News: Tuesday, April 25 , 2017

I thought it was Galaxy and not LAFC who wanted Ibrahimovic?

 

SoccerCity selling the soccer
San Diego Tribune

 

Time for Beckham to switch allegiance?

 

It would make more sense for him to join Galaxy when he recovers rather than take a year long career break. Villa and Ibrahamovic would make quite the forward line if Pirlo decided to retire a little earlier than planned.

 

If you look at the Galaxy free-kick incident in slow motion, you'll also note the ball was moving, albeit slightly when the kick was taken.

 

Player Salaries just dropped.

https://www.mlsplayers.org/images/April 15, 2017 Salary Information - Alphabetical.pdf

 

Landon Donovan: 'The hope is that Swansea can become America's club'

ESPNFC article on Donovan being named an advisor.

(Posted because Swansea is owned by MLS (DC United) investor/operator Jason Levien and Donovan is a former MLS player)

 

This TAM and GAM stuff really bothers some people. This person calls it the single biggest thing keeping MLS from being the best league in the world. Not the lack of quality American players. Not the lack of fans willing to watch on TV. Not the lack of history and infrastructure. Not the 100 year head start in Europe and South America. It's just that the player acquisition process isn't fan-friendly (which, I agree, is an issue). Note that his issue isn't the amount MLS teams spend; it's the fact that the league puts restrictions on their distributions.

The article's solution: (drumroll) Get rid of TAM and GAM and, eventually, the salary cap and just let teams spend whatever they want on whomever they want. Seems so simple I'm surprised no one else has thought of it.

Clearly all the "weird" MLS salary rules are purely arbitrary and serve no purpose. Why would one owner-operator care if another one spent no money on his team and just raked in free money from the hard work of others? Why would one owner-operator care if another got into a bidding war with them and drove up salaries for average players? Why would one owner-operator care if the richest among them decided to throw hundreds of millions into creating an all-star team that dominated the league and eventually made all other teams in the league look amateur until the league itself crumbled? Isn't it normal for one business partner to have absolutely no oversight over what another one is doing?

And why is money the league has earned that gets distributed to teams to spend in ways that benefit the league as a whole derisively called "Garber Bucks" or Monopoly money but money from a bored oil tycoon that allows a team to leap to the front of the line is proper football?

 

Without almost all of the leagues training wheels, the league would have folded years ago. It sucks in the modern age of football but it will outgrow this phase soon enough. As they invest more and more into the academies and infrastructure, they'll start pealing back the layers of resistance and the league will start resembling global football. MLS' long term goals doesn't match our short term needs. Patience.

 

Sorry Landon, but not in my house! I will never forgive that Club or it's Supporters for the way they treated Bob Bradley. It was flat out anti-Americanism. I frankly hope they go down and stay down for awhile....

 

Which is why MLS officials are regularly requested to join conferences of the big European clubs when they meet os they can figure out how to run their leagues more like MLS? Because MLS is going to become more like them in the long-term and not the other way around?

 

Going for the US audience was part of why that hire happened in the first place, so it is at least partially understandable why they'd be pissed off, even if it wasn't always handled with the utmost dignity. Bradley also took the job for the wrong reasons (basically, because he'd spent so many years trying to maneuver himself into position to be the "first American to manage in a top league" that he was in no position to turn that down, even though it was a total poisoned chalice).

 

Somewhere in the middle. The real purpose of TAM is to have a league that is balanced but also attacking in nature.

The period when MLS had a pretty hard cap that it really enforced, and parity, was back in the mid 2000s, and it caused a really boring style of play. With TAM, everyone can have a franchise-type player or two without blowing the wallet, giving everyone a chance to compete, but in a way that it's pretty obvious that it's generally directed at the offensive side of the field.

European leagues would do that if they could, but the problem is it isn't the most efficient way to win games (only the most efficient way to keep fans engaged and sell tickets). And since they go head-to-head all the time, which ever league decided not to go that way would kill the ones that did, dollar-for-dollar.

MLS could spend that way right now, and there are teams that could really contend in the CCL that way. But it would mean that a) goal scoring would go down by half a goal a game or more, and/or b) Seattle, LA, Toronto and NYCFC would win every year. And CCL (unlike the UCL) is just not worth either of those things.

 

Not sure I agree. I think MLS genuinely wants beeter players because they want a better league-one that can win the CCL. TAM, I understand, helps to make sure that additional money is spent on new, higher-end talent, rather than giving everyone a raise.

 

So don't get me wrong, they do want better players and to win CCL. But if that was the number one goal, this isn't how you'd do it. Take TFC for example: if the rules allowed it, they could save $8 million on their top three players, put half of that back into players 6-12 on their roster, and compete better than they currently do. The problem is that this would a) rob them of their star power and most highlight reel-worthy guy, and b) the team that could compete better against Mexican teams could also more efficiently churn out 2-0 victories against other MLS teams, and the league doesn't want either of those things. It wants its star power and relative parity more than it wants a CCL win.