Magee took one for the team, as Chelsea’s John Terry once did. And last summer Magee took one for M.L.S. when he agreed to move from Los Angeles to his hometown, Chicago, when Robbie Rogers, one of the first openly gay athletes in North American sports, came out of retirement. The Chicago Fire owned the rights to Rogers, and he wanted to play only for Los Angeles, near his hometown, Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.

“I made myself a promise that I wouldn’t answer any more questions about that,” Magee, 29, said in a telephone interview from his off-season home in Chicago. “All I can say is that I wanted to come home for so long, and when the chance presented itself, that’s what I wanted to do.”

The move was good for him — Magee finished his 11th season in M.L.S. with 21 goals (15 with the Fire), second most in the league behind only Vancouver’s Camilo Sanvezzo, and was named the league’s most valuable player. In voting, he trumped his former Galaxy teammate Robbie Keane, Montreal’s Marco Di Vaio and the Red Bulls’ Tim Cahill — all designated players and high-profile international stars. (Magee also finished No. 3 in the league’s Castrol Index, which analyzes every move on the field to determine a player’s effectiveness.)

Even though the Fire failed to qualify for the playoffs, Magee, a deceptively skillful and perpetually opportunistic striker, may have finally parlayed his play into a call-up to a United States national team camp. Coach Jurgen Klinsmann will convene a camp in Los Angeles on Jan. 6. After some time in California, the players — almost exclusively from M.L.S. and Scandinavian leagues that are off for the winter — will travel to Brazil for workouts, then return to Los Angeles until Feb. 1. A team spokesman said that Magee was “on the radar.”

“I hope I get called into camp because that’s what I’m now training for,” Magee said. “I’m training to be in that camp and if I’m not, I’ll lie and say I’m getting ready for our preseason.” He added: “Of course I want to be on that World Cup roster. In the past, when I wasn’t called in, it was a little disappointing because I know what I’m capable of doing and know that I could help the team.”