I just came across an article on the BBC stating that only 30% of the players in the Premier League are eligible for England's national team. In Germany it's 50%. So does anyone know the percentage of MLS players eligible to play for the U.S. team?
So at 55%, we have a higher domestic rate than both the Bundesliga and the EPL. However, I would be willing to bet that the percentage of Germans that start in the BL is higher than the percentage of Americans that start in MLS.
It's probably slightly higher than 55%, but not by much. That 45% could include some players born outside the US with US citizenship (like Jones or Chandler) and could also include some naturalized citizens (but probably not that many).
Can we adjust the numbers to account for the three Canadian teams and the effect of Canadian Nationals, which skew the numbers a bit?
My question is that whoever compiled that stat did they use green-card holders as "domestic" players? Because MLS does that even though GC holders cant play for USMNT.
Good read. I'd be really, really curious to see what this looks like further down the pyramid. My hunch would be that major domestic leagues have a larger percentage of domestic players, while the US second and third tier leagues probably stay in the 50-55% range. I also remember heavy discussion around WC 2010 for the flipside of the discussion: how many players to the national team draw from the domestic league. I think England was 100% Premier League.
I believe they had a Championship player or two. At least one of the three keepers, possibly two of them, IIRC. But they were all domestic. Edit: It was only David James in the championship, with Portsmouth (who is now in League 2) Robert Green was with West Ham who had been promoted in 2009 and then relegated in 2011. Joe Hart was on Birmingham City who was relegated the following season, in 2011.
Portsmouth were only relegated from the Premiership that season completed weeks before the 2010 WCQ and David James never played for them the following season in the Championship.The entire England roster consisted of players who had just finished seasons in the EPL. At the NYRB game this past Saturday I noted that there were only two US eligible players starting for NYRB (Alexander and McCarty) and 2 for the Whitecaps (Jordan Harvey and Greg Klazura). It was sort of disheartening. Heath Pearce was the only US eligible sub for either team. I realize NYRB and Vancouver aren't really reflective of MLS as a whole.
I think Owen Hargreaves (Bayern Munich) the Canadian mercenary who played for England's 2006 WC team was the first player from outside an English league.
Beckham was with Madrid then, no? But Hargreaves also was on 2002 team and at that point maybe he was the first.
If you are serious about the issue you ought to take more of a sample. I looked at the two most recent games, LA v. NE and DC v. Chicago, and I think that on average 7 of the 11 starters in those games were US-eligible. You can't just take a skewed sample of one, especially involving a Canadian team (why do you expect Canadian teams to have many US players?), and expect your argument to be taken seriously.
Just wanted to chime in to say this is one of the more interesting threads that has been started in recent times. Nice one Scotty Yep, and I'm pretty sure all of Italy's '06 WC winning squad was based in the Serie A.
I wasn't aware that I was making an argument or doing anything more than sharing an admittedly anecdotal observation. I made no statement about any expectations of a Canadian teams roster or otherwise. I am confused by your response.
I was disheartened that there were only 4 US eligible players starting in an MLS game I was at. It doesn't necessarily follow that I expect a Canadian team to field a team of US eligible players. Are you asking because you are concerned about my feelings and want to suss out whether I am setting myself up for failure by stumbling through life with unreasonable and unfulfilled expectations? If so, please DM me. Or did you just not read my post carefully and rather than note that are doubling down and crafting rebuttals to arguments not made? In either case, I share your view about the importance of sample size and the importance of noting the country a team hails from were I interested in anything more than sharing a fleeting feeling from 2 days ago.
Don't forget Luis Robles and Brad Knighton, who also started. Jun Marques Davidson is an American as well, although he's foreign-raised and therefore won't make us feel better about our domestic development. Nonetheless, New York and Vancouver are two of the four biggest offenders when it comes to (not) using US-eligible players. I took a look at minutes played in 2013 thus far. League-wide, US-eligible players accounted for 55% of total minutes. If you remove the three Canadian teams, that number rises modestly to 58%. By team: 83% -- Philadelphia 76% -- Colorado 74% -- San Jose 68% -- Los Angeles 67% -- Salt Lake 66% -- Houston 65% -- Columbus 64% -- Chicago 63% -- New England 61% -- D.C. 52% -- Chivas USA 49% -- Kansas City 43% -- Dallas 41% -- Toronto 39% -- Seattle 35% -- New York 34% -- Montreal 32% -- Vancouver 27% -- Portland The Timbers are solidly last in these rankings. In their (tepid) defense, I will point out that they have an inordinate number of players who spent at least some developmental years in the US but who are not currently US-eligible: Will Johnson, Darlington Nagbe, Ryan Johnson, and Rodney Wallace. This quartet has combined for 31% of Portland's playing time.
You're right, 2002, and yes, Beckham was with Madrid in '06. Not to go too far astray, but, I love this quote about Hargreaves The generally negative perception of him by English fans had not been helped by his seeming to have an essence of "German-ness", exacerbated by his Canadian accent and fluency in German
Italy, Germany, and Spain also had fairly domestic national teams in 2010 as well (Torres, Fabregas, Reina the outliers.)
That's why he said, "I realize NYRB and Vancouver aren't really reflective of MLS as a whole." Reading comprehension will help you go further in life.
Well sure, if we focus on England, Germany, Italy and Spain, the vast majority of their national team players come from their domestic leagues, because those are the best 4 domestic leagues on the planet. I'd be interested to know the percentage of domestic-based players on the Netherlands, Belgium, Brazil, Argentina or, frankly, any other top 15 side besides the 4 above.... (of course, I'm too lazy to actually look this up myself )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_FIFA_World_Cup_squads Looks like England, Germany, and Italy were the only all domestic league squads in 2010 WC. Even North Korea had that guy from Japan who kept crying.