There is a survivorship bias against this comparison. The top players in the Championship will move very quickly out of the Championship. The top players in MLS almost never leave while under contract.
A player is worth what somebody will spend for him. NYRB valued him more than the offers they received from West Ham/Europe for him. Long doesn't count as a homegrown player for NYRB. So MLS would take a cut of the transfer fee. So the flat number that was offered to NYRB by West Ham isn't so relevant. The best case here was when SKC received a substantial transfer offer (rumored to be $3 million) from Olympiakos for Dom Dwyer. They turned it down and instead accepted a $900k GAM/TAM deal (plus $700k more based on performance incentives) from Orlando. Why'd they do that? Because potentially $1.6 million in MLS bucks was more valuable than a $3 million transfer from abroad. Indiana Vassilev is getting minutes in the Premier League. At this point, we can name 200 MLS players better than Indiana Vassilev. [He's young and very raw.] So don't give me this garbage that MLS players can't play at a Premier League level.
Yep and teams apparently dont want to pay what "MLS" wants for them. I didnt make the rules. Just another thing that prevents them from participating in the global market. There have been multiple players over the years that have had reasonable offers rejected. You can rationalize it however you want. Where did I say MLS players couldn't make it in the EPL? Of course, your 200 number is absurd. Young and raw gets you on the field. In Long's case, 27 and mediocre probably doesnt get it done.
There's little doubt that lack of a Euro passport is a frictional cost that hurts the ability to go overseas. I think this cost is most apparent for younger players but even so, we're seeing keen interest from leading European-based DAs in our youth and certainly not only those who have Euro passports. The key question is how much of a barrier is it? You stated that it was "massive" and I strongly disagree. You also mentioned Long: do you really think that he'd be more likely to transfer to Ligue 1, La Liga or Serie A given his game (ball control is not his forte). He also wasn't a great candidate for an early transfer as he was a very late bloomer. The likely reason he may not be going is that teams don't think he's worth what NYRB thinks ($5m or so). Let's see - we have a week or so until this window closes. I'll also ask again: are there players in MLS who simply don't exist in the Championship as the OP originally stated?
It appears that you think that transfermarkt has limited ability to evaluate player quality. Here's the top 10 MLS players as per transfermarkt: 1 Josef Martínez 2 Carlos Vela 3 Gonzalo Martínez 4 Cristian Pavón 5 Diego Rossi 6 Ezequiel Barco 7 Chicharito 8 Alejandro Pozuelo 9 Raúl Ruidíaz 10 Alexandru Mitrita Is this completely off-base for who the top players in MLS are? How far off is it? Does it appear to randomly generated?
About a decade or so ago, I recall a lot of people taking Transfermarkt values with a grain of salt, because they were apparently voted on by soccer forum fans who were a lot more familiar with foreign leagues than they were with MLS, although informed by some objective data about recent transfer fees and such. I remember some people saying it was mostly a good gauge of what German teenagers think about MLS players. I don't know if that's changed since then, but I've always retained a bit of skepticism about that site as a result.
It's far from perfect but it's a reasonable gauge for ballpark level IMO. I'll ask you the same question I asked @tomásbernal: do you think their list for MLS is far off base in terms of level or is it a reasonable assessment of the best players in the league?
I'd guess it's based on what they think someone would get offered. That includes talent, production, age, ceiling, contract length and ability to be signed. Players from a lot of countries don't have as easy access to be signed to every country in Europe as others. I believe that their "worth" is less because of that.
He's trying to make this a value thing without regard to the obvious practical impact if one lifts the hood. In terms of England, I think close to everyone in EPL from USMNT is a UK/EU passport player. Including the loan people. Steffen is the only exception I can think of, and the whole point is he is in another league where work permits aren't required. Most of the Championship players except the long tenured Cameron and Ream are there on a passport. Everyone in League One. That alone makes the passports matter. Players in France these days are dual national French. Players in Mexico are dual national Mexican. The whole B.1 veteran old guard is dual nationals, Reyna has an EU passport. Handful of young players there on their own steam -- Adams, Sargent, McKennie, Steffen. Basically the best kids in the NT program. In Holland, Dest and Payne are dual national Dutch. Wright is there on his own steam. Re value, few weeks back I did a MLS analysis where I showed Canada's Davies as an umblemished new prospect got about the same transfer fee as Weah who has had two bench stops so far. That alone suggests passports matter. I also feel that while snobbery has lessened where you no longer have to be a NT stud for them to even want you, and while our value has risen such that we aren't cheap fodder anymore, that Americans remain somewhat underappreciated and undervalued. The analysis I just did shows a ton of passport players getting in and only a few on their own steam. One could view that literally but could also view the passport as somehow a cleanser. For some reason Rossi, Ibisevic, Subotic, and others can pass through our club system and even the YNT and come out smelling like a rose but IMO they would be slightly more skeptical of an American on the same teams. I am sure some of this is the roster rules on non-EU. But as I argued a week or so ago, we are probably still a little underrated in terms of the non-EU signed by the weakest teams in these leagues. I think there's still some snobbery in there. I get the elite spend their few foreigner slots on the elite. I don't buy that explains why they sign who they do down in last place when they don't have to have a work permit.
Unfortunately, I don't follow the league closely enough anymore to be able to confidently say these days. My general impression is that it probably accurately captures the value of the players who came into the league already highly regarded, but I'm still skeptical that it captures the value of players who have developed wholly within the league and have shown the ability to move up a level. As an extreme example: Tyler Adams went from being (at €1 million) far outside the list of 100 most valuable MLS players according to Transfermarkt right before he transferred to Leipzig, to being worth €13 million in just half a season, which would have made him the most valuable player in the most recently completed MLS season at the time (€3 million above his closest competitors like Rooney and Almiron). I think I also agree with tomásbernal that you probably don't actually face too many players of Vela's quality in the Championship -- that is a player still around his prime who was top 5 in production in La Liga just 3 or 4 years before he transferred and who is still apparently attracting interest from Barcelona -- even if the English market values a number of Championship players similarly. In that same vein, I also don't believe that England has the most talented national team in the world, even if I trust that they do have easily the most valuable national team, as Transfermarkt claims.
i agree that it may be difficult to gauge rising players but that’s going to be the case for all minor leagues do not sure it changes the MLS/Championship comparison. I also fully agree that the championship has very few players of Vela level - the question was if there are any players at that level. I pointed out that transfermarkt has 6 and 14 players worth more than €10m for MLS and the Championship, respectively. @tomásbernal thinks those numbers are worthless - so I’ll guess he thinks that some combination of there being a much bigger list of MLS players who are worth more than €10m or that a lot of the 14 championship players aren’t actually worth that. I asked him to elaborate but he chose not to answer. It’s possible that he doesn’t disagree with the statement that the championship has top end talent akin to MLS and his whole point was an argument simply about the reliability of transfermarkt values. I’m not sure what the point of that would be in the context of this discussion but it’s possible.
Putting Transfermarkt aside, I think I generally agree with the notion I've seen you express before that MLS is somewhat comparable to the Championship, though not quite at that level. I think that the yoyo nature of the Championship-Premiership means that the top end quality in the Championship tends to be better than in MLS -- in that there are more players in the Championship that could hang in the Premier League. I also think that there are Championship teams that could survive in the Premier League without major roster changes, whereas I don't think that's ever been the case with MLS. Mostly where I disagree here is that I think MLS tends to sign a very small number of players that could not just hang in a top league but can probably still thrive near the top, and I think that's a pretty unique situation you're not going to find in any second division. Tomasbernal gave Vela as one example -- a 29 year old, four years removed from top 5 production numbers in La Liga and with continued interest from clubs of that level. Or Giovinco -- a 28 year old, who three years prior finished top 4 in production in Serie A. Or Ibrahimovic - who despite his age finished the calendar year just behind Messi as the 2nd highest goalscorer in a top European league a year prior to his move to LA. Those are players whose transfer values may have been hurt by some combination of age and recent career setbacks, but nonetheless those are players who still had elite qualities when they transferred if we're just talking about their play on the field.
We're not far off and I used to think exactly as you expressed in the third paragraph but am now doubtful that you can't find that in the Championship (note: I don't think it's fair to label it a second division as it's better than almost every other first division, perhaps including MLS - though I think they're in the same ballpark as you stated). Aleksandar Mitrovic is a very very good player and IMO is at least as good as Vela. We can look at how Rooney, Zlatan and Giovinco perform this year to get some color on MLS and their new leagues.
moved from Gio thread I agree with this but we have many posters who feel that getting first team minutes is a threshold for USMNT call-ups. this creates the perverse incentive to be modest in one's development and not push to train at elite academies. Why in the world would USMNT incentivize that? There are enough challenges already to our best prospects heading to the best academies - no need to add others.
What does Egg do if this Antonee Robinson $10 mil transfer to AC Milan goes through? He has pretty much ignored him so far, but how many players do we have who would go to a big-ish top 4 team for 8 figures? And by most accounts I've seen, he has excelled in the Championship this year. I realize he's a divisive player, and got roasted by a couple world class Brazilians (surprise!), but going from a lower level Championship team to a 10 mil Serie A transfer does mean something. Not sure Egg can keep ignoring him, if that's the case, and he gets a few minutes backing up their high end, starting LB.
It would be the 3rd to 5th most ever paid for an American player. Funny how it always goes back to that Brazil game. Nobody remembers any other games. Some of that is on Gregg, since he ignored him all year basically. So, that was one of the last times most Americans have seen him. But that was almost 18 months ago. He has probably played 5000+' minutes in the Championship since then. AC Milan are after him because he is a much better player now than then. By almost any measure, he is a top rated fullback in the EC. Dribbles per 90, Ball progressions per 90, Crosses per 90, Interceptions per 90. It wasn't that long ago, the Championship was an ugly, boozy, rough league. This would be when Gregg and Earnie were playing and up to maybe the last EPL TV deal. People in US Soccer were down on Yedlin for moving to the EC and Danny Williams. I think that bias and view persists. Meanwhile, the incredible money in the EPL has filtered down and probably raised the EC to one of the better leagues in Europe. If Serie A is the 4th or 5th best league, and the EC is the 6th to 8th, then it makes sense that a team like AC Milan would target an EC standout. What is funny, is that I routinely see Best 11s with Lovitz or even Vines or some other MLS replacement level player. Or Dest on the left (maybe, but he was roasted both times in a USMNT worse than Robinson versus Brazil). The TSS guys talk about maybe Arriola could play LWB or maybe Lovitz. He has been almost completely forgotten. This move would wake everyone up. Ironically, he probably won't play that much for AC Milan, at first at least.
To be fair, it wasn't only the Brazil game that ARobinson struggled. He was terrible in a friendly under Gregg.
Everyone was in that game. It was a 3-4-3 that looked unpracticed with probably our most horrid and soft midfield ever deployed (Trapp, Roldan, Djorde). I don't remember any defensive problems in that game from Robinson. It is usually defense that people bring up to exclude AR. One of the best games the USMNT has played since Couva was the win over Mexico in '18. Robinson changed the game when he subbed on and was an offensive force and had the winning assist. Robinson still, in only a half dozen or so caps, has 3 assists. Lovitz has zero. I don't think we had an open play assist from a LB in all of 2019.
I remember thinking that he was worse than Trapp in that game and that Wil was terrible. It was annoying when Trapp not only made the squad for the GC but was also named captain of the next game while Antonee was sent home.
He didnt struggle against Brazil. He took a poor angle on one play where an extremely fast wing was able to beat him to the touchline and get a cross off. Brazil targeted him for a good portion of the game and that was the only time they got past him. He recovered from the mistake quite well for a young player. If he were an MLS player, those fans would have been talking about how great he played and the goal was Miazgas for letting his man beat him to the ball. For some fans, there is a completely different and higher standard for foreign based players
I am not sure this really gets brought up a lot. I think if an MLS player plays really well against a good NT or has a run in a tournament its showered as a massive success, however on the flip side Pulisic is expected to do that, and when he doesn't its a bigger story. Nature of media hype I suppose, but its still interesting to kind of think on.
That guy just argues for what he wants without any facts. With minimal effort, I was able to find this guy who looks pretty good. He isnt exactly like Vela, but he has played some big clubs, is quick, fast, can beat beat off the dribble, and score goals. Of course there is a big Serbian who bangs in a ton of goals for Fulham that is valued much higher. Ollie Watkins looks like a different player but a challenge to defend. The question that MLS fans ask is positioned to play to the strengths of the league. Instead of just focusing on the top players so they can point to big name DPs, I think it is more prudent to look further down. I have listed below the top 25 "strikers" from the Championship as well as the 50th, 75th, and 100th. # Player Nat. Age Club Market value 1 Aleksandar Mitrovic Centre-Forward 25 $28.50m 2 Hélder Costa Right Winger 26 $13.68m 3 Ollie Watkins Centre-Forward 24 $13.68m 4 Josh Murphy Left Winger 24 $11.40m 5 Jarrod Bowen Right Winger 23 $11.40m 6 Steve Mounié Centre-Forward 25 $11.40m 7 Britt Assombalonga Centre-Forward 27 $11.40m 8 Ivan Cavaleiro Right Winger 26 $11.40m 9 Saïd Benrahma Right Winger 24 $9.12m 10 Benik Afobe Centre-Forward 26 $9.12m 11 Adama Diakhaby Left Winger 23 $9.12m 12 Tom Ince Right Winger 27 $9.12m 13Anthony Knockaert Right Winger 28 $9.12m 14 Matt Phillips Right Winger 28 $7.98m 15 Kenneth ZohoreCentre-Forward 25 $7.98m 16 Isaac Mbenza Right Winger 23 $7.98m 17 Matheus Pereira Right Winger 23 $7.98m 18 George Puscas Centre-Forward 23 $6.84m 19 André Ayew Left Winger 30 $6.84m 20 Patrick Bamford Centre-Forward 26 $6.84m 21 Joe Lolley Right Winger 27 $6.84m 22 Jack Clarke Right Winger 19 $6.84m 23 Famara Diédhiou Centre-Forward 27 $6.84m 24 Jordan Hugill Centre-Forward 27 $6.84m 25 Martyn Waghorn Centre-Forward 30 $5.70m 50 ............................................................ $3.99m 75 ............................................................ $2.28m 100 ........................................................... $1.43m Now let's compare those with the MLS players. There could easily be some inflation on the Championship players (I'd assume the big name players in MLS might have some too), but it sure looks like the attacking talent in MLS drops off much quicker. If you believe the numbers, there more than 50 Champioship attackers worth $4M and less than 25 from MLS and almost 100 Championship worth $1.5M comped to 50 from MLS. 1. $19.95m vs $28.50m 25 $3.42m vs $5.70m 50 $1.48m vs $3.99m 75 $969k vs $2.28m 100 $684k vs $1.43m