.

Houston leads MLS with five all-stars, Seattle is second with four: one for each spot on the field: keeper, defense, midfield, fowards. No other team has more than two All-Stars.

"It is a good honor to have that amount of players in the all-star game," Sounders coach Sigi Schmid said today.

Here's the full roster:

2009 MLS All-Star Team

Goalkeeper: Kasey Keller (Seattle Sounders FC)*, Pat Onstad (Houston Dynamo)&

Defenders: Geoff Cameron (Houston Dynamo)*, Wilman Conde (Chicago Fire)*, Jhon Kennedy Hurtado (Seattle Sounders FC)&, Chad Marshall (Columbus Crew)*

Midfielders: Davy Arnaud (Kansas City Wizards)&, Kyle Beckerman (Real Salt Lake)+, Cuauhtémoc Blanco (Chicago Fire), Brad Davis (Houston Dynamo)&, Stuart Holden (Houston Dynamo)*, Shalrie Joseph (New England Revolution)*, Freddie Ljungberg (Seattle Sounders FC)*, Javier Morales (Real Salt Lake)+

Forwards: Conor Casey (Colorado Rapids)*, Brian Ching (Houston Dynamo)&, Landon Donovan (Los Angeles Galaxy)*, Fredy Montero (Seattle Sounders FC)&

* Denotes selection to First XI Team (Blanco replaced Dwayne De Rosario due to Toronto FC’s CONCACAF Champions League match)
+ Denotes a Commissioner’s Selection
& Denotes Coach’s Selection

Online fan balloting comprising 25 percent of the combined First XI vote, with MLS coaches and GMs (25 percent), media (25 percent), and players (25 percent) accounting for the remainder. Players and coaches/general managers could not register votes for players on their own teams.

More information at the MLS website.

UPDATE
The final All-Star additions were named this afternoon -- David Bechman not among them.

The full list is in the post above.

Coincidence?:
Save 25% off any David Beckham item at MLSgear.com

Jack Bell, in this New York Times soccer blog post, asked a very basic question: Should the league's biggest star be an all-star?

That, of course, would be David Beckham, who began MLS play only last week.

My answer -- a small minority opinon, given the comments below -- was yes, Beckham should have been named.

Major League Baseball or the NBA might be able to treat the game as a reward for players who had the best first halves of the season. In MLS, it must be a showcase for fans and a display of its most-talented players.

If the MLS were a league of Seattles -- playing before involved crowds in sold-out stadiums -- I'd go the other way. But as long as MLS is also a league of Dallases and Red Bulls, the all-star game needs to be an invitation to watch as the best of MLS measures itself -- presumably positively -- with an English Premier League side.

But MLS is struggling to be noticed, dying -- hopefully not literally -- for butts in its seats and eyeballs on its broadcasts. This league needs ESPN fully involved in promotion, and I would have to take it on faith that the cable giant would want Beckham in uniform.

Did you?