MLS, Europe, etc. (pulled from Camp Cupcake 2016)

There's no rule I have to focus on your "broad points." But if you ask me a direct question instead if your usual label-trolling, I'll gladly answer if I can.

 

I thought I explained clearly why I think they are different.

Mickey Mouse or Bush league are common terms. They may not apply a 100% but many ways that MLS runs itself does.

What occurs to players when they go to europe isnt magic, as euro pixie dust implies.

I personally dont change my view of a player because of what league they are in. I base my views on how they play against their competition and how i think that will translate to the international game. I dont think Trapp will ever be an international level player while i think Adams has tons of potential. The minute Adams moves to the Bundesliga, nothing will have changed. A year later, the view of him will be based on how he adapts. Tim Ream is same player he was last year when he was in the Championship and dont see much changing.

 

No, as in a Pro/Rel environment they are just the extention down the table with a split for schedule purposes and the result of their previous seasons performance.
A substantial ( lower half) part of that league are teams inferior to either the top half or the EPL. But the same can be said about the lower half of the EPL.
That Minor/Major thing is something typical for the USA and cannot be used to brand leagues in Europe, simply because of the moving up and down of clubs.
That Minor/Major thing reflects an artificial ceiling for clubs they cannot break through, unlike a P/R league set up.
If a year had 720 days there wouldnot be a need for a division between PL and Championship, as than the scedule would have enough weekends to play a competition of 70 teams.
The closed system in the USA is simply the result of a capping of the financial benefits to a closed circuit of a restricted number of teams and unlike in the P/R situation a year of 720 days wouldnot make any difference.

So no, it's a stupid classification when it comes to the European situation.

 

No, it isnot. From time to time I watch on Eurosport complete mls matches.
While sometimes entertaining on their own, they donot come close to the level of those leagues you mention. The second part of your question is hilarious.

 

I would suggest the private message feature if you don't want people responding to your open-ended declarations.

1. They're second division leagues in their respective countries.

2. I've never watched the B2. Have seen a bit of the Championship in the past. MLS would most often be closer to that than the Prem.

A question for you now:

Was Hyndman a "major leaguer" before the loan to Scotland? Or do you think the complexities of his situation require a bit more than black/white labels that serve as a shorthand attempt to judge a player's total worth?

 

Euro pixie dust is usually used in a sarcastic manner that is meant to imply that some or many people place a greater value on the player or the players skills prospects etc simply because they are in Europe. I agree that what Happens in Europe (or anywhere) is certainly not magic. I don't believe anyone uses pixie dust to imply that is the case but I do believe that it is often used to imply that others seem to believe it. Obviously those that don't, take it somewhat as an insult while those that believe MLS is not "MIckey Mouse" or "Bush league" take those descriptions as insults.

Personally, I think that MIckey Mouse or Bush league are somewhat ambiguous because I often think of those terms to refer as much or more to the administration than the quality of the players or league. It is sometimes not very clear to me what the person making the statement means.

I also believe that if MLS is mickey mouse or bush league due to its administration, it is pretty hard to exclude most of the leagues in the world and many of the teams in the top leagues. What it comes down to is that most people using descriptions similar to that for MLS simply don't like MLS' policies and practices but that doesn't make them "Mickey Mouse" or "Bush League".

Sorry for the long and somewhat off topic post

 

I didn't call "others" trolls. I suggested that a frequently used phrase of yours can come across as trolling, and this was in response to your general musing about MLS fans routinely taking offense to things you say. Honestly you're the only soccer fan I've ever seen who uses "the minors" to refer to first division leagues in Europe and elsewhere. I didn't mean to outright call you a troll, I apologize if you took it that way. I meant more along the lines of sometimes people say things casually without realizing how others could find it irksome.

 

Your division of leagues along those lines shows you have no clue about it. Inside the top leagues themselves are feeder clubs to the top clubs inside the league or in the other leagues. In fact any club is a feeder for another club as transfers take place across all leagues. It's not the simple minor/major division in the USA, that brings about your very simplistic and uninformed opinion. Is Real Madrid suddenly a feeder for Juventus after selling their serial Ballond'Or winner or any of the top clubs that end up parting with a top player to another top club.
It is an ignorant way to put the label minor/major on leagues in Europe, especially when using transfer movements to underpin that.
The only minor/major thing in Europe is that of clubs and that is a division only on a given moment. It can change very fast. Chelsea was a major club for many years, but in relation to others they are dropping down the scale.
Minor/Major is typical American as part of the locked system from which there is no escape for league or club. That's in sharp contrast to Europe.

When you want to compare leagues you're on the wrong way as it isnot about leagues but about clubs (another difference with Europe you ignore) and while clubs can bask for a while in the sun, it's a temporary thing and while from certain leagues the top clubs may be behind the top clubs of the top 4 leagues it doesnot mean they are so too for the whole of the top 4 leagues, which in itself debunks your opinion.

As it was stated as a virtue of the mls and its closed system that there isnot much difference in strength between the clubs involved, it also means you can judge the league as a whole by the clubs consisting of it.
That MO isnot possible with the Euro leagues, how much you try to spin it that way as you want, because each of those leagues have a stratification in quality at a given moment between the clubs, so your simplicity towards stratifying Euro leagues with a USA gauche is plain false.
If you want to stratify Euro leagues you have to turn to multi dimensional approaches, not to the 2 dimensional USA system.

 

Depends on one's perspective. A feeder league is in my opinion a league with no perspective for any player in that leagues clubs to play at a good level, so they have to move abroad to find their ceiling. For a long time our best players went to the at that moment super clubs, just as players from top clubs from "better" leagues did. That I classify as "rotation" of a certain group of quality players through different clubs.
Now for around 15 years the EPL has plundered our academies, snapping players away before they got the chance to mature and be nourished the Dutch way. That had two effects. First a quality drop of our clubs, as our best talents didnot slide into our first team and thus maintaining the quality level. Second effect was that those kids (one can assume their scouts snapped the best away) in thos epl academies didnot learn anything that made them into quality players. So our conveyor belt with talents for our national team stopped, because our talents didnot get what was needed.
So with that development our players werenot worthy anymore for any top team and from those that went early nobody made it into a top team and nobody made it into the Orange team. The quality of the Orange team suffered.
What we had left were players that did attract attention from clubs below the absolute top. Funny however among those were the players that ended up in the top 4 clubs of the top leagues anyway, even from low flying clubs in the Eredivisie.
It begins to dawn on our youth it's not smart to go abroad early apart from a few and there's now the tendency that foreign leagues become feeder leagues to us for young talents ( In England and Germany more and more young talents prefer the Dutch league over signing for the domestic top clubs as they see young players get a chance and are being better groomed for first team play).
So from a rotation hub for top players we became a league shifting players to the clubs below the true top teams of any league while also the top kind of players didnow want to come over to us. We became a rotation hub at a lower quality level, so players in and out were going or coming from the sub top clubs now.
Another mark of a feeder league is that a club cannot say no to an offer for a player, because it's necesary for them to balance the books or get a cushion in the bank for leaner times.
Both PSV and Ajax (and Feyenoord unfortunately) have turned down high offers from EPL and Spain for players under contract. That's not what a feeder league does. It signifies my statement about multidimensions of the European leagues.

So I consider our clubs feeders for clubs with more money, but that are clubs that can afford to pay ridiculous sums, and in that respect PSV and Ajax are in the same boat as about all top teams not being one of the European top 10.

It's a lengthy answer and I hope I could clarify in an understandable way the things from my perspective.

 

There are 9 teams spread across five leagues that can buy any player from any club. Of those, 2 have shown they will not pay current transfer fee levels for the top transfers. That could change next year.

Everyone outside that club is a feeder. Either selling to those clubs or selling to other clubs. But they are all buyers from below them. Even with large pocketed owners, Financial Fair Play actually keeps this system in place and solidifies the Top 9 in place. So, there are probably another dozen teams, maybe Ajax among them, that would not have to sell but players want to move up to the top teams.

Major/Minor leagues is an American concept. European divisions are fluid with a wide range between top and bottom. The top of the Championship can be better than the bottom of the EPL. The bottom teams in the Championship can be very thin.

MLS enforces parity and very few players move from USL to MLS. It is all very different.

 

These discussions were mucking up too many threads so moved here.

There is so much in these two posts that I struggle to comprehend. Some of it reminded me of years ago when that german guy was coach so many were way over the top... dual nationals is not a sustainable approach. while not ideal, there are currently quite a few dual nationals out there and we have lost some along the way..

You keep talking about those that fail abroad, but where are the ones that succeed in the local league. You do know that we have quite a few guys who are actually excelling in foreign leagues, right?

This idea of following Mexico's lead is interesting, but have you worked this out with the good folks in MLS. Garber is on record saying he doesnt want to be selling league. MLS is worried about a perception and made many decisions about selling players that has hampered their careers. Before you go around touting a plan, you should make sure that organization is on board. There is no basis to believe MLS is interested in developing american players and selling them.

What does "not even in MLS" mean? The assertion that players go abroad and come back and don't look good in MLS is odd. Lletget couldnt get a shot at West Ham and lit MLS up from the first time he stepped on the field. Canouse couldn't break through at Hoffenheim, "got sabotaged" by a 2. Buli side and now looks like a solid dmid in MLS and in my book is still ahead of Acosta. Ariola was struggling to become a regular at Tijuana and is now a DP who was moved to amid.

We'll be lucky to have two guys playing at the top level in 5 years? Where can I bet on the over? Who is "we" in this what we are doing is dumb scenario? I am for it, but dont think my influence here on BS is driving any young players decisions. The only people I think are dumb is the folks at MLS who have created this situation. They don't seem to have real plan for these kids and yet they have fans that will blindly support them.

I sure wish the local league would focus on what they were intended to do when the league was created 20+ years ago, but do think our national team can become much more competitive by recruiting dual nationals and having 10-20 kids go abroad in each age group. If you want to support the local league is better a better option, please support that view with things the local league is actually doing as opposed to whatever you have been doing up to this point.

 

League comparisons have to be one of the bluntest instruments out there for player evaluations.

Perhaps in retrospect they can be interesting, but individual situations, teammate, coaches, style etc. all say way more in the moment.

 

La Liga is going to play as the first match Girona vs Barcelona in the USA.
It's part of a 200 million deal the Spanish FA made with Relevent to play La Liga matches in the USA.
The La Liga players are furious and threaten with strikes.
What is it going to mean for mls?
Is there any interest among US soccer fans for this kind of thing?
Clubs they have no attachment with?

I would think a PSV cup match, which doesnot attract too many people over here before PSV are with the last 8, could pull a good number of fans if played in the USA given the popularity of Lozano with the Latino population.

 

Interesting... Girona/Barca in miami in January.

http://www.espn.com/soccer/spanish-...a-liga-against-barcelona-in-the-united-states

I'd be more interested in it than the preseason tours they do. Girona isnt a big name, but there were over 50k at each of Barca's matches against Tottenham, Roma, and Milan this summer. Big teams in big cities with big stadiums seems to sell. Ann Arbor isnt a big city, but had a big stadium.

As for MLS, they will likely just keep telling everyone about Atlanta. Behind the scenes it will put pressure on them. They will likely create a new acronym to sign more foreign players and opportunities for americans will shrink.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_International_Champions_Cup