So Much for it Being An American League... But Does It Matter?

But only because England pays so well. Outside of the G14 clubs, I think the English league pays far more than anyone else - thereby attracting more foreign players, thereby leading to the protective system.

In any case, it's not that protective - for a start, anyone in the EU can legally play in England.

 

I dunno...the English players make more money for a given level of talent than any other nationality in the world. That's "benefitting."

 

I have read that amongst the leagues initial goals was this decree to promote and develop American players. They are, albeit slowly, through reserve systems and other development programs still attempting to do that. Still, I believe, from MLS's perspective, the quality of play will most time trump the the need to suit up Americans. Why wouldnt it?

There will always be Chings and Kerrys though, wont there. Who's to say MLS didnt miss the boat on a bunch more guys like this. Does that mean we should just make the league, lets say 85%, American just to make sure we dont let any potential slip through the net? Nah, that would be crazy. MLS should concentrate on building and delivering the best product they can with the resourses they have dedicated to doing so.

Finding american talent is great, believe me I love it. But I just dont believe it should come at a sacrifice. Let the best SOCCER PLAYERS survive in this league and forget the charity based on which patch of land a player was born on. That should be the priority of the league. Leave the National Team development to the National Team. Building the best possible league is the best thing they can do anyhow.

 

Another issue is that fans don't even really know these American players. Like was said above, there is no MLS Tonight-type show on any network that covers them, other than perhaps FSC's pre- and post-game shows.

It can be difficult to bond with a specific player when all you see of them is them playing on the field. The NFL and MLB shows often have features spotlighting a particular player (an up-close and personal deal.) Like Brian Ching likes to surf or Jimmy Conrad's media things he does on the side, etc.

Those are the kind of things that can expose American players to a larger audience and develop an attachment. DOB's remarks during a game are not appropriate, since most just want him to call the game.

 

the only way for American players to improve and become world class is competition.If MLS is good enough to attract foreign talent that forces our American players to improve or sit the bench or drop to USL,then so be it.


competition competition competition

 

Why wouldn't it? Well, there's a couple of reasons.
(1) Some reasonable people believe that the success of MLS and the National Team are linked.
(2) The link between MLS quality of play and developing national team players is strong, but by no means absolute (e.g. if you were to simply import an entire team from Argentina...).
(3) So then you need to balance quality of play against the development of national team players to the extent that those goals come into conflict.

There are also marketing reasons. Having the highest quality of play isn't necessarily the best way to make money. Being a feeder league that develops great American players seems to be one workable model. Simply bringing in foreign talent, no matter how great it is, probably isn't (not that this is what anyone here is suggesting).

Finally, there are infrastructure reasons. It's too easy to engage in short-term thinking when you make quality of play your only concern. Developing a core of American players, scouting structures and coaches is integral to making quality of play as high as it can be.

Sure, as people have said, MLS is a business. Yes, it is. That reflexive statement settles nothing. The question is what kind of business is it? Through its public statements and actions, it's pretty clear that it's got a bunch of different goals, only one of which is to provide the highest level of soccer possible.

What if the best long-term way to deliver the best product they can with the resource they have was to favor American players? MLS has a huge scouting advantage over other leagues with American talent, but the scouting is still pretty weak. Favoring American talent plays to MLS's strengths and compensates somewhat for the scouting deficiencies.

To be honest, I think the quality of play in MLS is better than it has any right to be given the budget, primarily because American soccer players are still unknown quantities outside of the US-- this means MLS can pay budget prices for better talent. That is, of course, changing...

 

And what's the best way to create an infrastructure for a sport?

Seriously, Econ 101 doesn't tell the whole story.

 

Well...to me, it's most important to make MLS the best league it can be, so that American players in MLS are playing in the best possible environment, which best helps the national team. Hopefully one day it will be possible for American players not to have to go overseas to challenge themselves at a certain level that MLS has yet to achieve. Personally I feel MLS should keep expanding, even if it dilutes the talent level in the short term...long term it will be better for the game here IMO. A realy strong 20, 22, or even 24 team league with really strong player development apparatus, will definately have a very positive impact on the national side...even if it takes 25 years to get there. It's taken longer than that to get to where we are now.

Look at it this way...England has relatively strict foreign player rules, and a consistenly underachiving national team. Germany has relatively loose foreign player rules, and can make a WC final even with what most people consider a "weak" team. That's down to player development, not foreign player rules in their top leagues.

 

The areas are very grey where we might disagree. I am not even sure we fully disagree on much.

MLS and the National Team.. If MLS is so concerned with the National Team, why do they still schedule their matches against them? Doesn't that put MLS players at a relative competitive disadvantange when it comes to calling players into camp? I think it does. I am not say MLS isn't interested in the National Team, I just don't see them overly eager.

My take on the National Team is pretty simple. A better league would produce better players by and large, so the better MLS gets, the better American players it might produce.

To make MLS better, we need more foreigners. To that result, there will be less playing time for our weaker Americans that will have an increasing harder time cracking line ups. As you pointed out, we might miss out on a couple guys as the bar gets raised. Sure. Maybe. Probably. To that I say, that's the price of becoming a better league. I don't believe an air tight saftey net is MLS responsibility. Its not now and its wont be as the league gets better. Eventually, there just might not be room for the Chris Leitches and Golthwaites of the World in this league (to use a Red Bull centric example). They might not be good enough. I am fine with that. I dont feel the need to see these guys just because they are American. I feel zero obligation to them like I dont feel any obligation to guys in the USL now that can't make MLS's current rosters.

Raise the bar. Sacrifice low end guys (knowing some gems might slip though) and improve the league while giving the more talented Americans a more competitive enviornment to play and get get better in.

And finally... I agree the league plays beyond its costs. No doubt about that. These guys, some very good players are payed very little. Even Carlos Ruiz was playing for something like 50 grand for a season or two, thats serious value.

 

Well...to make MLS better, it needs better players period, foreign or domestic. This year's crop of foreign players is easily the best ever, but there are some terrific American and Canadian players really making an impact as well.

 

Yes, ofcourse there are.

But what took MLS to the next level are these foreign guys that were brought in this season. They are the ones that made the noticable impact.

 

But Germany has ALWAYS been stronger, while the foreign player rules have constantly been changing. Further, until very recently, the BL had STRICTER rules than England. So if you really wanna play this game, this data point works against you, not for you.

 

No offense, but you're obviously historically ignorant. Emerging industries ALWAYS have benefited from a period of protectionism.

And anyone who says there is "only" one way to do something immediately comes under my personal suspicion. The world is more complicated than that.

 

This is where we differ: you're phrasing the creation of a safety net as a "responsibility".

I don't view it that way-- instead, I view it as a long-term competitive advantage. Simply by serving as a platform for American players, MLS has increased the player pool.

To illustrate why that's different from the also-valid idea that MLS's quality of play is what makes players better, just consider the effect that MLS has had on the career path of US soccer players. Many of the early American MLS players simply weren't very good. But just by employing them, MLS created a career path, which encouraged other, better players to try it. It created visibility for American players. which both encouraged players and interested other potential employers. The effects of this aren't just seen in putting playings in a professional environment: the US players now going to Europe straight from high school or college haven't been in a professional environment at all. But MLS made the world much more aware of the entire pool.

If MLS had not had a strong American presence from Day 1, that wouldn't have happened.

So, no, it's not ever only about the competition. The only question is how much of a US presence you need in order to reap marketing, scouting and infrastructure benefits. It may be that you don't need as many Americans as we currently have.

Yes, I very much like the fact that the league has tried to be a power in the Americas and is developing its network there. I think we can have real strength in scouting the Americas (not just Americans), but we will also always have relative expertise with players in our backyard.

 

I'll help you out. At what age do most top-level Brazilians leave Brazil? For bonus points, consider what that age was before FIFA imposed the new rule on age minimums for playing for the first teams of foreign clubs, which was directed at the "trafficking of minors."
Brazil won five World Cups before that rule was imposed.

 

I think a few points largely missed here that deeply effect the issues being discussed. Much of the talk here presupposes that playing time in MLS is the key to American Player Development. This misses several points:

1. A variety of avenues to sucess that are now open to US players. This was briefly touched on in talks regarding Ching and other people who played in the OTHER US leagues (USL, etc.), not to mention people who have gone abroad to develop/play like Feilhaber, Zimmerman, Ngyuen, Davies, etc. So the combination of youth development leagues, NCAA, USL, international opportunities, AND MLS developmental contracts all provide a diverse range of options to the developing young american soccer player.

2. If the league chooses to primarily import *established* foreign talent, this will not necessarily help american players develop, even if they are getting playing time alongside these players. Why? Because coaching and training is a huge part of player development. A league that develops young talent (eredivisie), rather than poaches the best of foreign leagues (EPL) are drastically different models and opportunities. This leads me to the next point:

3. IMHO, the next step for MLS is a substantial coaching upgrade (USMNT as well) as the Yallops, Arenas, and Bradleys who served our interests well in the past may not be up to the level of play that the league is now capable of. Without better coaching, quality imports will be underutilized and seem a waste of money and young talent will not get the direction it needs to capitalize on first team experience.

So MLS needs to make up it's mind what combination of development and star-power it wants to have Right now it is not bad IMO, on the player side, but the coaching rather is what lacks.

And there's no need anymore to assume that MLS has the sole or even primary responsibility of finding and developing the US WC team for 2014 and beyond. No harm in a kid like Robbie Rogers starting out abroad and coming back here, or Chingy playing A-leauge for a season or two and then bubbling up. Plus the US youth development can scout and recruit Americans from all the markets available.

Instead, MLS should focus on a good combination of talent and MAXIMIZE what you get out of them. And that will only come through better coaching.

My 2 cents.

(BTW I think this is longer and a little more scattered than I intended, but the points are there. Oh well...)

 

I believe making the league better and more respected would do for the American player than anything else. If MLS was seen as good as, let's say, the French league, wouldn't the American player also benefit as they would be on more people radars? Wouldn't they be scouted even more so than they are now?

Like everything else, things evolve. Perhaps at the very beginning there was more for a need to get the American player entrenched. At some point though it is time to take the next step and adopt a little more sink or swim strategy.

And I characterized it as a saftey net, yes. Isn't it a saftey net? If you artificially go out of your way to chose a player becuase he is American, it is a spot and resources that could be devoted finding simply the best soccer player. If I am MLS, a league whose reputation of quality is often questioned, I would lean towards quality more often then not.

There will still be plenty of room for Americans, all that you are doing is starting to lop off the to bottom layers. Those layers will be added back in ofcourse as the league expands.

I'll finish by saying that improving should be the leagues ultimate goal. The more credibility and competitive the league is the better it is for the better players, especially Americans. The cost is that there will be lesser spots available for those Chris Brown kind of strikers for example. And that ok with me.

Nice discussion. I genuinely get where you are coming from even though I dont agree.

Final Q- How passionate about the National Team can MLS be if they don't even bother to schedule around Nat matches and tournaments? Doesnt that say atleast a little something about how they view their responsibility to them? Tiny bit?

 

All good points-- all I can say is that I'd add a few caveats, as well as offer up a few concerns that deserve equal time.

But I do think MLS continues to value the national team. The national team (and nationalism in general) has been a selling point of MLS (Embrace the Colors makes explicit reference to representing the Red, White and Blue alongside the club colors, and clearly tries to hitch MLS to the USMNT wagon).

You point out that MLS schedules games to compete against USMNT games and conclude that MLS feels as if it has no responsibility to the USMNT because of that. I don't think that's quite right. For one, MLS schedules are stil a nightmare (even if they're 100% better than they used to be) and they need to make tough business decisions (such as to keep on playing through the summer) because they don't think the league will work any other way. We've heard alot from the league about how they'd eventually like to conform to the international calendar, so I really don't think the league's scheduling is really disrespectful of the nats.

 

Ummmmmm I don't know about this one.

There are any number of ways to time into the season to play at the very least, a lighter schedule, during Nat active dates.

Start a couple weeks earlier, end a week later, play 1 more wednesday match or not give teams off in week 3 when they dont need to the rest at that point anyhow. Do all or any combonation of those and you could build in some wiggle room if they wanted it.

MLS really doesn't seem to want to be all that creative in this area.

I am not going to lambaste them over it, but it does have me question how important they see their connection to the Nats. They just seem to roll out the "our schedule provides many challenges" line, without ever really explaining why these reasonable suggestions couldn't be adopted.

 

The MLS schedule is built around success for the domestic league. Maybe when all teams have their own stadiums the schedule can be adjusted. But it depends on how they draw and who they are competing against.

As it is, MLS caters to the nats too much already.

You could reasonably say that Eddie Johnson is the best player for the Kansas City Wizards. Yet he was allowed to compete in the Copa America after competing in the Gold Cup. How many club teams outside of MLS would do this?

 

If the foreigners brought in can increase TV viewership, attendance and quality of play, which leads to new investors in the league, which creates far more jobs/chances for U.S. players than the few spots lost to a handful of superior imports, how can it be a bad thing?

Where would Guzan/Bornstein/Kljestan be in their development if they hadn't been blooded with a relatively new expansion team?

Expansion brings opportunity for young American players, and only if the league is perceived as a going concern will expansion continue. Foreign talent greatly helps this perception, and in some cases helps at the gate.

I can't wait to see who San Jose's breakout star or stars turn out to be in the next few years.

 

mericans are and always be competitive.... thats not a problem, mLS trying to satify the status quo, and rely on the foreign market, those guys you have mentioned are talented yes and will help the league, but those guys wont get american attention like david beckham......there will be more americans playing when MLS remebers to cater americans too.... right now mls is trying to survive off the latino and foreign expat, apparently there isnt enough american soccer fans to fill the voiid.

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