Last time I will ever comment on anything you say Adam....most who know better already ignore you....want to know why? Guys like you come along every few years. You know just what it will take, have all the answers, you get it and no one else does. {Mod note - Unnecessary.} Your post above, or something similar, has been written by kids for the last twenty years in some form or another. It's simplistic, you make recite your opinion as fact, and doesn't take many variables into account.... except the ones that fit your thought process. Fine....you will learn or eventually be ignored by all outside of the next set of kids like you. The point is....what you are saying isn't special, insightful, something that we haven't discussed or talked about dozens of times here, or anything we haven't seen or heard before over and over and over. Again, you post like Klinnsman coached. Here we are at A......I say you need to be at Z....I am smart! Most of us here on these boards get that there is real work that is needed to get from A to Z. It has to be done. It can't be skipped. Your posts in general skip and ignores so much, and it s clear you can't, or don't want to get it. Yet you are nauseatingly adamant.....like only you know or have thought about it, and if only someone will listen to me! It's not intelligent....it's tedious. Want to come here....show some depth and think. Stop being so damn simplistic. Otherwise stay in US Nats world where the fantasists and little kids reside. You actually seem perfect for a place like reddit.
I'm not that optimistic. Crowds would increase but we'll still have to deal with "MLS is crap.The only way Americans are going to get better is by playing in a top European league or playing in an open pro-rel system like England" and "Pulisic wouldn't be so good if he didn't play in an open pro-rel system".
Let's go a little easier on him. In the beginning we ALL had that view. Look at US Soccer's infamous 2010 project. I think MLS was also expectant at greater glories in the beginning. The big aha moment is when you see that the we're a late comer to a competition that has been around for about a hundred years and has hundreds of competitors. The amount of thought and work put in to development, tactics and infrastructure is immense. I don't care how many resources you have you can't become an instant WC contender. The turning point is when you start thinking that maybe MLS and USSF aren't the screwups that we think they are. Maybe they have been working their butts off for decades and the task is just hard!
i think you're reading way too much into my post, tbh. i realize that winning a world cup will not be easy...but even the most pragmatic of pragmatists, bruce arena, thinks it will be realistic for the usmnt in 2026....so it really isnt that far off..... after watching the confed cup where the us was less than 40 minutes away from a major tourney with undefeated spain, italy and brazil,involved...i'm more optimisitc than most regarding a us tourney win. look at portugal...euro winners...who couldnt even get out of the usmnt group in brazil 2014....i personally think that is everything went perfectly...the usmnt could win in russia....low odds but not impossible. but the point of my post....and maybe i didnt express it well.....is that i think MLS has gotten away from caring about and aligning itself with USMNT success....and that it serves the interests of MLS to actually make the USMNT a top priority again....or, if MLS does still care about USMNT success.,....their strategic moves as a league are not helping that transpire in the most ideal way possible. (personal opinion alert***unfortunately i think MLS is so blinded by dollar signs and the bottom line that whatver they do -even if they intend to help the usmnt - will not be as beneficial as possible....because their judgment will be clouded and misdirected by a profit motive...whereas in other countries development comes before profit because those countries know development leads to more profits and better teams anyway) i've watched MLS since it began...im not new to this. i've followed the league since the aftermath of the 94 world cup...dont try to belittle me and attack me personally because you think you know better than i do....it's BS. i think you are --- and other weirdos like you who attack me on this site - are mad because there is truth in waht i say and it doesnt fit your narrative...and it makes you uncomfortable....you prefer the comfort of your little buble where no one can disagree with you or express a different perspective than you - (which is a weird attitude for someone on a messge board to have considering it is a place to share opinions).
I'm sure they do. But do they all have private jets large enough to carry 23 players, coaching staff, trainers, media relations staff and all of the luggage and equipment that goes with it? Not a lot of private jets have that sort of capacity.
This is wrong. If the US wins the World Cup and most of our starters are playing in Europe, that's not going to help MLS. The day the US sports market takes MLS seriously is when the rosters of Italy, Germany, Spain, Argentina, Brazil, etc, are all pulling players from MLS. When MLS is competing with those leagues for the best players, that's when Eurosnobs will pay attention. No soooner, no later.
No. People "attack" you because you literally have no idea what you are talking about. You might be one of the most uninformed individuals on this site and are also completely detached from reality. You are obviously a passionate fan. That is awesome. But your opinions come off as someone who took an Earth Sciences class in 7th grade and then go to the Paris Accord meetings shouting at climate scientists that the obvious way to stop climate change is to attach garbage bags to cow's asses to catch their farts.
what % of the 300+ million people in the us follow MLS? what % follow soccer? you think a usa world cup win (or even run to the finals) - regardless of how many starters would be based in europe or usa - won't shake those numbers up?? i disagree. i think the general reaction - on a mainstream level - in the usa of a deep usa world cup run (or title) would be...wow the usa is actually good at soccer now ...MLS must be legit. and there would be a corresponding huge explosion of domestic interest in MLS.
okay....all the "experts" who know what they are doing....and are guiding us soccer to the promised land....and cant even beat Mexico once in CCL....you know the same mexico who cant beat decent chinese and african teams in CWC.... if the mainstream/majority of MLS followers disagree with me...then i hardly think that proves i dont know what im talking about.....mainstream soccer culture in the USA doesnt have a lot to hang its hat on.
My $0.02: I'm really not convinced winning the WC would give MLS a boost that's much bigger than what they already get just from being in the WC every four years. Just anecdotal, but the majority of 'non-soccer fans' that I know who watch any soccer at all, watch the WC that summer - and then it's back to college or professional football that fall. They just have no real interest in following a league.
You Are Wrong. Evidence has borne this out. The US has made it out of the group stages the last two cycles. Three of the last four. There best run ever, in 2002, was with a MLS heavy roster. The popularity of the World Cup and the USMNT have definitely grown over the last decade and a half. Massive crowds showed up to watch parties. It was all over social media. MLS saw marginal increases at best as a result. The reason why? Fans aren't stupid. They aren't going to say, "The US is good, so that must mean that MLS is awesome too." They are sophisticated enough to know that the best players in the World Cup play in La Liga, the Bundesliga, Serie A, EPL and Ligue 1. And those are the leagues that these fans tune into. That is just a fact. It isn't an opinion (unlike everything that you post). It is a cold hard fact. And until those players are plying their trade in MLS, Eurosnobs simply won't tune into MLS. YOU ARE WRONG. There is enough evidence to support the FACT that YOU ARE WRONG. Get over it.
The only time I watch NCAA basketball is if one of my local state universities are playing (this means NOT BYU!) during the March Madness. I'll watch big NCAA football games of local interest too. I follow NFL and NCAA bowl games a bit just to be culturally aware. Winning it will help, but not that much and not immediately.
My God you are so detached from reality I actually feel sorry for you. Chivas was founded 111 years ago. Club America 100 years ago. Liga MX has existed in some form since 1902. I'll do the math for you. That is 115 years. Soccer is far an away the most popular sport in Mexico. The money and media attention in Mexico for soccer vastly outweighs what is currently available in the US. Soccer is, at best, the 7th most popular team sport in the US. That is reality. Yet despite these obstacles, in the last 10 years the gap between Liga MX and MLS has closed tremendously. You want MLS to jump from A to Z ignoring the fact that there are 24 other f*cking letters between them. It takes work. You can't just throw a sh*t ton of money at a problem and expect to get the results you want to see. Not if you actually want there to be an MLS that exists. YOU ARE WRONG.
He's been posting this crap between here and MLS: Commish for like 2 years. How much longer should he get? His last thread in MLS; Commish suggested that thee should be a minimum playing time on MLS contracts and if he player didn't reach the minimum playing time they would automatically become a free agent at the end of the year. all with the idea of getting young players to the teams they'll be valued on and not stuck on a bench somewhere.
It's amazing how much you can learn reading these threads! I like the "tie a garbage bag to a cow's ass" theory to stop climate change, that's definitely a Nobel Prize winner! I didn't know that the Mexican National Team couldn't beat some Chinese club. I didn't know they even played. I didn't know Bruce Arena had such a strong opinion. Usually he's just a wallflower, too shy to speak up. Or maybe you got him confused with the other Bruce Arena, Bruce Hussein Arena. That guy was the one who musta said we could win the WC in 2026. I can't imagine the pompus ass who coaches the National Team to ever utter something as pollyanish as that, unless he was just messing wif you. By the way, some of the greatest teams of their generation have never won a World Cup. Teams that were widely considered the best on the planet, like Hungary of the mid-50s, Holland of the 70s, France in the 80s, and Engerland at any time in human history. If the US ever does win, it will take not only some extraordinarily talented players, strategy, and using the right tactics, but a hell of a lot of luck.
well why is women's soccer more popular than USMNT? it's cuz a lot of american sports fans are bandwagon, fair-weather types that only follow "winners"....it's not because the quality of play is higher in women's soccer....the women's world cup is like watching a pingpong ball rapidly slam back and forth for 90 minutes....but somehow there are more fans of the womens team than mens. my anecdotal evidence is i come across a lot of people who rag on MLS and USMNT and think it is inferior...and they are the types that go to menaingless allstar games with 70,000 for real madrid or preseason ICC summer matches played at half speed that are sold out in the USA in the summer..... my opinion is that a lot of soccer fans watch how the usmnt plays passively and loses against the big teams and form their opinions off of that. and the fans i know wouldnt be able to be so dismissive of us soccer, mls and usmnt if the us were to actually win a significant trophy.their whole argument for hating would disintegrate in thin air. i think it is actually a big portion of the overall soccer fans in the us that think this way. either way, only way to be sure is for it to happen and see what happens next.....
i'm wrong about what exactly? .....that MLS has moved away from prioritizing support of the USMNT? and that the way MLS has shifted in its operations has perhaps become less supportive of USMNT over the years?? and that it would actually financially benefit MLS to be more supportive of USMNT than it currently is? is that really that controversial???? cuz thats really the crux of what ive said here....... just because MLS has made an effort to bring back all the USMNT players it can to MLS doesnt actually mean that is beneficial to the USMNT, fwiw..... the usmnt has won the last couple of wcq tourneys in the region...the talent is there in the us pool for MLS to beat a liga MX team out for a tourney title here and there....i dont see why MLS cant compete with Liga MX teams...and win a CCL tourney by now.....it shows that perhaps there is something systemic inside of MLS and US soccer culture that is the problem...beyond money....b/c its not talent. and MLS is like 6th or 7th highest attended soccer league in the world so im not buying the argument that it isnt popular enough in the US to be better.....i think MLS fans are being shortshrifted vs how much they actually support MLS vs what is being invested into their league as far as salaries go. what other league in the world has a sponsor (adidas) that pays enough annually to cover the entire wage bill of the league in sponsorship money????????? NONE.
second round is not going to move the needle...gettin gout of the group is not significant to fans of teams like brazil germany italy etc.....so why should it be to potential us fans?? im talking about a DEEP RUN...a final or title.....that hasnt happened yet....so until it does you are just blowing warm air out of your..........
I'm not doubting you but what are the top 6? I think hosting the World Cup and the US doing reasonably well will result in more people wanting to go to a live game, no matter what the standard. I'd say interest in Women's soccer has increased since the 2015 World Cup (same time zone), the 25 million TV audience being better marketing in itself than you could ever pay for. There was a schism when JK was involved, both among administrators and supporters but I think Arena has closed that gap and given MLS the respect it desires domestically. Attendances at domestic friendlies have more than doubled since Klinsmann left, even when European based players have not been available. Both Eurosnobs and pro/rel evangelists represent a tiny but noisy percentage of US soccer fans. I doubt MLS will ever get anywhere near the top 4 leagues but most leagues are selling leagues, including France (except PSG and Monaco), Holland, Brazil and Argentina but they still prosper. And I don't see any reason MLS can't be as good as Brazil and Argentinian leagues by 2026.
This is my last reply to you, and then you make my very, very. very, very short ignore list. Why do you think the EPL gets the ratings it does in the US? It sure as shit isn't because England is winning World Cups, Euro Championships and Confed Cup titles hand over fist. Brazil wins all of those trophies on a regular basis, yet I would bet that if you walked up to someone who categorizes themselves as an avid soccer fan, they couldn't name 5 teams currently in the Brazilian Serie A. Why is that? If the US wins a World Cup and their top striker plays in Germany, their play maker in the middle is playing in Spain, their top CB pairing is playing in England and their GK is starting in France, guess what? NOBODY is going to jump to the conclusion that that means MLS must be a top notch league. NOBODY is that stupid. If, one day, the US has the talent where we are a legit World Cup winning threat, and those players by and large play in MLS, then soccer fans in this country are sophisticated enough to know that and follow the league. Your entire argument can be summed up like this. Christian Pulisic is doing great things at Borussia Dortmund, so that means MLS is worth watching. There is literally zero connection between the two, but you are insisting that there is. That is why people attack you. It is because your opinions are naive, uninformed, simplistic and childish.