I'd like to see one these players to a top European League

Don't all those players need significant playing time with the national team in order to get to Europe's top leagues?

 

Lol no. You are massively overrating MLS. If you play for Celtic you’re in much better shape than MLS. You do realize Van Dijk, Demble both played at Celtic amongst many others. When has MLS had anyone remotely close to their talent levels.

 

Just as an FYI, if they are playing in Scandinavian leagues they aren’t top level talents.

 

Congratulations. SPL has one club that would be a step up for an MLS player. Not sure how that disproves my point since I was talking about entire leagues, not the exceptions.

 

And the gap Celtic has (and to a lesser extent Rangers) on MLS is closing fast.

 

Celtic's 2014 annual report reported their wage bill as $53 million but I'm not sure whether these were players wages or wages in general.

 

Except it isn’t. MLS has serious problems and they haven’t exactly been helping themselves lately or covering themselves in glory.

What’s going to happen when the proposed hijack of the Crew fails because there are no viabjevsyadium sites in Austin?

 

What does that have to do with the quality of play/players (which is what I meant about the gap closing quickly).

Hell right now Toronto vs. Rangers is a competitive matchup.

 

What are you referring to specifically as far as on-field performance? Just CONCACAF games? Otherwise it seems pretty clear that the league is getting stronger. Just follow the trend of team salary. While some teams get more bang for their buck, the trend of rising salary means higher quality. MLS's usefulness to developing USMNT is something else, and isn't necessarily rising (though the academies will do that, IMHO), since much of that money is going to other CONCACAF and CONMEBOL players. But to state that MLS isn't getting stronger doesn't make sense.

 

Here's a stat for everybody:

Atlanta United alone spent more money in the January transfer window than all of Serie A combined..........................

MLS is on the way up in terms of the world stage. We all know it has to get better in developing its own young American talent. However, the quality of player being brought into the league has improved dramatically over the last 5 years. And very few Euro retirement league players. MLS is bringing in the young, hungry South Americans that used to head straight to Europe. They're now looking to MLS as a stepping stone.

 

Getting some solid young, hungry African players will boost us as well.

 

So look at this line-ups:

GK: 27 year old that only played in League One
RB: 27 y/o that has 692 minutes in the Championship and 5900 minutes in League One.
CB: 36 y/o that played in Serie A last year.
CB: 19 y/o player in first top flight season.
LB: 22 y/o that has Premier League experience but was benched last year in the Championship.
CM: 25 y/o that has only played domestically.
CM: 24 y/o that has played domestically except for 17 games in League One.
LW: 28 y/o that played in the Championship put wasn't playing in the Premier League.
AM: 24 y/o that was signed from a League Two team.
RW: 29 y/o that was on Benfica's books but was loaned out each year to various teams.
ST: 21 y/o that scored 27 in 42 games in Finland.

That is basically Rangers top 11 right now. One of their main other strikers is 38 year old Kenny Miller (remember him from Vancouver?) and their backup a-mid is 33 year old Nico Kranjcar (so an NASL player). I'd argue that they are a team that is even on par with TFC at this point. Their forward might be a starter in MLS, but for reference, Luis Solignac scored 20 in 42 in Finland and he only managed 12 in 79 in MLS. Kenny Miller had 11 goals and 8 assists last year. In comparable minutes he had 13 and 4 in MLS (and that was 5 years ago).

The only argument will be that their domestic players are somehow better and I don't buy that. They are a team made up of players from League One, bench players from Championship sides, and older players that are likely past their best buy date by far. There are a couple younger players that might do something but nothing to write home about.

 

Damn. This kid should be going to a Eredivisie or Belgian league, not to another MLS club.

 

Alphonso Davies, Bayern Munich

 

To be fair, Atlanta United did buy some (maybe just one) of those young hungry south Americans from an European club right?

So for at least that player more of a recharge station before maybe trying again over a stepping stone.

ok, I looked for Almiron, Barco and Villalba it could be a stepping stone.


Edit: Regarding Serie A, the ourchase of Ronaldo probably covers more than what 99% of the leagues in the world pay for players during a transfer window.

 

Yup. You're quoting a post of mine from February, though.
So in fact, Atlanta United alone spent more in the winter transfer window than all of Serie A combined. True story. This transfer window is different. Although MLS clubs aren't shrinking violets in this transfer window.

I think the point I was making at the time is that many people seem to underestimate the spending power of MLS compared to the rest of the world.

 

When people say rest of the world they really mean top 5 Europeans leagues, like if nothing else existed.

The money being spent on Transfers by MLS and the Chinese Super League has taken some of the smaller European by surprise.

Some players that would go to Liga MX, Japan, Holland, Belgium now may have MLS on their radar also.

 

Craig Burley on ESPNFC suggested Martinez should stay in MLS. His logic was that he tried Europe, it didn't work out, stay in MLS scoring lots of goals playing against weaker defences, while making a decent salary and being a local hero.

 

Craig Burley is Alexi Lalas with an accent. Yes, I said it and I'll stand by it.

 

I wonder how Alexa copes with his accent.

{And by the way, chips and fries are different. Chips are fried potatoes whereas fries are chipped potatoes)

 

Id love to see what Kelyn Rowe could do in a mid to low table team in england. Clearly hes not really in Brad Friedel's plans and i think he has so much potential that he doesnt get to showcase in New England.

Id love to see Josef Martinez or Miguel Almiron move to a decent sized European team because i think they can definitely produce over there.

 

Craig Burley's advice to Martinez was that he should stay where he is. He's been to Europe, didn't do that well, he's on good money, scoring lots of goals and is adored by 70,000 fans.

 

What more should I expect from the people that invented a language that makes no sense in general.