Meh. What possibilities of the professional soccer pyramid? Seriously. You're talking about less than 1% of 1% of what the USSF is about. And this history of professional soccer in the U.S. is one of under-capitalized, poorly run, money losing teams and leagues - with problems so great that no amount of "writ from above" efforts by the USSF would make any difference. The codifying of D1 standards back in 1991 or 1992 was the first step. Even then, concessions were made to get MLS launched. Only in the last handful of years has the D1 league in the U.S. reached any sort of financial parity - and that's basically on the back of its affiliated enterprises (SUM, stadium ownership) and not on league operations (attendance, sponsorship, rights fees) itself. The continuing downward spiral of the fortunes of the USL (and by extension D2/D3) with its selling itself to Umbro, which in turn was bought by Nike and led to the D2 civil war of 2009-2010 - is what brought USSF back into the discussion. Frankly, if the USSF wasn't in the midst of bidding on the 2022 World Cup, the USSF may have sat by and watched the whole mess collapse. To be honest, that might not have been the worst outcome. Instead, the USSF has mandated minimum standards for ownership and operation of D2 teams. The problems with these standards - and for the D1 standards, too - is that they don't provide a path to financial stability. They only make sure that any club owners have the resources to lose money for more than one year. Don't get me wrong. I'm a big fan of the new standards. It's a real "shit or get off the pot" kind of thing. It should stop the mid-season bailouts, but it won't stop the revolving door. Having a primary investor with $20 million in the bank doesn't mean that Edmonton (to pick one team) isn't hemorrhaging money. If they're getting $10/per for their 2k game, that's still less than $300k in ticket revenue for the season. And with only 2k fans, you can bet their sponsorship revenues aren't particularly great, either. If you pay 25 players only $20k each, that's half a million right there, and you have yet to rent a stadium, pay for any travel to the 14 road games, or paid your front office staff. The revolving door hasn't gone away, they've just slowed it down.
There's a huge difference between having a net worth of $20mil and actually having that much to invest. But why should you let details like that get in the way?
What are the D1 standards? And does MLS currently meet the D1 Standards? I know NASL does not currently meet the D2 Standards, so they have a waiver.
As noted, there is a huge difference between having a net worth of $20 million and having $20 million available to invest, but I'll assume you meant $20 million net worth. Clark is fairly well off, but I'm not sure he's $20 million well off, Orlando's ownership group and Paulson definitely had $20 million net worth...
You really get lathered up over one player scoring one goal ... Speaking of Denmark ... Chris Rolfe, Clarence Goodson, and Michael Parkhurst send there regards. Not to mention Yura Movsisyan, Danny Califf, Chad Barrett, and anyone else I might have missed.
I hear Clint Dempsey, Landon Donovan, Marcus Hahnemann, and Stuart Holden might have had a bit of success over in EPL following/during stints in MLS.
Kasey Keller. I am sure that with out MLS not a single American player would be able to make it to the EPL. I am sure that with out MLS Stuart Holden would not be playing in the EPL right now.
My point is that players like Rosin, Holden and Donovan would have made their way to Europe at some point in their career independent of what type of league they played in the USA. Obviously MLS has created a much larger and better window for American (other) players to be looked at and then signed by better (better paid) leagues.
Keller was in Europe before MLS even existed, so not sure how that helps your point. Perhaps Bedoya, Jones, Lichaj, Cherundolo, etc would be better examples? And I don't think there is anyone saying that without MLS not a single American player would be able to make it to the EPL. What you can say, though, is that MLS has made the American player better than they were prior to the existence of the league. Donovan crashed out in his first attempt at Europe. Would he have experienced as much success as he has without MLS to fall back on? Holden clearly didn't "crash out" of Europe, but they did give up on him. MLS has become a fairly decent feeder league for Europe and it is hard not to notice the improvement in the USMNT since MLS was created.
An American player finding work in Europe is not a big deal anymore. We have lots of players filling up lower European leagues and lesser clubs. But finding a career at an EPL or a big club is much harder. The MLS path has actually provided American players with a much better shot at those clubs. Probably better than signing with a European club directly and washing out like so many American players have done before. Too many of our players fall through the cracks and end up journeymen in lower European leagues. I would reckon MLS players have a much higher success rate, but I have no stats to back this up. Without MLS, we'd be sunk as a soccer nation.
Reason Edmonton got trounced in it's first game: Coach Sinkgraven: In the beginning of the season most of our players were inexperienced playing only in amateur leagues but now I think the players are becoming more and more confident with every game we play. http://www.nasl.com/index.php?id=3&newsid=987
Wow. What a comeback. You really answered all the haterz there. And when an NASL team playing 8 or 9 starters beats an MLS team playing 3 or 4, it'll be all the proof to show that the NASL has the potential to one day compete head to head with MLS that you need to keep inane, idiotic threads like this going. Well done, sir. Well done.
Someone said Holden has been given up on in Europe. Isn't he still at Bolton? The coaches I saw from Bolton this summer were praising him.
You have no Idea how much I hate Colin Clarke and his irational defencive logci against a inferior team!
And I should add, I didn't mean my previous post as a dig against the Islanders. They've done well in the CCL the past few years and I was surprised that they didn't qualify this year.
I'm surprise that Colin wasnt fired right after! That guy is going to cost the fans our team if he keep coaching here!
His first stint in Europe with Sunderland, not the current one. He got jumped outside a bar, broke his eye socket, then shortly after he returned, he suffered a season ending ankle injury at which point Sunderland sent him packing.
Well the hope is always there correct. I mean MLS teams hope to someday beat a Mexican team in Mexico, 3 years on, still nothing (actually in 16 years an MLS team has never won in Mexico). I bet that if this year 1 of the 5 MLS teams gets 3 points in Mexico there will be lots of MLS fans acting like WSW claiming that MLS is now in equal footing with FMF 1ra. Shit, I know that I have read many coments after RSL lost to Monterrey that MLS was somehow now equal to FMF.
And like WSW, those MLS fans would be dead wrong. MLS teams are getting better, they're actually beating CA teams now, and they are getting close to having results against Mexican teams, but those results are going to be similar to what NASL teams will be getting out of MLS teams. A periodic win, maybe a tie, but mostly losses.
Exactly, we all have a little WSW in us as fans, some of us just get carried away and make crazy statemets like NASL is "competitive" with MLS and/or MLS is "competitive" with FMF 1ra.