I took a look at 2012 as well. The league finished at 53% US-eligible and 57% without the Canadian teams. So thus far at least, there's been a slight uptick.
Balerion - Very interesting to see the numbers you've put together. How much effort would it be to do a breakdown by position?
Interesting. But considering the starting lineups, I concerned if the status will be a bit more negative.
Here is a chart showing what leagues all the players for each team played for each of the last 5 Wold Cups (in Portuguese).
The devil is in the details. There are many arbitrary decisions to be made as far as defining players as DF, MF, or FW and even more if you break it down to a more granular level (FB, CB, CM, etc). Most of the battle would be decided how we want to handle positions and then assigning players to each category. At least GK would be simple...
It looks like the overall percentage of players from a domestic club went from: 1994 - 64.8% 1998 - 56.4% 2002 - 51.5% 2006 - 47% 2010 - 40.1%
Approx 55% is a good number. In a 19 team league on average 10 players are available per position with a variety of sub-positions(a-mid, c-mid, d-mid) to choose from. Allowing for some aging veterans and too young pups still provides a decent pool. Of course some positions are going to be below 10(like left back) but even so there should be a decent player to pick(Corey Ashe). And a position can be filled by someone who plays a different one at club level(Brad Evans). When the percentage drops to 30 genuine shortfalls can emerge at certain positions--like goalkeeper for England.
Yeah, I agree. I was thinking about something quick and dirty, such as pulling the position labels off of mlssoccer.
Steve McManaman (Real Madrid, before Beckham) Laurie Cunningham (Real Madrid) David Platt (Juventus, Sampdoria) Gary Lineker (Barcelona) Chris Waddle (Marseille) Kevin Keegan (Hamburg) Paul Ince (Inter Milan) Paul Gascoigne (Lazio) Glenn Hoddle (Monaco) Trevor Francis (Sampdoria) Despite their insular reputation, there's a pretty extensive history of English players overseas. It's just declined since the Premier League money machine was established.
McManaman was on Liverpool when he played in the WC for England, as was Ince. Gascoigne was on Spurs and Middlesborough when he played for Englad in the WC. Waddle was playing in France when he played in the WC, but I don't think Cunningham ever played in a WC, and some of the others were on English clubs when they played in the WC.
Ah, I didn't know there was that criteria involved. Still, plenty of Englishmen at major clubs abroad before Beckham and Hargreaves, especially in the post-Heysel years.
No criteria, I just thought we were talking about guys who were currently playing abroad when selected for their national team. It was big news when England selected someone not playing in England to be on the WC team.
Maybe, but you'll have the same pressures to win right away there and not all players who aren't in an international slot are going to be eligible for the US. 3 new teams against the 16 current US-based teams aren't going to move the needle that much, unless our homegrown talent starts to break through.
I remember Keegan as a kid playing for Hamburg (simply because of the PBS show Soccer Made in Germany) but something tells me he was no longer there during the 82 World Cup...and I don't recall having seen any England games from that WC....Vague memories of seeing Schumacher, Socrates, Platini... Littbarski....
Lets be honest here I don't think this is a huge problem in USA and MLS so far. We havent even really had U-21's good enough to play in MLS. And many of the ones who were good enough were in college. We're just starting to have that luxury.
Huh? MLS' current leading scorer is 20-year-old Jack McInerney, and one of its joint assist leaders is 21-year-old Kelyn Rowe. This is not a particularly new phenomenon, either. Donovan and Beasley were MLS standouts as teenagers, and more recently, Najar and Fagundez have been, too (based on the CIES definition, both count as American). Lately, however, it has become more common to wonder why players had to wait so long to be given a chance. By the time Agudelo, Okugo, and Shea broke in, they were more than ready.
I meant to say we havent had alot of U-21's good enough to play in MLS. This post kinda supports that idea. The ones that are good enough are playing, but there arent that many that are good enough.
Until a player gets some opportunities to play, it's tough to know whether he's good enough or not. And nowadays, there are quite a few young guys around the league who are barely getting an opportunity at all. As one example, for as terrible as Chicago's offense has been this year, shouldn't Victor Pineda have gotten some looks by now?
Well, it's hard to say without the full story. How's his nutrition? Will he turn into a quivering, whimpering mess if he's stripped of the ball by a fullback?